George L. “Bud” Hollenbeck, 98, remembers the Pearl Harbor attack 79 years ago Monday.
At 19 years old, the Boston-area native was headed to his 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. watch on the USS Pennsylvania when he saw a long string of planes coming in, what he thought at first to be planes making a surprise practice run.
Then, he heard loud “whomps.”
“It was then I looked at the insignias on the wings of the planes: big red meatballs,” Hollenbeck said in a recorded message. “They were Japanese Navy planes.”
Hollenbeck’s comments were part of a virtual commemoration remembering the more than 2,400 U.S. service members and civilians killed in the Dec. 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor attack. It was streamed and posted online, allowing people to continue honoring the legacy of the fallen safely during a global pandemic.
The Pennsylvania lost 24 crew members that day from a bomb. Hollenbeck said that if it hit “one or two feet from where it did, we probably would have had the same fate as the Arizona,” which sank, costing the lives of almost 1,200 crew members.
The online commemoration included a wreath-laying ceremony held Monday morning in the Charlestown Navy Yard onboard the USS Cassin Young.
Young was in command of the USS Vestal during the attack and, despite being blown off his ship into burning harbor, managed to swim back to his ship and later ground it, saving it from complete destruction, according to his Medal of Honor citation. Young was killed in 1942 during the Battle of Guadalcanal while in command of the USS San Francisco.
During Monday’s commemoration, about 100 people watched through a Facebook livestream as a multi-colored wreath was dropped over the ship and into the cold waters.
“We are standing here in awe inspiring place: the Charlestown Navy Yard, overlooking Boston Harbor, in the shadows of Bunker Hill monument,” said National Parks of Boston Superintendent Michael Creasey. “This is a place in America where this nation’s destiny has been decided. It is both a site of war and a place that symbolizes the daring of America’s character.”
Creasey said the work done at the yard during World War II was critical to the Allied victory in 1945.
“So here we are, in this awe-inspiring place, to remember and to honor all the civilians that servicemen and women who fought to preserve our freedom and our values,” he said.
The USS Constitution, the world’s oldest active duty warship and the USS Cassin Young’s yardmate, also played a part with Pearl Harbor, said Anne Grimes Rand, president of the USS Constitution Museum.
In 1845, an American missionary, on behalf of Hawaii’s King Kamehameha III, approached the USS Constitution’s Second Lieutenant Joseph W. Curtis for advice on what site would be best for future fortifications.
Curtis recommended Pearl Harbor, located at the mouth of the Pearl River, she said.
“Lo and behold, many of his suggestions were taken and as we know, the base at Pearl Harbor has been fortified and served our Navy for many years,” Rand said.
USS Constitution Chief Select Jesse Kiepper said that it’s through a history of resilient defiance and adapting that the legacy of those who have fallen has been kept alive and continued, including through the global pandemic.
Their legacy, he said, will continue.
“From the days of sail, to the days of steam, to our nuclear- and diesel-powered force today: we persist because they persisted first,” Kiepper said.
The legacy and memory of the Pearl Harbor attack continues across other parts of Massachusetts, as well. The American Heritage Museum in Stow began displaying on Nov. 20 a Curtiss P-40B Tomahawk, the world’s last surviving restored and flyable fighter that survived the Dec. 1941 attack, according to the museum.
The museum has flown the fighter since 2013, operating at places like the Worcester Regional Airport, but this is the first time it is inside the museum itself, said Hunter Chaney, a spokesman for the Collings Foundation, which operates the museum.
The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday in remembrance of the attack.
Breanne Kovatch can be reached at breanne.kovatch@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter at @breannekovatch.
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Remembering the attack on Pearl Harbor 79 years later in Charlestown and online - The Boston Globe
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