Walter "Bueg" Warren (Editor's Note: Several years ago The South Alabamian ran a story on Walter Bueg Warren. Since then his health has begun to fail. He is currently a resident at a local hospital awaiting a bed in an area nursing facility. We felt, with Dec. 7 so close, it would be appropriate to interview Mr. Warren for a second time.)

Walter "Bueg" Warren from Millry, Alabama, entered the U.S. Navy in October, 1941; he was 21 years old. He was assigned to the U.S. Pennyslvania, which carried a crew of 2,600 men. The Pennsylvania was in drydock in Pearl Harbor in December of 1941. To give you an idea of the size of the Pennyslvania, according to Warren, it was "way bigger" than the USS Alabama.

Bueg Warren was a gunner's mate; but when the ship put out to sea one of his jobs was to "stand watch." He said about one-third of the crew stood watch at night.

Surprise Attack

On the morning of Dec. 7, he and three other sailors were in a 40 ft. motor launch out in the harbor routinely carrying messages to ships of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. They delivered messages only to the large ships, which in turn relayed them to the smaller ones. I asked Warren if the messages they carried were written and he said, "No, they were verbal messages."

When they began to hear the sounds of planes, "I told the boys in the barge with me, 'here come the xxxxx (expletive deleted) Japs.'" I asked him if he recognized them by the rising sun of the Japanese flag, he answered "No, by the motor."

The Japanese began to drop their bombs. Warren said one of them came so close that it splashed water all over him. One plane shot at the four sailors in the launch. "One of the Japs shot at us," Warren said. When they pulled into the dock, "Three men ran to the ship (Pennsylvania) and one of them didn't have any sense, he stood on the dock," Warren related.

"Did you go to the ship?" I asked.

"No," he answered and smiled. He was the one "without any sense." Little did "Bueg" Warren know at the moment he stood there, a brash young American sailor, that he was witnessing a most important day in history, the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese Imperial Air Force; an act that would bring the United States into WWII.

"They were flying in there," he said, "and one plane came so close to me, I could almost touch it." Then he added, "I could see a gold tooth in his (the pilot's) mouth." Some Japanese planes were manned by two flyers, but Warren said most of what he saw were solo pilots.

"I wish I'd had a shotgun," he added, "but they didn't let us carry weapons." He went on to say that after that time, they let them be armed.

Removing the dead and cleaning up

Warren stood and watched the attack until they sounded "General Quarters." He then ran to his ship. The Pennsylvania was not as badly damaged as some of the others in the fleet. The Japanese attack knocked out one engine and disabled one gun, killing all 37 men assigned to it. "When I got to my ship, some officers saw me and told me to help remove the dead." He was told to take the dead to the ship's magazine.

He explained that two destroyers near the Pennyslvania were "blown to pieces." One of them, the Cassidy, was sunk. A destroyer was a light weight ship that went out to scout for submarines.

He said all the ammunition the Pennsylvania had was "spare ammunition." When I asked what that meant, he said it meant a bare minimum. The Pennsylvania was, however, able to get off shots at the Japanese with guns that shot 40 rounds before reloading.

Warren said they spent the rest of the day cleaning the ship. I asked if he spent the whole day cleaning, or if at any point during the day, the crew was called together to explain what had happened? With a steely glint in his eye Warren quickly answered, "They knew what had happened."

I asked Warren if he realized at the time, how important a part of history he was that December day in 1941? "No," he said. "All I was interested in was shooting them."

Warren is a member of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association which trace their beginning to 1954 when survivors of the USS West Virginia met for a reunion in Gardena, Calif. The idea caught on. Now there are annual meetings where survivors recount once again, "the day that will live in infamy." Bueg Warren has missed only two conventions, he said.