'It Was Chaos, That's The Best You Could Say '

They only had six-year enlistments left when Walter Cunningham turned up at the Akron, Ohio, Navy recruiting office.

It was October, 1940. Cunningham was 18-years-old and brimming with the confidence of youth. With no money for college, Cunningham figured he could pick up some skills in the service. And besides, it would be good to see the world.

After boot camp, his received his orders. President Roosevelt was mobilizing the nation's defenses in the South Seas. Cunningham was going to Hawaii.

"Little did I know what was going to happen," Cunningham, now 86, said in a recent interview at his Timber Pines home.

Back then, the battleships were named after states and their cruisers after capitals. Half his class went to the USS Arizona. The other half, including Cunningham, took a berth on the USS Phoenix. Anyone with a passing knowledge of the Pearl Harbor attacks will recognize that this was probably a lifesaver for Cunningham.

Cunningham arrived in Hawaii in December 1940, with his golf clubs and a saxophone. Much of the week was spent in training exercises and maneuvers, firing at dummy ships and performing anti-aircraft drills.

Weekends, Cunningham and his pals would eat a 35-cent lunch at the YMCA and scope out the incoming cruise ships for movie stars.

Life ambled on until the fateful morning of Dec. 7, 1941. Cunningham was in his dress whites waiting for a boat ride to church when the first plane came screaming out of the sky with machine guns blazing at 7:55 a.m.

What happened next will be forever seared in his mind.

When the general quarters alarm was sounded, it was evident that all that training had paid off. The Phoenix's machine gun battery chattered to life at 8:10 a.m., followed by the roar of anti-aircraft guns five minutes later, according to the official action report for the ship, dated Dec. 11, 1941.

They were better prepared for the second wave of planes, strafing them with bullets as they dived from the sky. Concussions rocked the harbor as torpedoes dropped by the fighter planes struck their targets on "battleship row." Sailors swam for safety in water set fire by burning oil.

Meanwhile, Japanese fighters were lighting up the airfield and destroying any chance for a counterattack from the air.

Amid the confusion, an enormous explosion shook the USS Arizona that quickly sent her to the bottom of the harbor. The wreckage burned for two days and 1,100 sailors perished. About 100 of those were Cunningham's classmates.

"It was chaos. That's the best you could say (about it)," Cunningham said.

The attack was over in about two hours. Aside from more than 2,300 deaths, the Japanese succeeded in destroying or sinking eight battleships, three light cruisers and three destroyers. On the airfields the Japanese destroyed 161 American planes and seriously damaged 102.

This was obviously a devastating loss, but it would ultimately prove to be a hollow victory for the Japanese. As Pearl Harbor historian Michael Gannon notes, the aircraft carriers should have been targeted because those ultimately proved to be the deciding factor in the Pacific battles. Neither did the Japanese destroy the dry docks, the fuel farms, the power station, the repair yards or the submarine.

Had that been accomplished, "we would have (been out of the war) six months or more," he said.

Instead, the attacks only awoke a sleeping giant and galvanized the American resolve.

"It was a full commitment from everybody, World War II was," Cunningham said.

The USS Phoenix would go on to wage many more battles in the Pacific and eventually host Gen. Douglas MacArthur. The only casualty in five years occurred when a kamikaze crashed near the ship.

Ultimately, the ship would be on hand to witness the testing of the atomic bomb in the Bikini Islands. The crew was told to not watch the explosion, but everyone sneaked in a glance.

"It was unbelievable to think what they could do to this world," he said.