Under attack
Worthington man shares story of survival on Wheeler FieldWORTHINGTON — One week ago today, Eugene Erlandson walked the halls of The Meadows in Worthington proudly wearing the cap that told his fellow neighbors he was a survivor of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
By: Julie Buntjer, Worthington Daily Globe
- Erlandson
- Dollar bill
- Survivor
WORTHINGTON — One week ago today, Eugene Erlandson walked the halls of The Meadows in Worthington proudly wearing the cap that told his fellow neighbors he was a survivor of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
While not at Pearl Harbor specifically — he was stationed on the base of Wheeler Air Field, some 15 to 20 miles inland — Erlandson will never forget the day all hell broke loose on the Hawaiian island.
Erlandson grew up the son of farmers in rural Rushmore. He dreamed of flying, and was part of the first graduating class at Worthington Junior College after completing the school’s flying program.
He was one of 10 students to complete the class in the spring of 1941, but when he took the test for his private pilot’s license, he learned his eyes weren’t good enough to be a pilot.
With his future career in limbo, Erlandson traveled to Fort Snelling and signed on for a stint in the Air Force. His options were to go to the Philippines or Hawaii, and on Aug. 25, 1941, he left Minnesota behind for basic training at Bellows Field on the island of Oahu. He was 22 years old.
On Dec. 1, 1941, upon his completion of basic training, he was transferred to Wheeler Field, where he lived in a 600-man barracks and spent his work hours guarding the gates.
By the end of that first week, with so many of his fellow soldiers going off base for a Saturday night on the town, Erlandson worked the night shift guarding the gate at Wheeler Field. He worked until 7 a.m. Sunday and then went to church before a planned day of rest.
That day of rest never came, however.
Erlandson walked out of the church that Sunday morning with a trio of guys, but they didn’t get far before hearing a rumble in the skies around them. They looked up to see Japanese fighter planes fixing on their targets.
The U.S. military base didn’t have a chance. In one orchestrated attack, the Japanese pilots destroyed the entire fleet of P-40 fighter planes — well, nearly the entire fleet. Erlandson said two of the base’s training planes were stationed elsewhere, and a pair of pilots made it to the planes, got them off the ground and engaged in attack on the Japanese.
During the attack, Erlandson didn’t have much choice but to run for cover. He found a tree to hide behind, and watched as the Japanese fighter planes flew overhead.
“I didn’t have anything — no gun or ammunition — and I didn’t know where to go to get it,” Erlandson said. He’d only been at the base six days and hadn’t learned where everything was.
The only thing going through his mind at the time was to keep hidden and not get shot.
“I could see them sitting in their airplanes and their shots hitting the trees,” said Erlandson.
He never knew how many people died at Wheeler Field during the attack. The 600-man barracks that was his home survived virtually unscathed, but a tent city set up near the hangars had been destroyed in the attack.
“A lot of soldiers (lived in the tents),” he said. “I think a lot of them were killed.”
After the attack, Erlandson returned to guard duty. He worked the gate as the dead were taken from Wheeler Field and moved to Schofield Air Base to be sent home, and went to bed with the fear of another attack.
“The first night I spent with a box of ammunition. I don’t think I even knew how to use it,” Erlandson said. “Some nights we slept with our gas mask on.”
Once the sun went down, Erlandson said the entire base was in the dark as a means of protection. No lights were allowed unless it was the small beam of a flashlight. Even vehicles couldn’t use their headlights — instead the drivers had to use small flashlights to maneuver on the roads.
For weeks, soldiers on the base were not allowed to send out any communications. There were no phone calls or letters to home, causing Erlandson’s family to worry and wonder if he survived the attack.
“It was January before they knew here if I was dead or alive,” he said.
By then, things had started to settle back into somewhat of a routine at the military base. Erlandson had returned to his six hours on, six hours off shift at the guard station, and a new batch of fighter planes had started to arrive.
“We really appreciated them when they came in,” he said.
After three years on Wheeler Field, Erlandson was granted furlough and returned home to visit his family. When his vacation was up, he returned to Oahu and became a clerk at headquarters until his honorable discharge on Sept. 19, 1945.
He was shipped back to the mainland and arrived at Fort McCoy before hitchhiking his way back home to Rushmore.
After the war, Erlandson met and married his wife June and they lived in Worthington while he worked for a local gas company. After his parents retired from farming, the couple moved to rural Rushmore, where they raised their five children.
Erlandson has returned to Hawaii four times since his military career came to an end. He attended the 25th anniversary event at Pearl Harbor, and returned for both the 50th and 60th anniversary programs. In between, he also traveled there with his wife while their daughter, Diane Otero, was serving in the Navy.
Since its inception in 1958, Erlandson has been a member of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. For decades, he and fellow survivors from southeast and southwest Minnesota gathered twice each year to reminisce about their experiences on that fateful day. The group last met in 2006, with just half a dozen Pearl Harbor veterans still living in the southern half of the state. Two more have died since then.
Erlandson still looks forward to the Pearl Harbor Gram newsletters that arrive in his mailbox four times per year. The latest edition arrived in November, and included three pages of Pearl Harbor veterans who have died since the previous newsletter.
At age 90, Erlandson is quick to say that he was just doing his duty during his years in the Air Force. Nevertheless, he has watched as both children and grandchildren have signed on to serve their country.
In addition to his daughter’s stint in the Navy, Erlandson’s son Robert was in the National Guard for 25 years. He also had one grandson, Ryan, who served four years in the Marines, and another grandson, Miquel, in the National Guard. Miquel has completed tours of duty in England and Iraq, and recently received orders to ship out to Afghanistan after Christmas.
Tags: pearl harbor, world war ii, honor flight southwest minnesota, honor flight, news, worthington, survivor, hawaii, war, eugene, veterans
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