Surrounded by his friends, fellow veterans and loved ones chanting “U.S.A.!” 92-year-old Pearl Harbor survivor Robert Coles beamed as he was wheeled through Logan International Airport Saturday — a moment that moved him one step closer to returning to Hawaii to mark the 75th anniversary of the attack that changed his life.
Coles of Machias, Maine, was a 17-year-old radioman apprentice serving on the destroyer USS Bagley when the Japanese surprise attack on Dec. 7, 1941, claimed the lives of more than 2,000 of his brothers in arms. And though it’s been a lifelong dream, Coles hasn’t been back to Oahu since World War II.
But thanks to some friends who organized a GoFundMe account that raised $13,514 to pay for his trip, Coles will return next week to honor those who died.
Although an Honor Flight has been arranged to take survivors from Los Angeles to Hawaii — they have to pay to get to Los Angeles on their own.
Coles’ trip will take him from Bar Harbor to Boston before he heads to Los Angeles and on to Honolulu. He is set to touch down in Hawaii Monday.
At times interrupted by a chorus of “God Bless America,” the energetic veteran, who was born in the Bronx and joined the Navy in February 1940, recalled eating a piece of toast he grabbed from the mess hall when he saw Japanese planes heading toward Pearl Harbor.
“When I first saw the aircraft over Ford Island it had a big red circle on it,” Coles told the Herald. “In my little, not quite 18-year-old brain, I said what is this … the Red forces? I expected to see planes with the blue circle on it. Then I saw — what I call the sand falling out of the bucket — and hangers blowing up on Ford Island. I said this is not maneuvers. This is a Sunday morning, and it is a crowded harbor. Somebody is out to hurt my Navy.”
Coles, who said he fought in 17 battles during World War II, recalled springing into action.
“I ran forward, up to the number two .50-caliber machine gun, I took the dog wrench off the bulkhead, went over to the ammunition handling locker, ripped the padlock off, got a magazine, loaded the .50-caliber machine gun and I opened up on the first torpedo planes that went by,” he said. “I am not claiming to have shot any planes down. I swear before almighty God that I shot at them and hit because they were 15 feet off the ocean.”
Shortly after he opened fire, Coles said the chief gunner relieved him, and he was assigned to be a plane spotter.
Although Cole said he was never recognized for his actions, he said he hopes that will change once he arrives in Hawaii tomorrow.
“I love it,” Coles said as he was wheeled through the airport in his Navy dress blues. “I’m looking at America here. The extremes we see on television — the extreme right and the extreme left — that’s not America. This is America: what I see right here.”
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