Every Dec. 7, Americans are reminded of the attack that catapulted the nation into World War II. But for people who were at Pearl Harbor and survived, that day in 1941 is always close in thought.

Every month, members of the Lilac City chapter of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association meet to honor their motto, “Remember Pearl Harbor: Keep America alert.” They gather at the Shriners Hospital in Spokane to share a meal and, more importantly, their memories.

The youngest member of the group is 84 years old; the oldest is over 90. When Denis Mikkelsen told his son about joining the association, he says his son asked, “Why would you want to join something like that? You’ll just be going to a lot of funerals.” Mikkelsen smiles when he tells that story and says, “We just try to be here for each other.”

At a recent luncheon, Bud Colburn shared about the Honor Flight Network. A man had called him and asked if Colburn were ready to go to Washington, D.C. Honor Flight is a program that flies veterans to the nation’s capital to see the World War II Memorial and other sites of interest. World War II vets receive top priority, and Colburn encouraged other members to apply for a trip.

Chapter President Ray Daves announced that the group had been invited to speak at Chase Middle School and to join the students for lunch. Daves is passionate about educating youngsters regarding the grim realities of war.

“The history of Pearl Harbor is being diluted to school children,” he says. “We need to keep our motto in front of the American people.”

Each one of the survivors present at the meeting had a story to tell. Denis Mikkelsen was asleep aboard the USS West Virginia when the first bombs hit. Jim Sinnott was on Ford Island. Ray Daves was strolling to breakfast at Pacific Fleet headquarters. Bud Colburn was aboard the USS Rigel, and Sid Kennedy and Charlie Boyer were at the Naval Air Station Kaneohe Bay. Among their ranks is a female survivor—Betty Schott was living with her husband, Warren, on Ford Island when the bombs fell.

But their monthly gatherings aren’t about “fighting the war all over again,” as Mikkelsen says. He looked around the room. “They’ve become good friends.”

Indeed, most often the conversation circles around the lives they led after the war. Jim Sinnott and Ray Daves worked together in Spokane as air-traffic controllers for many years, and they can relate experiences from those jobs. Other members joke and tease and tell stories about their grandchildren.

“The other Saturday my grandson earned $75 reffing a soccer game,” Sid Kennedy says. “It took me a week to earn that!”

Charlie Boyer laughed. “It took me a month to earn $75.”

The bond that holds this group together is a fierce one. For many of them, this is the one place they have been able to discuss Dec. 7, 1941.

“They don’t talk about it at home,” says Mikkelsen’s wife, Vina.

The horrors they witnessed 67 years ago are kept at bay for the most part. But they each have private nightmares. Mikkelsen remembers the feel of the water as he dove from his ship and swam toward Ford Island. Warren and Betty Schott will never forget the noise of the Japanese bombers screaming overhead. Colburn recalls the sight of the USS Arizona going down in flames. And for Ray Daves, the stench of burning oil and charred human flesh is etched into his memory.

This chapter of the PHSA does its part to keep the message of remembrance and vigilance visible to the community. In addition to visiting area schools, the group participates in Spokane’s Armed Forces Torchlight Parade each May. And every year the crowd rises to its feet and cheers when these veterans go past.

Yet as their numbers diminish, they worry about who will remember the consequences of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

“There’s darn few of us left,” Warren Schott says.

Fortunately, there are organizations like the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors. Daves stresses the urgency of veterans getting their children and grandchildren involved.

“Because when we’re dead and gone, that’s it,” he says.

But on one afternoon this past fall, it was thoughts of friendship, not war, that brought them closer. “It’s comradeship with people that had the same experience,” Charlie Boyer says. “I can’t get around much anymore, but I do like to see them.”

And sitting next to him, Sid Kennedy agreed.

“There’s no other group like it,” he says. “We have something between us that no one else has.”

“Radioman: An Eyewitness Account of Pearl Harbor and World War II in the Pacific”  

South Hill author Carol Edgemon Hipperson isn’t a Pearl Harbor survivor, but she attends the monthly luncheons and can relate stories about the events of that day with such detailed precision, you’d swear she must have been there.

“Carol is our life’s blood,” group-member Sid Kennedy says.

“I’ve always been interested in history,” she explains. “History is a way to understand the problems of the present.”    

Her understanding led to her first book, “The Belly Gunner,” an annotated biography published by Millbrook Press in 2001. It told the first-person account of Dale Aldrich, who served during World War II.

After the book’s release, Hipperson began receiving letters and phone calls from World War II vets, many of them encouraging her to tell the story of a sailor’s experience during the war. As she talked with veterans, Hipperson realized she’d discovered her own mission: to tell the stories of the enlisted men who served during World War II.

She met Ray Daves through the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association and found his memory of his time of service to be so sharp and so compelling that she knew he’d be a great subject for her next book.

They met for their first interview on Daves’ 82nd birthday. Her eyes grow teary at the memory. “He cried,” she recalls. “It was the first time he’d ever shared about his Pearl Harbor experience.”

That interview led to 24 others over the course of a year and half and resulted in “Radioman: An Eyewitness Account of Pearl Harbor and World War II in the Pacific” published by Thomas Dunne Books at St. Martin’s Press in October 2008.

The Lilac City chapter of the PHSA offered affirmation and feedback as Hipperson read portions of her book to them at their meetings. “Many of them had tears in their eyes when I read Ray’s memories of the attack on Pearl Harbor,” she says.

Daves was a Navy radioman and was on his way to breakfast when he heard the distinct drone of low-flying aircraft. He looked up to see Japanese bombers and, to his horror, heard the first bomb hit and explode on Ford Island.

Hipperson tells his story in Daves’ own words, gently weaving in the larger historical perspective. The book has already garnered attention. Mal Middlesworth, national president of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, pronounced “Radioman” the best World War II biography he had ever read.

But for Hipperson, what matters most is the appreciation of the veterans she’s come to care so deeply about. Her purpose in telling Daves’ experience is simple. “If more Americans knew the real story of what happens when America goes to war, they’d have greater respect for the elders in their own families and communities,” she says. “And they’d weigh carefully the decision to go to war in the future.”

Learn more about “Radioman” at http://us.macmillan.com/radioman.
For more information about the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors, visit http://sdphs.org.