Carl Browning was on the destroyer ship the USS Phelps on Dec. 7, 1941, in Pearl Harbor.

“We was out sweeping and swabbing the deck, normal routine. And we heard aircraft and we was wondering if there was a mock air raid or what they was doing on Sunday morning,” he said. “That big plane made a left bank and we seen him drop his torpedo and he made another bank and we’d seen a big red dot on the plane. And that torpedo was for the (USS battleship) Utah. He’s the one that sunk the Utah.”

In less than 10 minutes, the Utah, a 21,825 ton, 521-foot long ship that had been in service for 30 years, had flipped entirely over. 58 men died aboard it, some drowning as it turned from a warship to a tomb. It still rests in the mud of the harbor.

Dec. 7, 1941, would be immortalized by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as “a day that will live in infamy.”

When the USS Arizona went down with 1,177 men aboard, the Phelps was unable to move. Two of the four boilers used to propel the ship weren’t even usable – they were open to the world and had to be sealed as Japanese planes roared overhead.

Weapons couldn’t be fired because the guns had been disassembled.

But they were slammed back together and began to fire at the planes overhead and freeing themselves from the ship repairing them.

The Phelps worked its way out of the harbor in almost two hours, slipping free of the death and mayhem that had come to an idyllic, tropical paradise.

Browning said they spent the rest of the day racing around the island,

“They said there were landings here or landings there, a sub there,” as they sprinted around, Browning said.

They eventually made their way back into the harbor for resupply.

He could only express a feeling of shock.

He said it would not be believable.

“We wasn’t quite sure what was really happening until we get visions of what was going on,” he said. “Then we looked over and could see the smoke coming from the battleships.”

After their return to harbor, they turned around and formed up into an attack group.

“There was word we’d try to catch the enemy, but they was too far away,” he said.

The Japanese attack force was less than 300 miles from the island when they launched the attack, and quickly turned towards home after their attack.

2,117 American men died. Some drowned, others suffocated in capsized ships, some burned to death in the oil-covered sea.

Preparation for war

America got into the war, which Browning thinks may have been expected by the American commanders.

He said they were on fleet maneuvers, in which Navy ships and crews practice for war, a few days before the attack.

Times were tense between Japan and America at that time. All signs pointed towards a developing war.

So the Navy took unusually aggressive action.

During training, when the Phelps made contact with a submarine, it armed its depth charges in preparation for an attack run on the submarine. If those charges had gone off the racks, they may have sent that boat to the bottom and launched the war right then.

The destroyer fired 10 torpedoes in training, an unusually large number.

Perhaps most damning, in Browning’s mind, was the fact that extra anti-aircraft ammunition was stacked above the magazines, an action normally only taken if combat is expected. They also were shown silhouettes of Japanese planes to aid in telling what planes were enemies.

These actions speak more of a preparation for immediate combat than a routine practice.

Browning put it bluntly.

“They musta knew it was coming,” he said.

His reasoning was simple.

“We wanted to get in war with Germany, and we needed a disaster like (Pearl Harbor) to get the American people to fight,” he said. “If we hadn’t helped England out, we probably, maybe, lost the war.”

He joined the Navy on Oct. 8, 1939, while the war clouds were distant for many Americans. Secure in the policy of isolationism, they did not expect they would have to become involved in a European war.

He also wanted to choose his service. He expected that if England went to war, the United States would soon follow. Then he expected a draft.

Browning was right. There was a draft, and many men did not get to choose their service. His brother was one. He joined the Army as one of the elite Rangers.

Browning chose the Navy since the food was better and they wouldn’t have to sleep in foxholes and be cold.

“We thought the Navy always had warm beds and good food,” he said. “Well, that didn’t work out always, either.”

Afterwards

“It was devastating. You just couldn’t believe. There was eight of our battleships sunk, the Oklahoma, the Utah.” Browning said.

After a pause, he continued.

“You really couldn’t believe we’d suffered that many casualties,” he said. “Then you see the oil and the burning and stuff. You just couldn’t believe it.”

Helen Kibler, whose husband survived the attack, was 17 years old when it happened.

She also described the attack as “unbelievable.”

She said it was just as bad as Sept. 11 in how much it shocked the nation.

Browning maintains a corner in his den of mementoes from his time in the Navy. A large painting of a destroyer decorates the wall, framed with pictures of the ships on which he served.

Two photos are of his time as a young man. He was not quite twenty when he saw airplanes tear into the ships at Pearl Harbor.

He has only gone to one ceremony in Pearl Harbor itself, the 25th anniversary in 1966.

He said it was a lot different, in part because the memorial was there. They went to the Punchbowl cemetery, which is in a caldera that overlooks the harbor and has been devoted to military funerals.

“It was sad to see all the reminders. Some of the stuff had been done away with, old memories.” he said, with his voice trailing off.

He doesn’t watch movies like “Pearl Harbor” or “Tora! Tora! Tora!”

He says it reminds him too much of the guys he lost.

He had friends on other vessels there, and some of them did not survive.

The crew of his first ship had been broken up and distributed throughout the fleet, some on ships that went down.

“I lost some buddies out there,” was all he would say about it.

Those that remain

Browning is one of a rapidly diminishing number of survivors.

His wife, Pauline, said that they used to have a Pearl Harbor Survivors Association that would meet every year.

But the group is largely non-functional now. Not because of lack of effort – simply because the veterans are leaving forever, one way or another.

Some are dying. Men who were 19, like Browning, are in their 80s now. Some are in the final stages of cancer or emphysema.

Some, like Lafayette Kibler, are in nursing homes now, largely gone from mental and physical diseases.

Once an active man who spent his civilian life driving trucks for Medigold Dairy, Kibler is now left in his wheelchair and room, trapped by his body.

His eyes still glimmer with life, but the man behind them has largely left, memories locked away.

He was on the battleship USS California when she went down, taking 98 crewmen with her.

Now his wife and daughter visit him at the Mattoon Medical Care Center,

Pauline Browning said.

“We want people to remember this happened,” she said. “As (veterans) die, I think it will be forgotten.”