It was late fall in 1941 when 21-year-old Lester Ritchie and his buddy, Merle Springer, stopped to pick up their mail at the post office in McMinnville, Oregon. The night postal clerk was tacking up a notice - Men needed to work at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard. The clerk turned and spotted Les and his buddy. "Here, take one of these. This is just what you fellows are looking for."

Les reached out for the flyer and replied, "Where in the hell is Pearl Harbor?"

"In Hawaii! They will pay your way over, and if you don’t want to stay, all you have to do is work six months, and they will send you back. All expenses paid. What more could you want? A chance to see Hawaii and a good paying job while you are there!"

"Hey, Les, let’s give it a try!" chimed in Merle. "You want to get married soon. This will give us a chance to make some extra money and go to Hawaii too!"

After taking U.S. Civil Service exams, both men were hired as laborers and were soon on their way to Pearl Harbor aboard a military troop ship, the U.S.S. Henderson. Upon arrival at Pearl Harbor, they were assigned living quarters at the Navy Cantonment, a barracks for civilian employees located next to Hickam Field. Merle was assigned to the carpenter shop and Les to the rigging loft. The rigging loft was in charge of the drydocks. First day of work - December 1, 1941.

Planning to go to Waikiki Beach on their first Sunday in Hawaii, they were awakened by the loud roar of planes flying low over Hickam Field. The landing field was located just 20 feet or so on the other side of a chain link fence. Surprised that a training practice was being conducted on a Sunday morning, many of the men ran out in time to marvel at how authentic the planes were, even to the point of being painted to resemble Japanese aircraft, including a red ball on the underside of the wings. Their amazement turned to horror in the next few minutes as the Japanese pilots opened fire on the U.S. planes lined up in the center of the field, wing tip to wing tip. Pilots were running to their planes hoping to get airborne, not only to save the planes, but to fight the attacking enemy aircraft which filled the sky.

"The Japanese planes were so low we could see their faces as they began to open fire," Les remembers. "Many of our pilots had reached the planes when the bombing and strafing began. The planes were so close together that when the first one exploded it went right down the line, one right after another. In a few minutes there were dead and wounded all over the field. Planes and buildings on fire, ammunition and gasoline tanks exploding, air raid sirens screaming."

We were told to dress and report to our assigned work area as quickly as possible. We ran, several thousand men, to the main gate at the Pearl Harbor Shipyard, but everything was so disorganized. The Marines on sentry duty wouldn’t let us pass. We were held back at gunpoint until an officer arrived and authorized the Marines to admit us so we could help. I immediately reported to the rigging loft and was sent to the drydocks to fight the fires on the Cassin and the Downes.

In the Number 1 drydock were two destroyers, the U.S.S. Cassin and the U.S.S. Downes, and the battleship, U.S.S. Pennsylvania. The Cassin and Downes were engulfed in flames from a ruptured gasoline tank. Soon, explosions in the magazines and a torpedo completely destroyed both ships. The fires were so intense from the two destroyers the paint on the starboard bow of the Pennsylvania caught fire. Although the Pennsylvania was a primary target of the Japanese, she sustained only minimal damage even though she was struck amidships by a bomb, killing 26 men and two officers. The Cassin and Downes were completely destroyed. The drydock was flooded to help in controlling the fires, but this caused the Cassin to roll over against the stricken Downes.

Every few minutes a Japanese plane would fly over and strafe the Pennsylvania. We would turn off our fire hoses and run for cover. Once, the water wasn’t turned off when the planes came in. Everyone dropped the hose and ran, leaving just three of us on the line. We couldn’t let go because the pressure from the water would have whipped the hose back and forth making it as dangerous as the bullets. We hung on and luckily none of us were hit.

At sometime after midnight, we were sent over to the 10-10 dock. The U.S.S. Helena had been hit by a torpedo, which put two holes in one side. It was secured to the dock, but was taking on water and listing badly. We were told to unload the food lockers so the compartments could be flooded in hopes of righting the ship. A hundred or more men made a chain to take out the tons of meat, chicken and frozen food. We did this for several hours until they could wait no longer to flood the compartments as the dock was starting to pull apart.

In all those hours we had not eaten. Not even a cup of coffee. When we went topside, we found the cooks were frying chicken on the biggest stove I had ever seen. It must have been 30 feet long and was just covered with chicken. They told us to sit down and eat all the fried chicken we wanted. I think I ate two or three whole chickens I was so hungry. After eating I returned to the rigging loft where my supervisor told us to get some rest as they expected another raid at daybreak and he wanted us all back at our shops. There was a pile of sand used for sand blasting that had a little cover over the top. I crawled up in there for the few hours we had before dawn.

Part 2 & 3 - The Cleanup and Learning to Dive
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