Before 12/7/41 | A "Day That Will Live in Infamy": Reactions, Battle Station, Rest of the Day | Retrospect | Aftermath

Pearl Harbor on December 7th. Mr. Fulton was on the St. Louis. Don Shaaf. "Pearl Harbor: Remembered."

What was your official Rank in the Marine Corps?

"The rank I come out with was gunnery sergeant. That was after Pearl Harbor, after Bogenville, after Guam, after Iwo Jima. Each campaign that you went into, if you performed, you got promoted. And I had been promoted up to gunnery sergeant."

Where were you stationed?

"At the training at Paris Island. And I was there for 8 weeks. Then I was assigned to Norfolk, Virginia, to go aboard this ship [St. Louis]. And I took Navy training up there in Norfolk for Naval duty aboard this ship because the Marines don't get all of the shipboard training in Marine boot camp."

What did you think of the Japan/Japanese prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor? What were your feelings towards them?

"Well before Pearl Harbor in October, before December 7th, we had been to Manilla. We escorted two troop ships, four-five hundred men aboard these troop ships, to Manilla in October. All the way out there and back, every time we sighted a Japanese ship, we went to battle stations. We had 500 men aboard this ship: every one of them men had a battle station somewhere on this ship, gun, lookouts, bridge, or whatever. If he was a cook, all the pots and pans he had on the stove he covered them up so if a shell hit 'em, hot grease and hot pork chops didn't fly all over everything. He had a job! So at battle stations you did this. All the way out there in October, we sighted Japanese ships [and] we went to battle stations. Battle stations … it's where they're supposed to be on duty for the battle. We went to battle stations. Loaded these guns. And the only thing we didn't do is train them guns out here on this ship. We had never done this before. So we knew the Japanese were attempting something."

"Friday night, when we came in that harbor, our destroyers sank a Japanese submarine right there in the mouth of that harbor. And the reason we sank that submarine; our submarines had been given orders not to be near this harbor because they are going to sink everything. This is Friday night before Sunday morning … The United States knew that Japan was getting' dangerous: there's a possibility of attack."

Before 12/7/41 | A "Day That Will Live in Infamy": Reactions, Battle Station, Rest of the Day | Retrospect | Aftermath | Top

What were you doing when you saw the first Japanese Planes?

The USS St. Louis out at sea. "The USS St. Louis C-20."

"I was right here on the stern of the ship, raising them colors when the planes came in. And I had to run from here, it's about 150-200 feet, up here to this gun turret, 638 feet long [the ship]. We had two airplanes aboard it, and there was a catapult on the starboard and portside. We shot the planes off on that catapult. Then we … tied a sea sled back here on the stern. A sea sled is a latticework of one-inch ropes, about 10 feet wide and about 20 feet long. These planes had hooks on the pontoons of the planes. Then they would just run up on the sea sled, hooking the pontoon and catch a sea sled. Then they would pull the sea sled, and we'd pull a winch on up to the screen and they would pick up the planes. We had a hanger deck, which would accommodate two planes. That's the way we got them off and got them on, with a sea sled."

Before 12/7/41 | A "Day That Will Live in Infamy": Reactions, Battle Station, Rest of the Day | Retrospect | Aftermath | Top

When the First attacks happened, what was your reaction? What did you think, what did you feel?

"Well we knew what it was on this ship because of the contact that we had with 'em in October and on Friday night. Now there were men, I talked to men in 1991 … they thought it was a navy program or something, the army was having a training exercise. And they stood out in the yard like 'man this navy getting' close to us.' And it wasn't, it was the Japanese. They hadn't seen the Japanese planes. But when the Japanese planes came in with us, having done had contact with him on the way to Manilla and then our submarines … we knew that there was something pending. Now what did I think, well it was pretty well know that the Japanese were going to attack us at Pearl Harbor … So when they attacked that morning, we knew that they were going to carry out their threat."

Even though you had the suspicions that this attack was possible, were you still scared when it happened?

"You're always scared; in any attack your scared, but the way you take care of fear, in any attack or any battle, is by action. You do what you are supposed to do and that takes care of your fear some, not all."

"Scared, you're scared aight. You're so scared you may vomit. I never did see anybody wet their britches, but it's possible."

John Fulton Video

Before 12/7/41 | A "Day That Will Live in Infamy": Reactions, Battle Station, Rest of the Day | Retrospect | Aftermath | Top

What was your responsibility, or battle station, if an attack happened?

"That morning my responsibility was to get to that turret, that was my battle station, from the stern of the ship. To get up there and get in this turret and get the guns loaded. The guns were up on the main deck, and this magazine was four decks down. We had men whose battle stations was in this magazine. They took off to the magazine. Because the magazine was an electric hoist that ran from the magazine up to the gunroom. There was men's responsibility to put a shell in this hoist every time a prong came by. If he didn't have ammo in that hoist, we had an electric button up there. We would press the electric button signifying, 'Send us ammo.' So this was what was going on. When I got to my battle stations in the gun turret … there were 3 or 4 men in these battle stations."

Before 12/7/41 | A "Day That Will Live in Infamy": Reactions, Battle Station, Rest of the Day | Retrospect | Aftermath | Top

After the Attack Happened, what did you do the rest of that day?

Japanese submarine beached in Honolulu. "The attack on Pearl Harbor."

"Right here at 10:04, now the attack started at 7:55. At 10:04 we were going out of the harbor. This submarine … fired a torpedo at us at 10:04 and we went on out of the channel and got out in the harbor looking for the Japanese ships."

"As we got out of that harbor, we shot down two of the planes. When we got to the mouth of the harbor, the submarine was lying out there waiting for us going to sink us in the mouth of the harbor, fired a torpedo at us. And our lookouts … they spotted this torpedo coming for us … reported to the bridge through headphones. They called the bridge, "Torpedo starboard side, bearing so and so." Well the helmsman immediately changed course to parallel to this torpedo that [the Japanese] fired."

"We went out for three days looking for the Japanese fleet. They had two battlewagons, four carriers, six cruisers, and eight destroyers out there, 125 miles. We didn't find them. I'm glad that we didn't find them. They'd sunk us and nobody would've ever heard where we went down."

"Then we stayed on out and joined another task force that was out there. There were two task forces operating in and out of Pearl. One of 'em go out for two weeks searching. At that time we were reckon ordering areas all around Pearl Harbor anticipating this attack. Then two weeks later the other task force would come in, and that's why we came into that harbor and why we happened to be in the harbor. It could have been our turn to be out and we wouldn't have been in that harbor. We wouldn't have seen Pearl Harbor."

"Then we came back in this harbor … this is where we were, and this is the channel come in. We didn't tie up. Now there were docks here that we could tie up. But this Honolulu got hit real bad after we got out. The San Francisco couldn't get underway at all, it didn't get hit bad. We came in and anchored way out over here. As we went out we could see some of the damage at 10:04, but not nothing like what we saw when we come back in about 3 days later."

"When we came in 3 days later, we came back in the harbor. We had … enough ammo, we had enough oil, and we had enough food to go out there for the days that we went out. We came back in and took on more oil, we took on more food, and we took on more ammo."

Before 12/7/41 | A "Day That Will Live in Infamy": Reactions, Battle Station, Rest of the Day | Retrospect | Aftermath | Top

What did you think about the Japanese and Japan after December 7, 1941?

"I don't drive a Japanese car because the Japanese car that you or anybody else drives out here is made by a son of a man who sunk this ship."

"Speaking about the animosity that I had towards the Japanese … I had a chance to fight 'em … [at] Bogenville, Guam, Iwo Jima."

How many times have you been back to Pearl Harbor? What did you think about the Arizona Memorial?

The Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor. Budd Nease, USS Arizona Reunion Association. "USS Arisona Memorial."

"I just went back in 1991, which was the 50th anniversary."

"They land you and you step off of this boat on to this Memorial. Very few people, it ever goes through their mind that there are 1,102 skeletons down there. A man that's been in combat knows this. When he steps off, there are 1100 people, referred to as bodies, it ain't bodies; it's skeletons. Because in about 10 days … crabs sit and eat most of the meat off [these bodies]."

Before 12/7/41 | A "Day That Will Live in Infamy": Reactions, Battle Station, Rest of the Day | Retrospect | Aftermath | Top

Many people have paralleled the attacks by the terrorist on September 11th with the attacks on Pearl Harbor. With your first hand accounts at Pearl Harbor, what did you think about the attack on the World Trade Centers? Were they similar in anyways? Did you feel any of the same feeling towards the terrorists that you felt towards the Japanese?

"The attack on New York were worse because all those people were not armed. Most of the people at Pearl Harbor were armed. I did talk to one man who threw potatoes at the Japanese planes that were passing by because he didn't have anything else. But the attacks on September 11th were worse."

Mr. Leo Siekiewicz's Interview ...

This exhibit was researched and designed by Brad Garner.