Honolulu, Hawaii - Thursday December 7, 2023: The aging pool of Pearl Harbor survivors has been rapidly shrinking. 102-year-old Harry Chandler of Tequesta Florida is among them.
Chandler was a Navy hospital corpsman 3rd Class on December 7, 1941. He recalled raising the flag at a mobile hospital in Aiea Heights in the hills above Pearl Harbor that morning.
Sitting in his front row seat on the ceremony grounds overlooking the harbor on Thursday, Chandler said the memories of the USS Arizona blowing up still come back to him today.
“I saw these planes come, and I thought they were planes coming in from the states until I saw the bombs dropping,” Chandler said. They took cover and then rode trucks down to Pearl Harbor where they attended to the injured.
He remembers sailors trapped on the capsized USS Oklahoma tapping on the hull of their ship to get rescued, and caring for those who eventually got out after teams cut holes in the ship.
“I look out there and I can still see what’s going on. I can still see what was happening,” said Chandler, who today lives in Tequesta, Florida.
Asked what he wants Americans to know about Pearl Harbor, he said: “Be prepared.”
“We should have known that was going to happen. The intelligence has to be better,” he said.