Woman recalls Pearl Harbor attack

One Plains woman distinctly remembers a large red ball on the wings of several airplanes overhead in Hawaii. It surprised her at first, but soon she was taking cover in her own house. The day was Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941. The aircraft were Japanese Zeros heading to Pearl Harbor and other military installations on the island of Oahu. The woman was then 6-year-old Gladys Zimmerman — now Doney.

"I'll never ever forget it as long as I live," said the 73-year-old Doney, whose father, Howard Zimmerman, was a civilian contractor with the U.S. Army during the surprise attack of the Japanese.

The strike resulted in the loss of more than 2,000 soldiers and sailors, several damaged warships, nearly 200 planes destroyed, and launched the United States into World War II. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto and his Japanese fleet of nearly 30 warships, including six aircraft carriers launched 181 airplanes to Oahu shortly after 6 a.m. Dec. 7. The Japanese torpedo planes, bombers and fighters struck various targets on the island beginning just before 8 a.m. Their primary targets were the battleships at Ford Island and U.S. aircraft carriers, although the Japanese didn't know the carriers were out to sea.

Despite Japanese/American negotiations in Washington, D.C., U.S. officials later learned Japan had been planning the attack for several months.

The Pennsylvania-born Zimmerman had served with the U.S. Army before the war and was stationed in Hawaii, where he met his wife, Emily. After getting out, he went to work as a civilian engineer for the Army and was assigned to Schofield Barracks, but he also had an office at Pearl Harbor. Doney said her father spoke fluent Japanese, something he learned on his own on Oahu. Doney remembers that her father had a short-wave radio and heard the Japanese talking as they approached Hawaii. "He tried to warn the commanding officer at Pearl Harbor, but they wouldn't listen," said Doney. "They thought Dad was full of mud." Her father, who passed away about 30 years ago, then turned his efforts to getting his family prepared for the attack.

The Zimmerman family, which included Gretchen, Gladys' twin sister, and her older brothers, Charlie and David, lived about five miles from Pearl Harbor. Her brothers were born on Hawaii; Gladys and Gretchen were born in San Francisco.

Doney said she and her sister and brothers were walking home when some Japanese airplanes flew overhead. She said they flew so low she could see the pilots' faces in cockpits. It was only a few planes at a time that went over their neighborhood. Soon after the planes appeared, they ran into the house, where their mother was moving mattresses into the parents' bedroom. The kids were told to climb under the bed for protection, although once Gladys and Charlie snuck out into the kitchen to look out the window, where they witnessed an American plane collide with a Zero. "It was kind of scary, but yet I'm an inquisitive person and so I had to see," said Doney, who has lived in Plains for 17 years. Her mother screamed at the two and took them back to under the bed. She said from beneath the mattresses, they could hear the planes flying over and the bombs exploding. "It was like a whole bunch of fireworks going off," she said. "It was like a movie. The shrapnel from the bombs were coming right out of the sky and into the walls of our house. As a child of my age, I didn't realize the danger. It was horrible."

"The milk trucks that made their early morning delivery at Pearl Harbor and all the housing units were filled with Japanese and machine guns." She said her father told her that the Japanese civilians in the milk trucks shot the American pilots at Hickam Field as they went for their planes.

Doney said it seemed as though it was over fairly quick. She later found out that the outside wall near the kitchen had shrapnel in it.

But Doney said she believes their house was spared because a neighbor, a Japanese couple, put a "rising sun flag on their roof. She believes many Japanese living on the island knew of the attack before it happened. Some, she said, were taken to concentration camps on the mainland.

Once they emerged from the bedroom, all they could see of Pearl Harbor was the smoke, a result of She never saw the destruction at Pearl Harbor first-hand, but she saw photographs of the wreckage her father had taken, although at the time she remembers questioning why the water was on fire.

They didn't see their father for four days; she said he was helping with the wounded and trying to free men from the damaged U.S. warships.

She seems to recall her parents talk about a pilot friend who was lost in the attack. Her cousin, Jean Velanti, was hospitalized for three days for wounds she sustained in the attack. Her Great Aunt Olive Hanna received shrapnel in her arms and face.

"I couldn't believe anybody could be so mean and cruel." "It left such as hurt in my heart and also in my mind that even today talking about it, it bothers me."

During their remaining time in Hawaii, her family, along with the rest of the island population, had to cover their windows so that no light would show through at night. Her mother painted most of the windows; others she covered with blankets. And at night, most of the time they used candles in lieu of electricity. Six months after the attack, the Zimmermans moved to Pensacola, Fla.

She doesn't remember a lot of other aspects of World War II, but she does recall that one day her mother started screaming the war was over. "All I could think of was what war?"

Even after 66 years, Doney contains some animosity toward the Japanese people, although her daughter Debbie married an American-born Japanese man named Richard Nishida. "He hated them, too, and I loved Richard," said Doney. And she's only watched one movie — "Tora, Tora, Tora," which she believes was "a bunch of lies."

She returned to Hawaii in the 1980s to visit her relatives and went to the USS Arizona Memorial. The 608-foot battleship suffered a mass explosion on Dec. 7, 1941, and sank with the loss of almost 2,000 crew members. A memorial was erected in the 1960s. It contains the names of the crew members who died in the battle.

Doney said it was a heavy-hearted affair to visit the memorial, which brought back a lot of sad memories. Although she was glad she had the chance to be a part of history, "it's an experience I hope I never see again." President Franklin D. Roosevelt called Dec. 7, 1941 "a date which will live in infamy." For Doney, Roosevelt's statement will be a grim reminder of a day that will also live in her mind forever.