The ship caught fire, so he was dispatched to a bucket brigade to help douse the flames. Since it was peacetime, regulations required the ammunition to be locked up. 'Machine gun bullets were tearing up the deck,' he recalled.Īt his battle station, there was nothing he could do.
7, 1941.Įnemy planes were dropping torpedoes as Collins sprinted to his battle station, a 14-inch gun turret. Roosevelt called 'a date which will live in infamy,' some 2,000 to 2,500 servicemen remain alive, their numbers dwindling.Ĭollins, a 91-year-old engineer who retired in Clearwater, and Dilley, an 82-year-old retired Marine who settled in Seminole, have scrapbooks of black-and-white photos and dark memories of Dec. Of the tens of thousands who survived what President Franklin D. Seventy-three years ago today, the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor killed nearly 2,400 Americans, wounded nearly 1,200 and plunged the United States into World War II.Ĭollins and Dilley, today a couple of retired grandfathers in Pinellas County, saw it happen.
