The surprise of his life

Published 12:06 pm Sunday, December 7, 2008

It may be the most misquoted phrase in American history.

When President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared war on Japan the day after Pearl Harbor was attacked on Dec. 7, 1941, he called it “a date that will live in infamy.” But almost every tribute or remembrance of the pivotal event that launched America into World War II since then refers to it as the “day” that will live in infamy.

Today, Joe Scruggs of Rome cares little for the semantics of the phrase. He was there that morning and can still see the murderous intent in the eyes of Japanese pilots 63 years ago as his fellow soldiers scrambled for cover as the pilots strafed his unit. At 88, he is one of only 43 known Georgians who survived Pearl Harbor. Today is Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.

War was not on the mind of Scruggs when he joined the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1937 “to keep from following a mule.” He had dropped out of school in Knoxville, Ga., near Macon, to help on the farm but soon lost interest in continuing the agrarian life he had known since childhood.

“They put us to work fighting fires in Roseburg, Oregon, assisting the forest service,” he said of his CCC days. “After that we were put out in Georgia building trails and lakes. I was known as the ‘Kudzu Kid’ at one point, because I planted so much of the stuff. When we got out in 1939 a bunch of us joined the Army since there was a recruiting center next door at Fort Oglethorpe.”

Scruggs became part of the 21st Engineers and learned various types of construction, but primarily built and maintained runways in the Army Air Corps. While stationed at Langley Field, Va., he had orders cut for Hawaii, and landed there via ship in April 1941.

“We built barracks in Hawaii, extended the Honolulu airport and built two or three airfields,” he said of his eight months and one day in the Aloha State before Dec. 7. “Some of our pilots took off from the last airfield we constructed and knocked down some Japanese planes that day.”

Life was peaceful until that fateful date, Scruggs said. On Dec. 6 his lieutenant called him and ordered him to check out a .45 pistol from the armory.

“I was the pay guard, and he was the paymaster,” he recalled. “We left Schofield barracks and went through Wheeler Field to Hickham Field, then caught a B-18 bomber to an area called Vulcan Sands because of the black sand. It made a growling sound when you walked on it. On the way back we flew over Pearl Harbor and the ships were laid out in perfect form, side-by-side. A blind man could have hit them, they were so close together.”

Scruggs said there was also a fear of sabotage against the planes on the airfields.

“When we landed back at Hickham I noticed they were all out in the open, grouped up and not in the hangars,” he said. “They thought an open area was safer from sabotage, and it was the same way at Wheeler Field. Prior to that, we had camouflaged them in bunkers and with netting. You couldn’t see them from the air.”

The next morning Scruggs’ memory of breakfast was “you could get eggs (cooked) any way you wanted them.” But the Sunday meal was interrupted by the sound of guns firing.

“We thought the Navy planes were coming over from Kola Kola Pass, pulling a joke on us in one of their mock battles,” he remembered. “But when we ran outside, we could see the rising sun emblem on the planes, and they were strafing us. One of my buddies dived under the barracks, and his watch stopped at 7:57 a.m.”

History places the exact time of the attack at 7:55 a.m. Scruggs was asked how he felt when he realized they were under attack.

“Disbelief,” he said. “No one thought it could happen. We had no idea they’d consider pulling a sneak punch like that. Pearl Harbor was called the Paradise of the Pacific and yet all hell broke loose.”

Scruggs said the planes were flying so low they were only 25 feet above the two-story barracks. In later years he saw the 1970 film “Tora! Tora! Tora!” depicting the attack and said for the most part it was true to form. In fact, he thought he saw some of the barracks he helped camouflage after the attack. But he said the Japanese aircraft didn’t fly by fast as they were attacking.

“There was a lot of strafing,” he said. “And they came over low and slow to shoot at us. They were so close I can remember seeing one pilot with a smirk on his face, and he had gold teeth.”

The men scrambled to get their rifles but couldn’t get into the supply room for ammo because the sergeant with the key was on leave. They broke off the hasp but by then the strafing had ended. One half-track (mounted weapon) did get credit for a “half-kill” on a Japanese plane from nearby.

“We helped evacuate the wounded,” he said, noting the attack stopped around noon. “I was a squad leader at the time, and I had a group of general purpose men who could do just about anything. We started setting up the necessary arrangements for security — digging foxholes, trenches, black-topping all the buildings. There were to be no lights on inside or out, and if someone lit up a cigarette you’d hear, ‘Put it out or I’ll shoot it out for you.’ We’d also dispatched bulldozers, graders, rollers and dump trucks to other airfields to start repairing the runways.”

On Monday, he said the events of the previous day were “more or less unbelievable — everyone was in shock at the loss of life.” There were 2,402 men killed in the attack and 1,282 wounded.

As the war in the Pacific unfolded, the engineers found themselves following the Marines and constructing airfields as islands were won in brutal and at times prolonged combat.

“Sometimes the Marines went through so fast we had to fight our way back to the runway areas to construct them,” he said. “We built them out of coral.”

Scruggs was discharged in 1945 and landed in Crawford County, Ga.

“I got out and kissed the ground. Then I stood up and said, ‘You may talk about the Union and the land beyond the sea, but the empire state of Georgia is good enough for me,’ ” he said with a smile.

He worked at an automobile dealership in Macon for a couple of years, but said after being paid on Friday he was broke on Monday. He joined the Air Force after being promised his former rank of staff sergeant, and saw duty posts in Alaska, Korea and parts of Europe. Scruggs was married in 1958 to a girl from his hometown of Knoxville after 11 years of long-distance romance while he was in the service. His wife, Lucille, passed away in 2001.

After retiring from the military, he wanted to spend his time hunting and fishing but found he didn’t have enough Social Security credits for full retirement, so he drove a school bus for 18 years. His crew at the transportation department of Floyd County Schools wanted to give him a watch, but he suggested a fishing pole instead, and got his wish.

But today, his memories will be far from his favorite lakes and ponds but of the island of Oahu and the military installation known as Pearl Harbor.