WESTFIELD (WWLP) – Every year on December 7 Americans observe Pearl Harbor day, but few Americans actually remember that day. Even fewer were there to live it.
December 7 1941, was the day Pearl Harbor was bombed. Robert Greenleaf of Westfield remembers it like it was yesterday.
“I was a student at the Pacific Fleet Machine Gun School operated by the Marine Corps for the Navy. We were on the beach and behind us on both sides were trees, so we could hear what was going on in Pearl Harbor, but the tree’s kept us from seeing it,” said Greenleaf.
Greenleaf said it was the sounds from that day that have stuck with him all these years.
“One of them was the Arizona blowing up and the other was the U.S.S. Shaw which was at dry dock with all its ammunition aboard. It got hit and the forward part of the ship just vaporized,” said Greenleaf. “Those sound were a lot different from regular bomb sounds.”
Greenleaf wishes schools would teach more about World War II. He thinks more wars could be prevented if people new exactly how many lives were lost back then.
Greenleaf, 93, said young Americans need to be aware the Japanese were as successful as they were because the U.S. was not alert. He hopes if Americans learn to be alert, history won’t repeat itself.
He said there was one good thing to come out of the attack. “When the Japs attacked Pearl Harbor there was no more division,” he said. “There was on December the 6th but on December the 7th, and after, everybody worked together for a common cause.”
Greenleaf is the only Pearl Harbor survivor still alive in Westfield.
