Ed Wentzlaff, a 24-year-old sailor, stood on the deck of the USS Arizona in Hawaii's Pearl Harbor, waiting for church services to begin. It was the morning of Dec. 7, 1941. "This was a day of days. This day was like the Garden of Eden. It was beautiful, about 87 out, and water temperature about 80, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky," Wentzlaff, now 94, recalled from his home in Milaca, Minn. "As I looked up in the forward part toward the naval hospital where the channel goes out to sea, this airplane made a big turn and it had a big red ball on the side. I didn't say anything at the time, I just looked and the next thing you know the guy's machine-gunning us."
Hundreds of Japanese planes, so thick they blocked out the sun over Oahu, howled out of the sky on that day 70 years ago. They rained bombs and torpedoes on Battleship Row and nearby airfields. The Arizona, hit shortly after 8 a.m. by a 1,760-pound bomb, exploded, killing 1,177 crewmen, including 25 sets of brothers.
Wentzlaff, one of 335 survivors on the ship, was spared because he ran to his battle station instead of fleeing below. Aside from singed eyebrows and hair from fires that raged on board, he wasn't hurt.
Ordered to abandon ship, he was too terrified to jump overboard, where fuel pouring from the ship caused 3-foot flames to leap on the water.
Instead, with another sailor, Wentzlaff ran down a gangway to an admiral's barge, which was tied to the ship. As the Arizona sank rapidly, it began to drag the barge with it. Wentzlaff frantically cut it loose, while the other crew member started the engine. While waves of planes continued to strafe the harbor, the two rescued survivors from the ship and plucked others from the burning waters.
"Some of them were coming apart, they were that badly burned," Wentzlaff said. The Arizona sank in less than nine minutes, but the two sailors continued to remove survivors from other ships.
When the attack ended two hours later, 2,403 Americans were dead, more than half aboard the Arizona. The next day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared Dec. 7 "a date which will live in infamy" and called upon Congress to declare war on Japan. To this day, the loss of life on the Arizona represents the greatest loss of life on any U.S. warship.
Wentzlaff, one day from the end of his enlistment period on the day of the attack, had plans to go into the resort business in Wisconsin with a Navy buddy but wasn't permitted to leave the Navy as World War II began.
He left the Navy in 1946 as a chief warrant officer and returned to his hometown of Nicollet, southwest of Minneapolis. As he looks back, he realizes he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, although he had no words for what he was feeling then.
"I thought I could drink all the whiskey they made," he said. "I didn't do a thing for a year."
Wentzlaff wanted to be a lawyer, but large class sizes boosted by returning vets on the GI Bill at the University of Minnesota proved overwhelming. After leaving the university, he married, had five children and farmed corn and soybeans for 40 years.
He served as mayor of Butterfield, Minn., for four years, and as a county commissioner and head of the local post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. He and his wife divorced in the mid-1980s, and she died this year. He has seven grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren.
On Wednesday at Pearl Harbor, when a moment of silence is observed at 7:55 a.m. to commemorate the start of the attack, Wentzlaff will be there. He will watch as a group of military jets flies above the Arizona Memorial in the traditional "missing man" formation.
The Memorial, dedicated in 1962, sits atop the middle portion of the sunken battleship, which is a final resting place for most of the sailors killed in the attack. It will be his ninth trip to the site. He will be accompanied by family members, including his only grandson.
"In the chapel, they've got a big wall there with all the names of the ones that got killed," Wentzlaff said, his voice breaking momentarily. "I look at that and, boy, it kind of shakes you up. Of course, I'm an old man and I don't have any emotion left."
Middlesworth estimates there are up to an additional 1,000 survivors who are not members. This year, the group announced it would shut down Dec. 31, because of the advanced age and health problems of its members, as well as the difficulty of filling leadership roles.
More than 100 veterans, many using walkers and wheelchairs, were at last year's commemoration, Middlesworth said. Commemoration organizers expect about the same number this year, including seven survivors of the Arizona attack. The USS Arizona Reunion Association estimates 18 attack survivors are still alive.
Wentzlaff, who is battling cancer, said this will be his last trip to the Arizona while he's alive.
"The 10th time I won't know it because I'm going to be buried down there," he said. He plans to have his ashes interred in a gun turret on the sunken ship; 33 Arizona crewmen have been buried in that sacred place. The 34th will be interred there Wednesday by National Park Service divers with full military honors. The remains of another sailor will be interred on the USS Utah, and the ashes of three others will be scattered in the harbor.
Despite health setbacks, Wentzlaff still lives independently and enjoys playing the occasional game of poker at a local casino. He devours the Star Tribune, Minneapolis' daily newspaper, and speaks to school and veterans groups about Pearl Harbor, although not as often as he once did, said his daughter, Mary Flock.
"I kind of feel I'm obligated to go back over there," Wentzlaff said. "In a way, I kind of feel guilty that I made it and they didn't. A lot of people said, 'Well, you're a big hero.' Well, you're not a hero. You're there; you have to do your job."source
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