Memories of a day that lives in infamy

Residents recall Pearl Harbor bombing 75 years later

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December 7 marks 75 years since Japanese fighter planes unleashed two separate attacks on Pearl Harbor and its environs, bombing ships, planes and airfields and killing more than 2,000 military personnel and civilians. It was an event that spurred the U.S.’s entry into World War II and a pro-war mindset among Americans that united the country.

West Hempstead resident Roger Eastman, 94, who joined the war effort by entering the Navy in 1943, recalled that the country was expecting war at the time, but was shocked nonetheless by the surprise bombing. “It came to me as a surprise that all of a sudden the Japanese were bombing us,” Eastman said, adding that his brother, Wilbur, who was only 17 at the time, joined the Army a week after Pearl Harbor.

Malverne historian David Weinstein said that the village was in a growth phase before the war started, but after the bombing in Hawaii, all activity stopped. Malverne in particular, Weinstein said, was vigilant in its efforts to protect itself from the enemy. “People had automobiles with the top of their headlights covered because they were afraid of getting bombed,” he said. The village staged air raid drills, and residents hung black-out curtains so the light from their homes couldn’t be seen from the air.

“People did with less, and had collection drives in the town,” Weinstein said. “If you brought down enough tin cans, you got a ride in a military jeep.”

Last month, the Malverne Historical Society created a display of items from its World War II collection in the post office. They included World War II clothing, signs and photos donated by residents over the years.

Asked about Pearl Harbor, World War II veteran Enedio Torre, 93, a past commander of Cathedral Post 1087, said he had just stepped out of the Paramount Theatre in Times Square after seeing a show when he and hundreds of others were shocked by the headlines flashing past on the electric news ticker on One Times Square — known as the “zipper” — saying that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. “Where the heck is this place that they bombed?” Torre remembers saying to his friends. “‘Where is Pearl Harbor?’ Everyone was in the streets, running around. It was chaos.”

Torre, who was drafted and stationed at bases across the South Pacific from 1942 to 1945, said the military also practiced air raid drills. Before Pearl Harbor, wars had been fought on land and sea — never in the air. The bombing in Hawaii gave the country a new fear of air attacks, and the military and residents alike were scared. “Where you bunked, you had to dig a hole, and every time a plane came over you had to jump out of your bed into the hole,” Torre recalled of his time in the South Pacific. “When you finally came home from the service, you ended up on the floor because every time you heard a plane, you thought we were being bombed.”

Malverne resident Joseph Sortino said he was lying on his bed in his Brooklyn home on Dec. 7, listening to the radio, when the broadcast was interrupted by a news bulletin about the attack. “I was 14 years old, it was a Sunday, and I was listening to the Giants football game,” Sortino recalled.

When he turned 17, Sortino joined the Coast Guard, and soon found himself in San Francisco, loading troops into a boat to invade Japan. “While we were doing that, we heard about the atom bomb and all of us wondered, what’s the atom bomb?” he said. “We didn’t know what it was. And two days later, there was another atom bomb, and then we didn’t have to bring soldiers to invade Japan anymore. We were lucky.”