During the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the USS Arizona was bombed and sank, claiming the lives of 1,177 Americans–nearly half of the casualties of that infamous day.
Gillette was 10 years old at the time of the attack, living on Hawaii with his family. His stepfather, Captain Claude Gillette, managed the Navy shipyard on the island. Gillette’s sister had been invited to have dinner on the USS Arizona on December 7, the day of the attack.
Trees blocked his view of the ships when the surprise attack came, but Gillette could see the planes attacking that would sink ships in the harbor, including the ones that would bomb the Arizona. He and his family watched the 90 minute attack from their home hardly 500 yards away from the ships, where marines set up a machine gun in their front yard.
“The only planes that I saw close hand were the ones that dropped these torpedoes,” said Gillette. “We stayed in the house until the attack was over and watched the ships burn from the heights that night.”
Gillette’s stepfather was on the island of Maui throughout the attacks, and wasn’t able to return to the main island until that evening. Concerned that the now hyperalert defenses on Pearl Harbor might gun down their returning plane, the pilot wisely chose to fly low and taxi into the harbor, said Gillette. Friendly fire would take a number of American pilots returning to Pearl Harbor that day, mistaking them for a third wave of Japanese fighters and bombers.
Gillette and his family stayed on the heights for two days before returning home — although their homecoming would be short lived. Gillette’s home would be taken over by workers sent to the island to repair the badly damaged fleet, and just weeks after the attack his family was evacuated to the mainland.
“We left Hawaii on Christmas Day ’41 in the first large convoy,” said Gillette. “And we were escorted by a cruiser and six destroyers as we left.”
In the 75 years since he witnessed the bombing of the harbor first hand, Gillette has become something of an amateur historian of the events leading up to and immediately following the attack in 1941. Splitting his time between Jefferson, Maine and Texas, Gillette has conducted his own research on the events of 1941 and come to the opinion that Roosevelt was entirely aware of the imminent Japanese attack.
“People question President Roosevelt knowing about Pearl Harbor,” said Gillette. “It’s cold turkey. He knew.”
Drawing from a number of books and articles he’s collected over the years as well as conversations with his uncle, Senator Guy M. Gillette of Iowa, Gillette believes that Roosevelt not only knew of the attack, but welcomed it. In Gillette’s telling, the president wanted Japan to strike first to drag America into war in the Pacific Theater. Furthermore, the defenses at Pearl Harbor should have been enough to repel the Japanese attack if prepared.
“I don’t think people realize that Roosevelt, when he said we were ready for war, we were ready for a naval war,” said Gillette.
Poor communications from Washington and misunderstandings in Hawaii would leave Pearl Harbor unprepared for the attack when it came. Still, Gillette insists that while Pearl Harbor was a tactical disaster, Roosevelt’s long term strategy to build up the Navy and enter the war was genius.
“Roosevelt, as I said, he planned the naval war,” said Gillette. “He was a better strategist than almost everybody else — except for the last key thing. When that last radar spotting came in, everybody was unprepared. So the fact that you had 200 planes ready on the ground didn’t do you a damn bit of good. And it was those planes that were supposed to protect the fleet when it was in Pearl Harbor.”
Gillette is just one of many who question the official story on Pearl Harbor. And while the Korean War veteran questions traditional accounts of the attacks, he also hopes that we’ve learned the lessons of that infamous day.
“The lessons of Pearl Harbor, in my opinion, are: Number one, don’t underestimate your enemy. We’ve done that time and again since. I don’t care whether it was Vietnam, Korea — the war I was in — or ISIS. The second one is, you got to be vigilant.”
nstrout@timesrecord.com
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