Pearl Harbor memories remain vivid to veterans Brookdale event looks back at Japanese attack 65 years later BY KAREN E. BOWES Staff Writer MIDDLETOWN - Will you remember Pearl Harbor? Dec. 7, 1941, "The day that will live in infamy," is steadily being forgotten it seems, remembered only by those old enough to recall the devastating attack. Survivors, of course, remember every detail. On Friday night, in honor of the 65th anniversary of the invasion of Pearl Harbor, two survivors of the deadly Japanese surprise attack gave testimony to their experience aboard the USS Curtiss, a sea plane tender, during the attack. The event, held at Collins Arena at Brookdale Community College, was sponsored by the school's Center for WWII Studies. "The Curtiss was the only ship to be struck by a plane during the attack," said Pearl Harbor survivor Ralph Jeffers. "The danger was so severe it was thought that the ship was to be abandoned." But the crew refused to abandon the ship, staying put and eventually saving it from sinking. Thomas Mahoney spoke plainly about his experience aboard the Curtiss during the Japanese invasion. "I was born in 1921," Mahoney said. "I joined the Navy in 1940. We were what you called Depression babies. We had no food. No money coming in. The only way out was to join the service. That $25 a month was a Godsend." On that historic Sunday morning, Mahoney said he ate breakfast with his friends, then left the group to dress in his uniform whites before going to Sunday Mass. It was during this time that he heard the first explosion. He raced up to the ship's deck to see what had happened. "About 50 feet away from me, a plane on its side was leveling off," Mahoney said. After recognizing "the big red balls" on either side of the plane, Mahoney reacted. "I said to myself, Jesus Christ, that's Japanese." His ship was soon under attack and in flames. "We were being machine-gunned at that time but nothing really big was happening," Mahoney said. "At around 9 there was a lull. We all thought, thank God it's over. It wasn't over." Mahoney had been trained in firefighter school only six months before, trained to put out fires "with this new thing called foam." But the foam had not arrived yet. "All we had was saltwater," Mahoney said. "We had approximately 12 hoses. All this time we were being machine-gunned. Some were falling. Some dying. But we kept fighting. When you were our age, you have no fear. Fear comes later. "The ship began to take on a shift, approximately 30 degrees," Mahoney said. "Another 10 degrees, we would have gone over. "We're slipping and sliding and over the loud speaker they announce stand by to abandon ship. We never listened to that command. We kept fighting that fire. The Japanese left after two hours. We continued to fight that fire for eight hours." At the end of the day, Mahoney said the sunset was round and red, like one of the balls on the side of a Japanese fighter plane. PHOTOSBYKAREN BOWES Above: Kevin Olson, Pemberton, Dave DiLapo, Trenton, and Chris Lepore, Wall, members of the 102nd Cavalry Group WWII Re-enactors Association, attended the Pearl Harbor Day ceremony at Brookdale Community College on Friday evening. At left: Ed Turrall, Hazlet, a WWII veteran who fought at the Battle of the Bulge, listens to a speech. Below: A Baltimore newspaper, dated Dec. 8, 1941, announcing the attack on Pearl Harbor, was among the WWII memorabilia on display. Bottom: Bob Paddack's Nostalgia Band, with Bob Paddack conducting, sang the national anthem and "I'm Proud to Be an American." "It was pure red," Mahoney said. "I said a couple of curse words and said, 'You will pay for this' over and over again." He soon learned that he had lost one of his best friends, a man he had breakfast with that morning. "We put him in a sack, gave him a beautiful funeral and threw him overboard," Mahoney said of his friend. Both veterans received standing ovations for their remarks. Freeholder Ted Narozanick, a WWII veteran who fought at the Battle of the Bulge and the invasion at Normandy Beach, France, also spoke about the significance of Pearl Harbor. "World War II and the American generation that fought and won it have much to teach us," Narozanick said. "Today's generation, particularly in light of the terrorist attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, has much to learn about military preparedness, economic mobilization, coalition warfare and the forces that unite a nation behind a common purpose. By remembering Pearl Harbor, let the education process begin."