December 7, 1941: A Day of Infamy

Navy corpsman Sterling Cale had just finished his shift at the hospital and trudged toward the main gate at the military base.  Light was approaching the island of Oahu, Hawaii, and a tired Cale needed sleep. He would never make it to bed that day, December 7, 1941.

Before Cale left the base, the first wave of Japanese planes launched an assault on the U.S. Navy's Pacific Fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor. The aircraft dive bombed American cruisers, aircraft carriers and battleships. One hour later, a second wave of planes carried out deadly raids on air fields.

By 9:55 a.m, Japan's stealth blitzkrieg had ended, leaving in its wake chaos and destruction.  In a a few hours, the lethal strike killed 2,403 Americans, destroyed 188 aircraft and damaged or obliterated eight battleships.  Plumes of acrid black smoke hung over the island.

Cale was startled by the thrumming of scores of planes as he was leaving the base.  He looked back toward the harbor in stunned disbelief.  He remembered seeing the red Rising Sun painted on the aircraft's fuselage and thinking, "My God, those are Japanese planes!"

A flabbergasted Cale sprung into action.  He raced to the armory building, grabbed a fire axe and smashed the door.  Cale began handing out rifles to American soldiers as they ran toward the harbor. When the men reached the main gate, they commenced firing at the enemy planes.

"I don't think they ever hit anything," Cale recalled. "Just too much distance."  But the soldiers wouldn't stop firing because their buddies were being torpedoed and bombed by relentless swarms of Japanese planes intent on wiping out the Pacific Fleet.

"I saw about ten of them (planes) going to hit the USS Oklahoma, so I ran down to the dock and took the officer's barge," Cale reminisced. "With so much activity in the water, we never did get there." Undeterred, Cale began plucking Navy servicemen from the chilly waters.

"I only picked up 46 people in four hours," modestly recalled Cale, a native of Macomb, Illinois.  "Some of them were dead already.  Some of them badly wounded, some badly burned."  The wounded were rushed to the Naval Hospital at Pearl Harbor.

During the first three hours after the Japanese attack, the 250-bed Naval Hospital received 960 casualties.  Ironically, Cale was not ordered to remain at the hospital with the wounded.  Instead, the master-at-arms had him stand guard at the receiving station with rifle in hand.

By nightfall, an eerie glow from the harbor was a grim reminder of the day's horrific carnage.  The USS Arizona was still burning because it had sustained a direct hit to its ammunition locker.  The Pennsylvania-class battleship would smolder for two-and-a-half days.

On December 10, Cale was assigned to lead a team of 10 men to begin recovery operations on the hulking Arizona.  Cale warned his team about what awaited them.  "Men, I don't know what we're going to see on the Arizona," he told the soldiers.  No one was prepared for what they found.

When they arrived at the battleship, black ashes were wafting in the air.  Tragically, those ashes were what was left of sailors who perished on the fiery USS Arizona.  The memory of that mission still haunts Cale, a soft-spoken man who lives on the island of Oahu with his wife of 70 years.

"About once a week I go out (to the USS Arizona Memorial) and pay my respects to the people I left on the ship," a solemn Cale said. What remains of the Arizona rests in Pearl Harbor, where a 184-foot long white memorial spans the mid-portion of the sunken ship.

A total of 1,177 crewmen on the Arizona died during the attack.  Many were buried with their battleship.  To date, more than 30 Arizona crewmen who survived the bombing have chosen the ship as their final resting place.  Others will surely follow.

Cale's military career didn't end at Pearl Harbor.  He served in the Korean War and did a tour in Vietnam.  His military service allowed him to see the world, something he never imagined as an adopted Illinois farm boy who had been shunted off to an orphanage at six weeks old.

Cale, who celebrated his 95th birthday on November 29, still proudly wears his cap stitched with the words, "Pearl Harbor Survivor."  He had a front row view of the battle that hurtled America into World War II. His story is one of service, sacrifice and patriotism.

America could still use more men like Sterling Cale.