They loved those white, sharp-looking Pearl Harbor Survivor caps they wore whenever they went out in public. Their badge of honor. They didn’t need to say a word as they walked down the street or sat in a restaurant together for their monthly meeting.

“Thank you,” they heard over and over again. Thank you.

People know freedom isn’t free. Someone’s got to pay for it. These are the guys who made a huge down payment 81 years ago today, on a date that President Franklin D. Roosevelt promised would live in infamy — and it has. We haven’t forgotten and hopefully never will.

As another president named Roosevelt said, “walk softly and carry a big stick.” These guys carried the stick.

Early on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, our nation was sucker-punched by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service at Pearl Harbor. More than 2,400 Americans were killed, and much of our naval fleet and the aircraft parked on them were either sunk or badly damaged. We were caught totally off guard.

The enemy left Pearl Harbor for dead that morning. Big mistake. The survivors got up off the deck and picked up that big stick. We weren’t walking softly anymore.

The next day we declared war on Japan and officially entered World War II. The rest is history. Freedom won. Tyranny lost.

That’s why the American flag will be flown at half-staff until sunset today, Wednesday Dec. 7. That’s why we remember Pearl Harbor every year. It’s too important to forget, just as these men are.

Bill Aupperlee had the Irish gift of gab. He could make an undertaker laugh, which he actually did at his own funeral. One by one, the last handful of members left from the local chapter of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association got up to tell their favorite Aupperlee story, which always ended with a laugh.

Nobody told the one about the morning after the attack when they cried. Bill was helping recover the bodies of the dead, praying he wouldn’t see his own face among them — his twin brother, also serving at Pearl.

“When we found each other later still alive, we hugged and shed a few tears, then got back to work,” he said. “My brother and I talked about everything in our lives, but we never talked about that moment again.”

George Keene was the last active member of the association. He died last year at 98. His granddaughter, Lisa Lunny, sent me a heartfelt note to let me know he had passed.

“He may have been ‘grandpa’ to us, but anytime he donned his Pearl Harbor Survivor’s cap in public, he became an instant celebrity,” she wrote. “We joked with him that we couldn’t take him anywhere without drawing a crowd. He would just laugh and agree.”

Instant celebrity. So true.

Joe Mariani served on the USS California, which got hit hard, losing 87 men. According to the military, Joe was one of them.

“My father got a telegraph saying I had died in the attack, but three weeks later he got another one saying I was alive,” he said. Like Bill Aupperlee and his twin brother, Joe and his parents never talked about those three weeks.

“They couldn’t bring themselves to and neither could I,” he said.

Ray Kuhlow could always be counted on to speak to school kids on Memorial Day or Veterans Day, telling them stories that were becoming harder and harder to find in history books.

Some school principals didn’t want veterans to come talk to the kids, as if you could sweep Pearl Harbor under the rug. Ray pushed back. You can’t hide war from kids, he argued. It’s non-negotiable. He lost too many buddies that morning at Pearl Harbor to just stay silent.

And, there’s Leon Kolb, who almost gave his life for love that horrible morning. As everyone was trying desperately to get off the heavily-damaged battleship USS Oklahoma, Leon was fighting to get below to his locker.

He had spent over two months salary to buy an engagement ring for his high school sweetheart back home, and he wasn’t about to let it go down with the ship.

You’re crazy, the guys down in the hold told him. There wasn’t time for love that morning. They pushed Leon back up the stairs before the ship’s magazine exploded below. He would have died at his locker.

“I lost the ring, but got the girl,” Leon would joke.

Pearl Harbor — 81 years later. A tribute to our instant celebrities.

Dennis McCarthy can be reached at [email protected].

Related Articles