NH Jax remembers Pearl Harbor Day

Guest speakers were Henry Griffin, then a 19-year-old Army private, who was dining at Schofield Barracks when the air attack began and retired Chief Petty Officer Leonard Purifoy, who was a 23-year-old Sailor relieving the watch in the fire room on board USS Utah (BB31/AG16), when the ship was torpedoed and sank. Both spoke about their experiences and thanked the staff for their continued efforts.

Griffin explained he was, "a plain old Army dogface, an infantryman who was out there in it, with it and among it." He was eating breakfast in Schofield Barracks, a three-story concrete building, when two Japanese zeroes strafed the mess hall. The soldiers took cover between the windows as bullets flew through the air. "I was scared to death. I didn't know which end was up," he said.

Following the attack, he was assigned to a unit that dug machine gun positions into the cliffs along the north shore of Hawaii.

Purifoy recalled that infamous morning on board USS Utah, a Florida-class dreadnought battleship with teak decks covered with six inches of timber. The ship had been disarmed and converted to an auxiliary ship that was being used as a water-bombing target ship at the time. He was relieving the watch in the fire room when the attack began. "All hell broke loose," he remembered.

"When the first torpedo blew out the boilers in the Number Two Fire Room, I ran like the devil."

Water was pouring through the porthole as he ascended the ladder to the main deck. Bullets were splintering the wooden deck right in front of him.

He recalled removing his shoes and placing them side-by-side just prior to entering the water. The ship was listing badly and turned bottom-up in eight minutes.