Pearl Harbor Survivor, 92, Recalls ExperiencesIt has been 69 years since the bombing at Pearl Harbor.
Warsaw resident Francis Rogers, 92, still recalls the battle vividly because he was serving in the Army during World War II at Pearl Harbor.
Tuesday marked the anniversary of the bombing at Pearl Harbor that was Dec. 7, 1941.
The battle was on the harbor of the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. The attack on Pearl Harbor by the Empire of Japan brought the U.S. into World War II.
Rogers, currently a resident at Gardens At Lake City, Warsaw, was serving in Hawaii in the Army during the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Rogers was drafted in the Army in March 1940 at age 22. He received basic training in Fort Eustis, Va., home to the U.S. Army Transportation Corps.
He went to Hawaii in June 1941, where he served in the anti-aircraft division in the range section of the Army.
His duties were to organize the computations for aircrafts from the ground. He made sure the computers he worked on computed wind speed, air quality and temperature when the anti-aircraft gun would shoot at the enemies' planes.
He was 23 the day Pearl Harbor was attacked, and remembers where he was.
"I was at Schofield Barracks in the middle of Oahu, Hawaii, when the Japanese attacked," Rogers said.
Schofield Barracks is the largest Army post in Hawaii, located in central Oahu.
"We saw planes come in over the mountain range on the west side of Oahu, and we were in a chow line at the time getting food," Rogers said.
He said the Japanese planes did a diving run and he saw them drop bombs and heard them explode, but couldn't see where the bombs were landing.
Rogers said, after awhile the Japanese plane made its run, circled around and the Japanese saw the chow line and started firing their machine guns.
"As they flew over us and we saw the Rising Sun Flag on their airplane wings we knew it was the Japanese, and that is when we learned it was the Japanese attacking Pearl Harbor," Rogers said.
Rogers and the other U.S. soldiers did not have ammunition, so they started across the island on the east side where the air station there had guns.
"We got over there, and by the time we got our shells and set up there, the big game was done by that time," Rogers said.
Rogers said there were nine hangars that were bombed flat by the Japanese at Wheeler Field, a U.S. Army post in Oahu, and two of the new hangars were fired upon.
"I didn't think in my brain the danger of Pearl Harbor at the time. It was going on and we were in it, and we did what needed to be done," Rogers said.
Six months after Pearl Harbor, Rogers went to Gilbert Islands and was assigned to protect an airfield on the island from the Japanese and set up a military base there.
He was sent back to Oahu for military training schooling. He trained on the electrical computer and graduated third highest in his class of 75 students.
The computer he trained on helped determine how to use artillery to shoot at the enemy, keeping in mind wind speeds and air pressure.
He went on to teach military officers on the electrical computer in the Pacific Ocean Area after his schooling.
