Pearl Harbor day today

[Bob Hudson]

We drove to from Oceanside to San Diego today to attend church and afterward went to two estate sales that were wrapping up today.

 

At one I picked some 20-year-old newsletters from WWII veteran's associations including the Peart Harbor Survivor's Association publication "Pearl Harbor Gram."

 

Later we went to lunch and I picked up the stack of newsletters so I could page through them as we waited for lunch (my to my wife's chagrin, I love to read at the table).

 

As we walked across the parking lot I saw two elderly couples get out of cars parked next to each other. Each car had the special California license plates that say "Pearl Harbor Survivor" and each of the old gents was wearing the white pants, Aloha shirt and PHSA garrison caps - the "uniform" of the Association.

 

I of course walked right up to them and showed them what was in my hand: the PHSA newsletter. They had just come from a PHSA meeting so it must have at first made them really wonder how this guy suddenly showed up with the Pearl Harbor Gram in hand?

 

One of them had been a sailor, the other a Marine and both had been in aviation, as mechanics.

 

Glenn W Cummings joined the Navy in March. 1939 and on Dec. 7, 1941 was a 2nd Class mechanic with VP-14 and spent the war flying around in PBY's, among other things.

 

I thought I learned the other gentleman's name, but in checking rosters I think I heard it wrong. But I do know he was a mechanic working on the Grumman J2F Duck for Marine squadron VMJ-252 at Ewa, a Marine Corps Air Station adjacent to the old Barber's Point Naval Air Station. He had also enlisted in 1939.

 

My wife and I often offer to buy lunch or dinner for young Marine families we see in Oceanside restaurants and offered to do the same for these two Pearl Harbor vets, who accepted but cautioned that it could cost us a lot. This one was one those places that has been around since the 1930's and is famous for very inexpensive all-inclusive meals. The tab for those two and their wives was $28.61. I told them they were cheap dates compared to the young Marine families.

 

I wished we could have had a lot more time to chat with them, but we mostly let them enjoy their meal in peace and chatted before and after the meal. I figure they each have to be perhaps 87-years-old and that really made me think about how few Pearl Harbors survivors there must be now. My son is 10-years-old and is lucky to have heard a least a little bit of history straight from someone who was there. After we got home, we turned on the History Channel and there, talking about Dec. 7, 1941, was a gentleman wearing the PHSA cap, Aloha shirt and white pants. My son had already been quite impressed with the coincidence of meeting the two survivors right after we found those newsletters (he was actually the one who found them at the estate sale) and could not help but comment on the further coincidence of seeing the PHSA member on TV the same day.

 

When he becomes my age, Pearl Harbor will have happened 117 years before, but he'll be able to say he meant someone who was there. To put that into perspective, that would like me having meant someone who had served in the military before the Spanish American War.

[APO472]

We drove to from Oceanside to San Diego today to attend church and afterward went to two estate sales that were wrapping up today.

 

At one I picked some 20-year-old newsletters from WWII veteran's associations including the Peart Harbor Survivor's Association publication "Pearl Harbor Gram."

 

Later we went to lunch and I picked up the stack of newsletters so I could page through them as we waited for lunch (my to my wife's chagrin, I love to read at the table).

 

As we walked across the parking lot I saw two elderly couples get out of cars parked next to each other. Each car had the special California license plates that say "Pearl Harbor Survivor" and each of the old gents was wearing the white pants, Aloha shirt and PHSA garrison caps - the "uniform" of the Association.

 

I of course walked right up to them and showed them what was in my hand: the PHSA newsletter. They had just come from a PHSA meeting so it must have at first made them really wonder how this guy suddenly showed up with the Pearl Harbor Gram in hand?

 

One of them had been a sailor, the other a Marine and both had been in aviation, as mechanics.

 

Glenn W Cummings joined the Navy in March. 1939 and on Dec. 7, 1941 was a 2nd Class mechanic with VP-14 and spent the war flying around in PBY's, among other things.

 

I thought I learned the other gentleman's name, but in checking rosters I think I heard it wrong. But I do know he was a mechanic working on the Grumman J2F Duck for Marine squadron VMJ-252 at Ewa, a Marine Corps Air Station adjacent to the old Barber's Point Naval Air Station. He had also enlisted in 1939.

 

My wife and I often offer to buy lunch or dinner for young Marine families we see in Oceanside restaurants and offered to do the same for these two Pearl Harbor vets, who accepted but cautioned that it could cost us a lot. This one was one those places that has been around since the 1930's and is famous for very inexpensive all-inclusive meals. The tab for those two and their wives was $28.61. I told them they were cheap dates compared to the young Marine families.

 

I wished we could have had a lot more time to chat with them, but we mostly let them enjoy their meal in peace and chatted before and after the meal. I figure they each have to be perhaps 87-years-old and that really made me think about how few Pearl Harbors survivors there must be now. My son is 10-years-old and is lucky to have heard a least a little bit of history straight from someone who was there. After we got home, we turned on the History Channel and there, talking about Dec. 7, 1941, was a gentleman wearing the PHSA cap, Aloha shirt and white pants. My son had already been quite impressed with the coincidence of meeting the two survivors right after we found those newsletters (he was actually the one who found them at the estate sale) and could not help but comment on the further coincidence of seeing the PHSA member on TV the same day.

 

When he becomes my age, Pearl Harbor will have happened 117 years before, but he'll be able to say he meant someone who was there. To put that into perspective, that would like me having meant someone who had served in the military before the Spanish American War.

 

 

That is a great story. Thanks for posting it.

[Bugme]

Now that is one very cool meeting! Nothing happens by chance, I see a devine appontment and you blessed those gentleman! :thumbsup:

[Jim Baker]

That's a great story. Our local Pearl Harbor survivors meet at our training center. They had a meeting yesterday, but will meet again in November. I think I'll go out and try to get some photos.