Where We Stand: A rainbow reminder

We paid the fee and boarded the boat, camera in hand, on a beautiful day in July 10 years ago.

The tour guide gave a brief history on a crackling speaker as we made our way across a peaceful harbor toward the familiar-looking but nonetheless strange monument perched above the water.

As we neared the dock, the guide asked that we remain as quiet as possible during our visit out of respect for the dead.

From this experience, I can tell you I have never been so humbled in my life. Never has a monument to sacrifice left such an impression on me.

The difference?

The dead memorialized by the USS Arizona monument seem just out of reach below the oil-stained water.

Reading about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor is nothing like standing there, seeing how close those nearly 1,000 men were to breathing air, and life.

Finding a quiet spot along the railing, I dropped the flower the tour guide had given each of us onto the surface of the harbor and watched it drift toward the end of the ghostly underwater outline of the ship. It’s almost perfectly quiet except for the occasional click of a camera or the whisper of a mother explaining that they will get to go to the beach later, now is a time to pay respect.

The light at that moment caught the oil on the surface of the water, causing a moving tapestry of rainbows just above the sunken tomb. It is said that the ship held “1.4 million gallons of fuel ... when she sank.” More than 60 years later, about nine quarts still surfaces from the ship each day. Some Pearl Harbor survivors have referred to the oil droplets as “Black Tears.”

Upon returning to the mainland and buying reprints of newspapers announcing the attack, we found an old man telling stories about his survival that Sunday morning in December. He even circled himself in one of the front page photos and proudly autographed our souvenirs. I’ve often wondered since how many more people he was able to educate in the years after our visit.

In total, there were more than 2,400 servicemen, women and civilians killed that day.

Among those, South Carolinians reported as killed at Pearl Harbor on the Web site, www.pearlharbor.org, are all listed under the USS Arizona. They were Wayne A. Lewis, John M. Meares, Douglas C. Moore, James C. Moore, James G. Nations, Broadus F. West, Vernon R. White, Jack H. Williams and Henry Lloyd Lee, who was a native of Conway.

Most Florentines heard of the horror via their radios, and it was, as Dr. G. Wayne King said, “One of the rare times that the Florence Morning News put out an ‘extra.’ It was sorely needed as hundreds of citizens, stunned and bewildered by the news..., milled around in the street in front of the newspaper office on East Evans Street.”

The shocking attack by foreigners on their fellow Americans was the spark many young people needed to join the military.

Pee Dee residents did their part and, as we honor all who died on Dec. 7, 1941 at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, think especially of those nine men from South Carolina who perished so far from home so long ago.

When by chance I find myself standing next to a puddle with an oily rainbow swirling on top, it will forever remind me of my visit to the USS Arizona and the promise of freedom that all who died gave their lives for that day.

— Gretchen Huggins is a Francis Marion University history graduate. Her column, “Where We Stand,” appears Mondays in the Morning News and on scnow.com. Contact her at peedeehistorygirl@yahoo.com.