“Pearl Harbor. The Arizona, you could still see. And the Oklahoma had been raised and painted with this yellow paint that they used. But it had no superstructure. The deck was completely flat. Taken out to West Loch and left at anchor. They junked it. Of course the Arizona was off Ford Island. That would be across from where we were, and down.”
This was my dad’s description of his first view of Pearl Harbor in the summer of 1944, when he was aboard Landing Craft Infantry 565. It comes from the interview I did with him — and later transcribed — for the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines.
I share this with you today not just because of Pearl Harbor Day on Monday, Dec. 7, the 74th anniversary of the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands and drew the United States into the Pacific Theatre of World II.
I share it because Galen Cole recently turned 90. If I were to tell you one fact about Cole Land Transportation Museum, which will open for the new season May 1 on Perry Road in Bangor, it is this: Out of 450,000 visitors in the past quarter-century, one-third of them were youngsters age 18 and under — all of whom were admitted free.
Most of the older students who participated in the museum’s Veterans Interview Program by talking with a war veteran in small groups of three or four youngsters have wound up their time with a veteran by receiving a challenge from Galen Cole.
First he asks the students if they will remember the time they spent with a veteran for the rest of their lives. Then he challenges them to promise to go home and interview a veteran in their own family. Nearly all raise their hands to indicate they will.
On days when Cole doesn’t quite have the fizz to issue the challenge, museum director Jim Neville, a retired Marine and veteran of the Iraq War, brings his own enthusiasm to bear for the challenge.
Both men know how much it means to these veterans to have someone interested in what they did, how they served, what they went through and why freedom isn’t free.
I’m here to tell you what it means that I can pick up a notebook and flip to pages where my dad talks to me about his experience in World War II. As I read those words, his voice is still as clear as a bell. (Yes, I have the tape somewhere, as well.)
Do interview your dad or your mom or your uncle or your neighbor or your classmate. Write it up afterward, just as it was said — no need for fancy editing or interpretation.
I promise you that doing so will establish a connection that will survive, that will outlast the actual experience. If your veteran was alive in 1940 or 1930, he or she probably would enjoy seeing a copy of the U.S. Census page listing the family that year.
No one person can interview everyone, but I have Chuck Knowlen on my wish list. You may know Chuck from his work with the Maine Troop Greeters or with the Veterans Interview Program. Likely you’ve seen him on recent public service announcements as a recipient of the To Those Who Care Award — well-deserved, I might add.
In a recent letter to the editor in the BDN, Chuck acknowledged he is 80. Now that shocked me. How can he be 80? He was in the Vietnam War, and those veterans are young — ish.
Find yourself a veteran and interview him or her. Perhaps members of your historical society could do the same with other community veterans, creating a collective treasure that will endure.
Ninety isn’t so old, and certainly not 80. I once interviewed a World War II veteran who was 104. And I’m glad I did.
But the best interview was my dad, and now I have that to pass on to my grandchildren.
For information on researching family history in Maine, see Genealogy Resources under Family Ties at bangordailynews.com/browse/family-ties. Send genealogy queries to Family Ties, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402, or email familyti@bangordailynews.com.