Memories
of Pearl Harbor Day - Dec 07, 1941
by Melvin Sepulvado
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.
CLICK
HERE to view photos of Pearl
Harbor