On this 76th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, Governor Pete Ricketts has signed a proclamation marking December 7, 2017, as Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day in Nebraska.
Three of Nebraska’s four remaining Pearl Harbor survivors attended a special ceremony in Lincoln on Wednesday: 96 year old Walter Barsell of Wahoo, 99 year old Ed Guthrie of Omaha and 94 year old Melvin Kennedy of Grand Island.
Barsell says things happened so fast on that Sunday morning. "First, we could smell the flowers in the air. It was the South Pacific, Sunday morning sunshine and everything. Five minutes later, we couldn’t smell flowers. We could smell burning oil and gasoline, and it was all chaos." After the attack, Barell says Americans got together' “We don’t want to go through anything like that again, but I would like to see us get together.” Barsell was on shore duty for the U.S. Navy in the Receiving Station Barracks when the attack on Pearl Harbor took place.
Barsell and others were told to run as they had no weapons, and after hiding in a pineapple field, he returned to the docks to clear debris and help survivors from the water. After serving six years in the U.S. Navy, Barsell returned to Nebraska where he worked for Hinky Dinky.
On that morning in 1941 Guthrie was sitting on the deck of the USS Whitney reading a comic book. He saw the Japanese planes approach and drop their bombs and watched them hit the other ships. Guthrie spent three days picking up survivors and bodies in the oily water. He went on to serve on the USS Banner and participate in the atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll. He was discharged from the Navy after six years and returned to Omaha where he was an electrician at OPPD.
Kennedy served on the USS Rigel, which was docked at Pearl Harbor the day of the attack. He spent three days after the attack searching for survivors and bodies in the harbor. Kennedy also served on the USS Clark, taking care of the ship’s lifeboats and manning the pointer position on an antiaircraft gun while heading to the Marshall Islands and Gilbert Islands. After serving six years in the U.S. Navy, Kennedy returned to Nebraska where he was a farmer and a mechanic.