Honoring the Survivors' Legacy - Attacks on Oahu (Part 1) Published Dec. 1, 2011 By Jeff Pappas HQ PACAF/PA JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii -- ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW #281 FRANCIS MACK--HICKAM FIELD Interviewed by Jeff Pappas on December 8, 1998, Transcribed by Cara Kimura on July 24, 2001, Oral history interview was conducted by Jeff Pappas for the National Park Service, USS Arizona Memorial, at the Imperial Palace Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada on December 8, 1998 at four p.m. The person being interviewed is Francis Mack, who was at Hickam Field on December 7, 1941. Full Name: Francis L. Mack. Birth Date: 10 April 1920 Birth Place: Rockville, Connecticut ·Arrived Hickam Field Dec 1940 ·At the time of 7 Dec 1941, he was 21 yrs old ·Assigned to 19th Transport Squadron ·Lived 2nd floor in consolidated barracks building (wing ?) ·Morning of 7 Dec, he was sitting on the barracks steps dressed in his swim suit waiting to get picked-up for a day at the beach when he saw a plane fly over Pearl Harbor. ·He kept his eyes focused on that plane and noticed it was headed for Hickam approaching the hangar line in a shallow dive and began strafing. ·Then he heard a loud explosion. ·He the rushed to his squadron's hangar to receive orders on what to do. ·A young reserve LT had several of them lined up on the parade ground to issue them small arms and ammunition (.45 cal pistols). ·A bomb exploded nearby killing twelve of his squadron-mates and wounding eleven others. ·Although the shrapnel was all around him, he didn't get a scratch. ·The reality of losing his friends left him with anger and fear. ·"The noise coming from Pearl was horrendous. And equally so was the bombing of our hangars, because just about every hangar on Hickam Field was destroyed. The bombs just tore 'em apart. It was--I don't know how to describe it, really. It was just horrendous." ·"The first wave just destroyed us. The second wave was up quite high and I, in my own mind, I figured, get to the hangar line. They're not going to bomb it again. So I headed that way and one of my friends was running behind me. And there was an explosion. I felt the concussion. I didn't feel any--I wasn't hit at all, but I turned around and the guy that was behind me, a friend of mine, his back was completely blown out; he was dead. Just like that." ·"I guess I probably cried a bit for him, you know. He was a real good friend." ·It was assumed that the Japanese were planning to invade so he and several others were instructed to take their .45s and run across the runway to the other side of the revetments where their planes would have normally been parked...and dig foxholes. ·"And I dug down. We all did. This was late in the afternoon, I believe. And we hit water because the channel had been dredged up to make the runways in Hickam Field. All that came, was coral and so forth, you know, out of the ocean. Dug down, it was water. So what we had to do was just take our shoes and socks and pants off and try to hide in there, you know, the best we could. And we spent the night that way, the whole night." ·He was married before arriving to Hickam Field in 1940 but did not bring his wife. Somehow she was misinformed by the War Department that he was dead. About thirty days later he called her by telephone to inform her he was very much alive and unhurt. ·He served twenty-three and a half years in the Air Force, retired as a Chief Master Sergeant but held aWarrant Officer 3 rank in the reserve. ·He is now 91 yrs old ·Currently living in Colorado Springs, CO Researched by: Jessie Higa - Data collected from the National Park Service USS Arizona Memorial Archives, 2010.