JACK Carson and Jack Beardsley watched in horror from the destroyer USS Henley as the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Sunday their ashes will be spread over the waters at Pearl Harbor near the sunken battleship USS Arizona.
"Jack was on deck waiting for a friend to get off the Arizona," said his wife, Fran Carson, in a telephone interview from her home in Tigard, a suburb of Portland, Ore. "They were going to tour the island when he saw the planes coming.
"His friend went down with the Arizona."
Fran Carson said the Henley, moored away from Battleship Row, escaped the Japanese bombs and torpedoes that day and was the second ship to get out of Pearl Harbor.
Beardsley, according to family members who live in Carson City, Nev., was awakened at 7:55 a.m. Dec. 7 by a general quarters alarm.
He had been sleeping in the chart house, since it was much cooler there.
Stepping out and cussing the quarter deck watch for pulling the wrong alarm, Beardsley said in a written statement, he saw an airplane close by and recognized it as a Japanese fighter.
"It dropped a fish (torpedo)," Beardsley recalled, "and I saw it hit the USS Raleigh (a light cruiser).
"It seemed like the whole harbor had blown up."
There was a .50-caliber machine gun outside the Henley's chart house, but its trigger was broken and there was no ammunition.
The Henley was strafed as it picked up steam and made its way up Pearl Harbor channel on its way out of the harbor, where it assumed submarine and anti-aircraft patrol. There were no injuries that day.
But a Japanese torpedo found its mark on Oct. 13, 1943, and the Henley was sunk near the Philippines.
Fran Carson said Jack "was in the water for nearly 20 hours before he was picked up."
A year later near New Guinea, Carson again found himself in the water when the ship he had been reassigned to -- the USS Ross -- was sunk by a Japanese submarine.
"He used to tell me," Fran Carson said, "'Boy, I have been lucky. I have been close but I have been lucky.'"
The events of Dec. 7, 1941, haunted him through the years.
"You have to remember he was only 17 then," Fran Carson said. "He said it was very, very scary to see all his buddies die. He saw one of his buddies blown up right in front of him."
Fran Carson said through the years her husband, who worked for 20 years as a pipe fitter and plumber at California's Alameda Naval Air Station, always said he wanted his ashes scattered at Pearl Harbor.
"He had a lot friends who went down there," Fran Carson said. "He had a lot of friends who went down with the Arizona. I am going to give him his wish."
Both Carson, who died June 23, and Beardsley, who died Aug. 14, were members of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association in their respective hometowns. Carson's last trip to the islands was last year for an association reunion.
A series of events commemorating the 56th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, will be held Sunday at the USS Arizona Memorial, Hickam Air Force Base and Marine Base Hawaii, Kaneohe.
On the white memorial, which was built in 1961 to honor the 1,177 Arizona crewmen who were killed during the Japanese attack, prayers will be offered, a 21-gun salute will be made and echo taps will be played.
Adm. Archie Clemins, Pacific Fleet commander in chief, will be the featured speaker.
At 7:55 a.m. -- the exact moment Japanese bombers began their bombing and strafing runs that sank 21 American warships, killed 2,338 military personnel and civilians and destroyed 165 planes -- a moment of silence will be observed.
A whistle blast from the destroyer USS Hamilton will signal the beginning of the moment of silence, followed by a flyover by Hawaii Air National Guard F-15 Eagle jet fighters in the missing-man formation.
The 56th anniversary of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor will be observed by several programs on Sunday: Remembering Pearl
7:30 a.m. -- Wreath-laying ceremony, Kaneohe Marine Corps Base headquarters flagpole.
Clinic to be named
for medical officerFirst Lt. William Schick
By Gregg K. Kakesako
was one of World War II's
first casualties
Star-BulletinThe Air Force will dedicate the Hickam Medical Clinic Sunday in honor of one of the first Americans and the first Army medical officer killed in World War II during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. On Dec. 7, 1941, 1st Lt. William Schick, a newly commissioned flight surgeon, was aboard one of the 12 B-17 Flying Fortress bombers attempting to land at Hickam for a refueling stop on the way to the Philippines when it collided with Japanese Zero fighters attacking Pearl Harbor and Hickam Field.
Just three days earlier, Schick received orders to become the flight surgeon for the 38th Reconnaissance Squadron and was supposed to report to Clark Field in the Philippines.
Not one of the B-17s were able to fire back -- all their heavy machine guns were still packed in the Cosmoline packing grease.
Schick's defenseless B-17 was able to land at Hickam, but the bomber's fuselage, weakened by a fire that had been started by strafing Japanese bullets, cracked upon impact and broke away just behind the cockpit.
Schick and other crew members jumped from the wrecked plane. Part of the crew ran for the hangar while Schick and others sprinted in the opposite direction for the grass on the other side of the runway.
It was 8:15 a.m. as a Japanese Zero pilot aimed his guns at the fleeing airmen.
Hit several times, only Schick was mortally wounded.
His son, Bill, who was born on Aug. 17, 1942, on what would have been his father's 32nd birthday, will be the guest speaker Sunday.
