Pearl Harbor survivors recall day of ‘infamy’

Seventy years ago today, two men who now live in the Las Vegas Valley watched in horror as Japanese warplanes gunned down sailors, soldiers and civilians and bombed ships and aircraft at Oahu, in the Territory of Hawaii.

Dec. 7, 1941, the day President Franklin D. Roosevelt accurately predicted would "live in infamy," still sparks vivid memories for Joe Honish and William "Big Bill" Simshauser.

They are two of only a handful of local Pearl Harbor survivors who remain to tell their stories about the raid that launched the United States into World War II and thrust the nation into its continuing role as an international peacekeeper, as Las Vegas author Bill McWilliams describes in his new book, "Sunday in Hell: Pearl Harbor Minute by Minute."

Honish, a 21-year-old sailor from Hoisington, Kan., had taken a shuttle bus to the Block Recreation Center from the Naval Shipyard's Oahu hospital, where he worked as a pharmacist mate third class.

He was standing in line with other sailors and civilians who were waiting to go to Sunday morning Mass as soon as the center's doors opened.

But he never made it to Mass that day. Instead, he spent the next few hours saving a woman's life and tending to hundreds of dead and wounded outside the shipyard's naval hospital.

"We were there at quarter of eight when they flew right over us," Honish, 91, said, recalling on Tuesday the sight of Japanese "Kate" torpedo bombers.

"I thought, 'What the hell is going on?' "

As the planes began their assault on Battleship Row, the rear-facing gunners inside the Japanese torpedo planes were firing swivel-mounted machine guns to pin down anyone who might try to thwart the attack.

"Well, they hit this lady who was coming over to get in line with us. They hit her and took a big chunk out of her leg," Honish said, sitting with his wife, Josephine, in their Henderson home.

Honish and a shipmate from the hospital corps took immediate action.

"We took her petticoat and put a tourniquet around her leg," he said.

They then commandeered a car and rushed her to the hospital, where she was treated and survived.

Hundreds of other sailors, soldiers and Marines weren't so lucky. About 300 who were brought to the hospital were dead on arrival or died while waiting for treatment.

In all, more than 2,400 military personnel and civilians were killed in the attack.

Before the day ended, Honish had used tannic acid to treat hundreds of patients with flash burns. He also helped move bodies to a temporary morgue, and later supplied food to thousands for their noon meal.

That evening he sat down with a chief warrant officer to recuperate. The warrant officer "opened a desk drawer and took out a half bottle of rum, which he had saved from Thanksgiving for the Christmas fruitcake," Honish wrote several years ago for the local Pearl Harbor Survivor Association's newsletter.

" 'Honish,' " the warrant officer said, " 'I think we could use a little glass of this to raise our spirits.' I agreed."

The next morning he heard Kate Smith singing "God Bless America" on the radio.

"To this day it brings tears to my eyes."

Honish made a career of the Navy, serving in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. He was awarded a combat valor medal by a Marine Corps general in 1953. He retired in 1968 as a Navy commander.

Similarly, Simshauser, of Las Vegas, made a career in the Army, as a bomber flight engineer before retiring as a captain after 22 years.

At 6 foot 2 inches, "Big Bill" joined the Army Air Corps at Kansas City, Mo., in 1939. He eventually was assigned to a squadron of A-20 "Boston Bombers" on Oahu at Bellows Field next to Kaneohe Bay.

That's where he was on Dec. 7, 1941. The squadron had just moved into new barracks.

"I was going to breakfast when I saw a fighter plane with a red 'O' on its fuselage," he said, describing the Japanese plane's rising-sun emblem.

With "Zeros" strafing the airfield, he and another soldier, Al Gardner, had only a Springfield rifle to return fire.

"I punched out bullets from a machine gun belt and handed them to Gardner," Simshauser, 90, recalled. "He put them in the Springfield and then fired at Japanese aircraft that were strafing a fuel truck."

Fortunately, he said, "There was a hill behind us, and that saved our butts because they had to raise up to get over it."

"I said, 'Al, we better get out of here.' "

So, they did, and Simshauser reported to an air operations officer who told him, "Son, get down here and watch the show," because there was nothing they could do other than to try to stay low and survive the raid.

He then saw 2nd Lt. George A. Whiteman's P-40 fighter head out the runway.

"The Japanese fighter planes shot his airplane down as he was about to take off," Simshauser said.

After the Japanese Zeros left, he was given orders to take a rifle and guard the wreckage containing the remains of Whiteman, for whom Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., home of the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber, was named.

After his Hawaii assignment, Simshauser became a flight engineer on B-25 bombers that scouted for German U-boats in the Atlantic Ocean.

Simshauser said he has no animosity for Japanese people, nor does he think about Pearl Harbor every day.

His advice to America's youth: "Love your country. We live in the best country in the world. Always be loyal to your country."

Today, Simshauser and Honish will join other Pearl Harbor survivors for a luncheon ceremony at Nellis Air Force Base.

Contact reporter Keith Rogers at krogers@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308.