Memories
of Pearl Harbor
Memories
of Pearl Harbor Day - Dec 07, 1941
Written Dec. 07, 1997
My
name is Melvin Sepulvado. I am a native of Louisiana
having been born in Zwoiie, Louisiana, Sabine
Parish. I was raised in Natchitoches Paris and
finished high school in Marthaville, Louisiana.
This is my eye witness and survivor account
of the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 07,
1941, by the Japanese Navy.
After
finishing high school in 1939, I enrolled in
a trade school in Natchitoches, Louisiana, studying
to be an electrician. It was a two-year course.
I attended this school for fourteen months.
I became discouraged since I had no money, nor
did my parents, so I quit the trade school and
took a job with a local electrical company.
I worked as a helper at $.25 an hour, and I
had to pay one dollar a day for room and board.
This might be hard to believe, but this was
in 1941 before the war started, and jobs were
hard to come by.
I
became discouraged again, so I applied for a
Civil Service jog as an electrician's helper.
Within three week, I received a telegram from
New Orleans, Louisiana, informing me that they
could place me on a job in Hawaii, at Pearl
Harbor Navy Yard as a shipfitter's helper at
$.75 an hour. I had never heard of Pearl Harbor,
nor had many other people, at this time, in
1941 before the war started. I was ecstatic
since this was three times what I was making
as an electrician's helper. I did not know what
a shipfitter was. I had not even seen a ship.
I had never been out of the state of Louisiana,
and I had never ridden a train, the principle
mode of transportation at the time. In all of
my enthusiasm I rushed to respond to the job
offer. I sent them a telegram, advising them
that I would accept the job. I was then 20 years
old. Within three hours I received travel orders
and a train ticket about a foot long, to San
Francisco, California. I boarded the train in
Natchitoches and began my journey to the West
Coast where I was supposed to board a troop
ship for the voyage to Hawaii. I was terrified
that I would get lost or get on the wrong train,
since there were transfers and stopovers along
the way.
When we got to Fort Worth, Texas, we had a stopover,
and I met a boy from South Carolina. He was
also going to Pearl Harbor to work and was an
experienced traveler. We stayed together, became
good friends, and I felt so relieved that I
was not going to get lost.
I
arrived in Hawaii in August, 1941, and started
working at Pearl Harbor. I was just overcome
with the beauty of the island; everything was
so peaceful and the climate was really nice.
This was the most beautiful place I had ever
seen.
The
Navy had a welding school in the Navy yard and
I became fascinated with the welding trade,
so I enrolled in the school and became a welder,
a trade that followed until I retired in 1982
from Dow Chemical Company in Freeport, Texas.
I was working six days a week at first, so on
the Sunday morning of December 07, 1941, at
7:55, I was in my bunk asleep when I heard the
zooming of airplanes overhead, and deafening
sounds from explosions and concussions. I rolled
out of my bunk and walked to the door at the
end of my barracks. I opened the door and looked
up and there was a Japanese Zero fighter plane
about 100 feet flying overhead, firing its two
guns - one in the nose of the plane and one
in the tail. At this time it was strafing the
planes, which were on the ground at Hickam Field,
just a short distance from my barracks. Well,
we knew at this time that we were under attack
by the Japanese.
Very
shortly, Martial Law was declared, and all the
men in our reservation were ordered to go down
into the Navy Yard where the Japanese were bombing
and torpedoing or warships. We were ordered
to take shelter in our respective shops while
the air raid was in progress. We tried to get
the military to give us some army rifles, so
we could defend ourselves and w could probably
have shot at an d killed some of those Japanese
pilots, since they were flying so low, but they
would not let us have any. I never have understood
why they ordered us right into the line of fire,
without any way to defend ourselves. We all
would have been killed instantly if the Japs
had hit our shop with a bomb.
The
Japanese were attacking with dive-bombers, fighter
planes, horizontal bombers, and torpedo planes.
The fighter planes were used to strafe our planes
on the ground where most of our planes were
that Sunday morning. The horizontal bombers
and torpedo planes were used to damage and sink
the large warships.
Within
less than three hours, 130 ships had been heavily
damaged or sunk. The smoking ships that were
hit started burning, since they had a lot of
oil in their huge tanks. The smoke was so black
and dense that I just covered the whole area
of the Navy Yard, and it looked like twilight.
It was such an eerie sight. There was so much
confusion; no one seemed to know what to do.
There were so many injured military personnel,
who were being transported to the hospitals,
that they did not have enough ambulances, so
they just used any kind of vehicle that was
available.
After
the raid was over, we were ordered out to the
repair basins to start repairing the damaged
ships. We had to start working twelve and fourteen
hours a day, seven days a week, for about three
years. After the raid we could only work, eat,
and sleep. We could not go anywhere since Martial
Law was in effect, and there was a total blackout
for several months. Martial Law continued for
three years.
As
soon as the war started, our supervisors advised
us that they would rather we would keep working
to help repair the damaged ships, and the ones
which were sunk and raised. They told us if
we would agree to do that, they would give us
a deferral from Military Duty, so this is what
I did. (More about this later).
I
worked at Pearl Harbor during the entire war
(forty-seven months, to be exact) helping to
repair the ships which were damaged or sunk
during the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December
07, 1941. Also, we had to repair a lot of the
ships which were damaged during the Pacific
Naval battles with the Japanese, taking back
all the islands the Japs had taken during the
war: Guadalcanal, the Philippines, Wake Island,
Guam, Okinawa, and others.
In
November 1945, after the war ended, I was reclassified
1-A and recommended for military duty, while
still there in Pearl Harbor, working for the
Navy. I was ready to perform my duty in the
military, but it was obvious to me hat the Navy
had kept me there working at Pearl Harbor for
four years, and they did not need me anymore,
so they turned me over to the army. My contention
then, and still is, that I would have much rather
gone into the military service while the war
was going on.
I
entered the army, there in Hawaii, in November
1945, and took my basic training at Schofield
Barracks. After finishing my basic training,
I was shipped to New Caledonia for occupation
duty there. I served a year, then was shipped
back to Californian where I was honorably discharged
at Camp Peal in January, 1947.
Before
leaving Pearl Harbor, I was awarded a "Certificate
of Honorable Service" from the Navy for
my part in helping to win the war. I am very
proud of this award, as I worked very had over
there and under some of the most horrible working
conditions you could imagine, working on and
repairing the ships, which had been sunk and
were raised, and on all of the ships which were
damaged during all the Naval battles the Navy
had with the Japanese throughout the war.
Your
Grandfather,
Melvin Sepulvado (signature)
Footnote:
Melvin's grandson, Ryan Roye is the son of Mack
L. Roye's nephew and serves in the USMC reserves
while attending the University of North Texas.
He will graduate from UNT in the spring of 2005.
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