Dec 7, 2016 4 min read

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FILE - This Dec. 7, 2013 file photo shows a Navy rifleman standing at attention by the USS Arizon at the ceremony commemorating the 72nd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor in Honolulu. The Pearl Harbor memorial is one of Hawaii's most popular tourist attractions. (AP Photo/Marco Garcia, File)

Marco Garcia

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Warren Harding Dickerson, second from left, enjoys some down time with his Navy commrades during leave in Pearl Harbor. Dickerson is the focus of this ongoing series about his experiences in the Navy during World War II.

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Larry Morgan of Washington in his home with drawings of the USS Princeton he was aboard during the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Jim McNutt/Observer-Reporter

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Tracy Hawkins photographed the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor National Park in Honolulu.

Picasa

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In this Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2016 photo placards and mementos with the phrase “Remember Pearl Harbor” are on display as part of an exhibit at The Museum of World War II, Boston, in Natick, Mass. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

Steven Senne

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Ron Gasper, a social studies teacher at Washington Park Middle School, holds a photo of his dad, Joseph Gasper, when he was stationed at Pearl Harbor during the attack and a photo of him now at age 94 Wednesday, November 30, 2011.

JIM MCNUTT

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McDonald resident Floyd Laughlin and member of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association was a newlywed when he was shipped overseas, arriving in Hawaii in time for the December 7, 1941, attack. Photographed December 3, 2003.

Harry Funk

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Navy veteran Theodore Wozniak, left, and Army veteran Alexander Dyga, both members of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, share remembrances of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Photographed December 3, 2003.

Harry Funk/Observer-Reporter

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Pearl Harbor survivor Oliver West of Charleroi reflects during a memorial service in Canonsburg, December 7, 2005. West and a group of other veterans gathered to remember the 64th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor at Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 191 in Canonsburg. West was the only survivor of the Pearl Harbor attacks from Washington County well enough to attend.

JIM MCNUTT

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On Dec. 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese navy launched a surprise attack on the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii as part of a plan to preempt any American military response to Japan’s planned conquest of Southeast Asian territories. The raid, which claimed about 2,400 American lives, prompted the United States to declare war against Japan the next day.

Sadly, the veterans that survived that attack from our area are almost all gone, but their stories remain. As part of this year’s Pearl Harbor attack remembrance, the staff of the Observer-Reporter pulled some of these first-hand accounts from our archive to republish online.

Floyd Laughlin of McDonald grew up hearing stories of the Civil War from his grandfather, and never imagined he’d witness the beginning of another war even more horrific than the war between the states. Laughlin was stationed in the Hawaiian island of Oahu at Fort Kamehameha on Dec. 7, 1941. He and his fellow battalion members were eating breakfast in a mess hall, assumed their fellow Americans were flying in when they heard planes overhead. When the explosions started, the men ran outside to see what was happening instead of diving for cover.

“We knew right away it was the Japanese. It wasn’t safe to move because they were firing all around. A bullet hit beside my head.”

Alexander Dyga, a Finleyville native, was near Schofield Barracks, helping tend to some 900 horses and mules, which represented a key form of Army transportation in 1941.

“We saw these four aircraft coming in, and I told my buddy, ‘That’s not our aircraft!'” The soldiers saw the airplanes make a circle around Wheeler airfield, then commenced bombing about 300 yards from the stables, which began taking hits shortly afterward.

No animals were hurt, but the just-arrived shipment of oats and hay was full of lead pellets, meaning the soldiers had to sift through the feed to remove the metal.

While Dyga was dealing with frightened livestock, Theodore Wozniak was aboard the USS Maryland, one of the many battleships docked off Ford Island in Pearl Harbor that Sunday morning.

“When the attack first started, I was just about ready to go to church services aboard the Oklahoma,” said Wozniak, a native of Scott Township. “If they would have struck 15 minutes later, I probably wouldn’t be here.”

The USS Oklahoma took five torpedo hits, rolled and capsized, resulting in more than 400 men killed or missing. The attack put the ship, docked next to the Maryland, permanently out of commission.

Oliver West, of Charleroi, was stationed at Scoffield Barracks that morning. He awoke just before 8 a.m. and remembered he had a cold pitcher of beer in a cooler from a party the night before. Standing outside to have an early morning drink, he saw smoke and heard noises coming from the direction of Pearl Harbor, about 10 miles away, but thought the military was conducting maneuvers.

Pearl Harbor and the bombing at Scoffield were the start of a long tour for West, participating in some of the war’s bloodiest battles in the South Pacific theater.

“I’ve always wondered how I got through it,” West said of the six major battles in which he participated. “I guess I picked out the biggest man ahead of me and stood behind him.”

Donora native Sam Moses was assigned to training at Pearl Harbor and awoke about 7:55 a.m. to sounds of explosions that he thought were part of U.S. military exercises. Moses and others in his unit first went to airplane hangars only to find most planes shot up or destroyed. Next, they went to ball fields but left because gasoline tanks were nearby, and they feared they, too, would be bombed.

He survived simply by being in the right place at the right time.

Read these stories and more as part of our Pearl Harbor series.