As Americans pay tribute to the service members who lost their lives in the Pearl Harbor attack 75 years ago today, a local navy veteran still has vivid memories of the attack that plunged the U.S. into World War II.
Stan Hwalek of Greece was a navy coxswain aboard the U.S.S. Nevada. On December 7, 1941, the battleship was based in Pearl Harbor.
Hwalek noticed smoke on the horizon that morning, and assumed it was from a military exercise. Then, he saw a Japanese bomber fly overhead.
"They hit the ship with a torpedo”, he said. “I felt the ship heaving and moving around, and then it settled down. All the lights went out. The phone I had on my head went dead. It was pitch black and I was all alone in this little cubby hole."
Hwalek quickly reported to the ship’s turret when the alarms sounded. His job was to joist powder bags up to the vessel’s 16-inch machine guns.
The Nevada managed to get underway despite the torpedo hit and several bomb strikes. Hwalek said they were very near the U.S.S. Arizona at the time of the attack.
"In fact, I saw the ship blown up. As we got underway, we passed the Arizona, and the fire scorched the port side of our ship."
The 1938 graduate of Franklin High School in Rochester turns 97 in January. He says his memories of the assault have never faded.
"I almost come to a point of shedding a tear or two now and then. I had some good buddies, shipmates, who got killed and wounded. I was fortunate to make it safely out of there."
Hwalek joined other veterans at a Pearl Harbor remembrance ceremony in Charlotte this morning.
There was also a mass at Church of the Assumption in Fairport, in memory of all military men and women who served in World War II and beyond.
