Pearl Harbor

Thursday marks the 73rd anniversary since Pearl Harbor, Hawaii was attacked by the Japanese.

Enemy airplanes launched bombs and torpedoes into the vessels anchored along battleship row. The military outpost was set ablaze on that sunny Sunday morning.

One of the ships blown apart during the sneak-attack was the USS Arizona. Two sailors aboard the ship were Lonnie D. Cook of Morris and Clyde Williams of Okmulgee.

Cook survived the sinking of the Arizona and returned to Morris, where he still resides.

As for Williams, he died aboard the battleship. But his family did not get the horrific news for quite a while. His sister, Molly Williams Kent recounted the events during an earlier interview with the Okmulgee Times.

“I’ll never forget that day,” she said. “It was a Sunday. I was planning to go to the show with a friend. I was sitting in her house, waiting on her to finish dinner.”

While waiting, Molly listened to philharmonic music on the radio. But the music stopped and a frantic voice delivered words that sent chills through Molly’s heart.

“Peal Harbor has been attacked,” the radio announcer said.

Molly sprang up from her seat and screamed.

“My brother is there,” she said. “My brother is at Pearl Harbor!”

Terror filled Molly’s heart.

“I ran home, screaming all the way,” she said. “When I got there, my parents already knew. They’d heard the same broadcast on the radio.”

In1941, there were no instant reports from the scene. In fact, it was days and days before the Williams family officially learned of Clyde’s fate.

“We didn’t hear anything for several days,” she said. “Finally, on Dec. 19th we got a telegram saying my brother was missing. That was the first thing we heard (from the government).”

Earlier, Japan was announcing its massive bombing campaign in Pearl Harbor.

“They said they’d sank the Arizona,” Molly recalls. “But we didn’t know much about what happened. We were hanging onto any kind of hope we could have. We were saying that our boys were good swimmers and they could have made it to safety.”

The Williams family waited and hoped ... and prayed.

“Others around town were hearing from their boys who were at Pearl Harbor,” she said. “They were telling them they were OK. We didn’t hear anything from my brother. That really worried us! After a while, I guess we knew.”

Molly made the long journey to Hawaii in 2001. She went there with a group of USS Arizona Memorial group.

“It was the 60th anniversary of the attack at Pearl Harbor,” she said. “When we went to the Arizona Memorial site, the sailors lined up on both sides of us. They told us they were so proud to be with the people (directly) connected to the USS Arizona. Everyone there treated us so nice. It just brought tears to my eyes.”

The local American Legion Post 10 honored Molly’s brother by adding his name to the post home. The Williams in White Williams Post 10 is for the sailor who died at Pearl Harbor.

With the approach of Dec. 7, longtime Okmulgee resident James P. “Jim” Vaughn recalled the attack on Pearl Harbor all those years ago. He was living on his 130-acre family farm in Carey, Ohio.

“I heard about it at home on our battery-operated radio,” he said. “We were dirt-poor so we only turned it on some times, for the news and stuff like that.”

Word of the attack spread quickly. At the time, most people didn’t realize that this act would pull the United States into a 4-year war waged in both in the Pacific and across Europe.

An FFA teacher told Vaughn the war with Japan would end very quickly.

“He said that’ll be over with in two weeks,” Vaughn recalls. “So, at the time, I really didn’t attach that much to it.”

But the war with Japan would stretch from weeks to months to years. There would be no quick solution. In fact, the mission expanded dramatically when American forces went to battle against Adolph Hitler and the Nazi army.

He had already graduated from high school when Pearl Harbor was hit. He was working at a food processing plant in Shelby, Ohio. However, he was already planning to join the U.S. Navy long before Dec. 7, 1941.

“I was thinking about going into the Navy for the flight program,” he said. “I had already taken the exams and the preflight physical. I was just doing my thing in Shelby, Ohio. But before I joined or anything, I got a draft notice on 20 October 1942.”

There had been a fire in a section of the county courthouse where his Navy records were stored. The fire destroyed the records before the Navy could put him into a uniform. Instead, the U.S. Army drafted him and inducted him into the military. He was sent to basic combat training in a swamp down in Mississippi. He happily escaped the muddy conditions due to his high score on a military test. He was re-assigned to a different training company in Florida.

“I was going to go into the Army Air Corp,” he said.

While other military members were busy fighting the war in the Pacific, Vaughn took his Army Air Corp training and ended up a B-24 bomber crew member. He was an initial member of the 450th Bomber group that flew missions out of Italy. On one bombing run into Germany, his airplane was shot down and he had to parachute from the falling plane. He ended up walking hundreds of miles to get back to friendly forces - luckily avoiding capture or death from the Nazi soldiers.

Jim Vaughn did not participate in the Pacific battles against Japan. However, he did serve his country with honor in the victory over Hitler. He is also a veteran of Korea and Vietnam.

On Dec. 7, 1941, Vaughn heard the frantic news reports coming out of Hawaii. He had no idea at the time that his life was going to be directly affected by the events on that horrible Sunday morning.

“That was a long time ago,” he said a few days ago. “But I can remember it like it was yesterday.”