James Downing's Attack On Pearl Harbor

On December 7, 1941 the bombing of Pearl Harbor happened. The leader of Japan, Yamamoto Isoroku, sent off planes to destroy our ships. They wanted to make sure we didn’t interfere with their plans. Japan wanted to take over part of Europe and they thought we would get in the way. According to the Atomic heritage foundation, the Japanese sent over 43 fighters and 51 dive-bombers to drop bombs. They also sent 40 torpedo planes from six carriers that floated 200 miles north of Pearl Harbor. The Japanese killed 68 civilians and 2403 people died on the ship. They destroyed half of our planes too. One of the survivors said “It was my first day on the board. I was going over to check out the planes when i saw a fleet of them in the sky.
James Downing was part of the navy unit on pearl harbor. He was only 28 at the time and it was his 9th year in the navy. James remarked “I was doing my daily job, to find out that we were under attack.” James Downing was a gunner's 1st mate and postmaster. He was eating breakfast with a couple other service men. His wife, Morena, was cooking the breakfast. They were fine until they heard a few explosions go off. “Then an anti-aircraft shell landed right outside and blew a crater about 25 feet across,” Downing said, illustrating with outstretched arms. He did his duty and jumped into a truck with the other service men, but before they left his wife gave him a piece of paper with a verse of Scripture from Deuteronomy 33:27: “The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” Downing was going to rely on his training to stay alive and win this battle. It took them 20 minutes to get to the war zone, to see a devastating scene of ships sinking. “My first emotion was surprise, and the next thing was fear,” he said. “When I saw our ships, almost all of them, sunk there, I wondered, ‘What else are they going to do to us here?” James Downing was doing all he can to get the injured soldiers off the ships and fight the fires from the bombs. He was “The first Japanese I encountered was flying low and slow, so low you could almost see his eyes,” Downing said. Bullets from the plane whizzed near the top of his head, but Downing was not hit by the bullet. He was covered in oil and running from one chip to the next, Downing said he was overcome by a new emotion every time. Lt James Downing said” There were lots of heroic risk taken by many soldiers to save others lives. They were many heroes that day, that died trying to save