GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – The 75th anniversary of the Japanese attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor is Wednesday.
Green Bay resident Firman Balza served on the USS Maryland at that Hawaiian base and recalls that morning, eternally remembered by the words of then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a “day which will live in infamy.”
“I was standing on the starboard gallery deck, looking out over Ford Island, me talking to a first-class gunner’s mate by the name of Joe Climcack and a first-class cook by the name of Rocky Halstead,” recalls Balza. “And we were talking about with that many ships in the fleet in the harbor, if the Japanese showed up in an attack and sunk a ship in the channel to the harbor, all those ships that are in there wouldn’t be able to get out.”
Balza says shortly thereafter, he noticed a plane fly overhead. As he points out, air battles don’t last very long and it’s the devastation left behind is what causes the chaos.
“The Maryland was fortunate, we only lost 5 people that day. The Oklahoma, which was tied up to us and capsized and rolled over, lost 460,” Balza says. “It was a traumatic experience, because those people who were trapped in the hull that rolled over couldn’t do anything but wrap on the hull to let somebody know they were still alive and in there.”
According to the Britannica Online Encyclopedia, the first Japanese dive bomber appeared at 7:55 a.m. local time. That first wave of aircraft involved 187 planes, Balza says, which included torpedo planes, bombers and fighters.
“And they came from every direction you could think of, and how they didn’t run into each other is beyond my comprehension,” says Balza. “Arizona directly behind the West Virginia blows up, sinks to the bottom. Pennsylvania at the dry dock over in the Navy yard, bombs hit, two destroyers in the dock with them, the Case and the Downs, destroyed, the USS Shaw, completely blown up and out of commission. It was one hell after another.”
Over the next 4 days, Balza says he and other survivors rescued 32 people out of the hull of the USS Oklahoma. But one person no one could save was Balza’s division officer, which had an immediate impact on him.
“The shrapnel from the first bomb killed a guy by the name of Howard Crowe. I didn’t even know he was dead until 2 o’clock in the afternoon,” Balza says. “They put him in the laundry on the second deck. And I went down to the laundry on the second deck, they had him lying on the deck covered with a mattress cover. All I could see is his hand sticking out. Of course he had bled to death, so he was completely negative. He had no color at all. I looked at him, and I got sick to my stomach. And I stayed sick to my stomach for 3 days. I did not eat for 3 days.”
Overall, 2,400 Americans died and another 1,200 were wounded.
USELESS FLEET
Balza, who lives in an east side home, enlisted in the U.S. Navy at the age of 17. He was assigned to the USS Maryland in the Pacific on April 13, 1941. He remained stationed on the Maryland until April 7, 1944.
“I went on there as an apprentice seaman, and left there as a second-class gunner’s mate,” Balza says. “Joining the Navy was just a personal thing, it had nothing to do with going to war or defending my country or any of these other things.”
Balza recounts that back when he signed up for military duty, the U.S. was nowhere near equipped or prepared to enter World War II. A fact that is lost to history, especially upon those who’ve written it in textbooks and teach it in schools.
“We had all the reason in the world to know that the Japanese were up to something,” says Balza. “Because in July when I left San Pedro Harbor to go to Hawaii, there were 7 Japanese tankers in the harbor waiting for them to lift the oil embargo so they could load up with oil and go back to Japan. It did not happen. They stayed there, they were still there when the Japanese struck the fleet in Pearl Harbor.”
Often written about December 7, 1941, is the narrative that much of the country’s Pacific fleet was either “rendered useless” or “severely crippled”. Balza says not so fast.
“Nonsense, absolutely nonsense,” Balza contends. “You know what they did? They actually came over there and sunk all of our old junk. Because that what we really had was a bunch of old junk.”
The event did declare some victors and fall guys. Admiral Husband Kimmel and General Walter Short were relieved of duty. It sparked official investigations into how the Pacific fleet could be so unprepared. Balza, however, is still steamed that the Navy and Army commanders on Oahu were blamed.
“Kimmel and Short, who took the brunt of damage, ruined their careers. And they still haven’t made them honorable people,” says Balza. “That I cannot accept and I never will. Both of them are dishonorable, not to me they’re not. They’re no more responsible for what happened in Pearl Harbor than you and I.”
Balza explains that with the fall guys, they needed to anoint heroes. Those roles would end up being filled by General Douglas MacArthur and Donald Ross, who was a warrant officer on the USS Nevada.
“The Nevada had the duty that weekend, and she could get some steam up. There was no commissioned officer on board, so Mr. Ross he decided he was going to get the ship out of the way. I didn’t know where he thought he was going to go or what he was going to do when he got there. He would’ve been better off if he had stayed right where he was,” Balza says. “Before he went down battleship row, he got hit by 5 torpedoes and the ship was sinking. It was going to sink in the channel, but had the good sense to run it up on the beach. I did see him on the 50th anniversary when I was in Pearl, and he was a full captain. They had given him a Medal of Honor for what he did. I thought that was about as poor an excuse for giving a man a Medal of Honor.”
As for MacArthur, Balza maintains that the five-star General had all his planes on the ground and parked in a row 11 hours after the attack.
“Now there’s something wrong with a man that’s going to run this whole outfit if he can’t think any further than that,” says Balza. “That’s Firman’s thinking…I’m strictly telling you what I saw when I was there.”
After President Roosevelt’s speech on December 8, 1941, Roosevelt asked Congress to approve a resolution recognizing the state of war between the United States and Japan. The U.S. Senate unanimously supported it, while the U.S. House of Representatives signed off on a vote of 388-1.
Three days afterward, Germany and Italy would end up declaring war against the United States. The U.S. government did the same and after 4 years and losing 400,000 American lives, World War II came to an end thanks to a successful Allied war effort.
