Tim Bath | Kokomo TribunePaul Kennedy, 96, who lives in Franklin, served in the Navy during WWII and witnessed the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on December 7, 1941. That relief quickly morphed into something more sinister.“There was the smell of death. It was slightly before 8 a.m.Kennedy hadn’t gotten to bed until 5:30 a.m. after finishing his midnight to 4 a.m. shift on watch duty. Tim Bath | Kokomo TribunePaul Kennedy, 96, who lives in Franklin, served in the Navy during WWII and witnessed the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on December 7, 1941.
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He recalls the details on December 1, 2016, like it was yesterday. Body parts were all around this gun shield where all the guys were that were firing this gun,” he said. But as Kennedy worked to raise the ship’s flags, he saw a blur to his left, a sight that at first surprised him but then led to a certain kind of resignation.A Japanese fighter plane, oft-referred to as a "Zero," had just dropped a bomb on the USS Pennsylvania and was headed straight for Kennedy.“[The pilot] was coming right for me, and he started strafing, and he continued strafing the whole time,” he said, describing continued machine-gun fire. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph.
He recalls the details during an interview on Dec. 1, 2016, like the attack was yesterday. On the morning of December 7, 1941, Kennedy woke to the blaring alarm, but figured it was just another drill. It was on that ship that Kennedy did convoy duty and earned a Purple Heart after being hit by machine-gun fire from a German submarine.He even helped escort troops to Normandy, France, to fight in D-Day, helping to clear sea mines while aboard the Poole. They would strafe the guys picking up dead bodies.”During the first wave of attacks, Kennedy, then weighing 135 pounds, spent much of his time running 70-pound cases of 50-caliber ammunition from the Sacramento over a gangplank to a nearby destroyer, the USS Mugford.At one point, Kennedy even got stuck on the Mugford after the plank was lifted, requiring him to jump “like a trapeze artist” back over to his ship, an act that left him with various scrapes and bruises.He wasn’t scared at the time, though, he said, a feat he credits mostly to an almost uncontrollable rush of adrenaline.And almost as soon as it started, or so it seemed, the attack was over.
No U.S. aircraft carriers were at Pearl Harbor on the day of the attack and the Japanese assault failed to take out U.S. ammunition sites.
“And he had his canopy back and was looking down at me—and I was looking up at him. He recalls the details on December 1, 2016, like it was yesterday.
At least, that’s what those at “Pearl” thought.“When they got through doing their damage, which was severe, they killed a lot of people,” said Kennedy.