Family of San Pedro Pearl Harbor survivor won’t let the nation forget

Most of the survivors are gone.

Fewer than 40 of the sailors who survived the Dec. 7, 1941, onslaught connected Pearl Harbor are expected to be Tuesday’s ceremonial successful Hawaii to commemorate the 80th day of that tragic day. Their ages hover astir the 100 mark.

Those remaining few, though, volition beryllium joined by different veterans of World War II and household members.

Among them volition beryllium Carolyn Brooks Wood and Robert Brooks, whose father, Edmund (Eddie) R. Brooks of San Pedro, survived the bombing erstwhile helium was stationed connected the USS Argonne.

This ceremonial isn’t a archetypal for them.

The siblings person taken galore pilgrimages to Pearl Harbor implicit the years, sometimes with their children and grandchildren successful tow. Eddie Brooks died connected May 13, 2006, astatine the property of 87.

Since then, their ngo — to marque definite the bequest of Pearl Harbor, successful each its horror, sadness and bravery, gets passed connected to generations to travel — has taken connected an added urgency.

“Time is of the essence,” Brooks Wood said successful a telephone interrogation from Honolulu connected Monday, Dec. 6.

It is up to the sons and daughters — and present the grandchildren — to support the stories alive.

Underscoring that urgency is that year’s day seemed a spot abbreviated connected fanfare erstwhile compared to earlier years, her brother, Robert Brooks, said Monday. They were connected manus for the 60th, 75th and 77th gatherings. They would person gone successful 2020 but the pandemic prevented that trip.

Robert Brooks said helium worries that the transition of clip — and the Pearl Harbor survivors dying — volition dim the memories and shorten the past publication chapters.

“It’s similar they’re astir forgetting astir us,” helium said.

Still, the onslaught connected Pearl Harbor — a time that would unrecorded successful infamy, arsenic then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt said — would look intolerable to forget.

At 7:40 a.m. Tuesday, Dec. 7, U.S. Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro volition springiness the keynote address. Throughout the play determination person besides been abstracted memorials for the ships that were successful the harbor erstwhile the astonishment onslaught by Japan forced the U.S. into World War II.

On Monday, Robert Brooks, a longshoreman similar his begetter earlier him, led the gathering of the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors Inc. The siblings and household members arrived connected Friday, Dec. 3, for a afloat play of activities.

For the Brooks children and truthful galore others, the yearly trek to Hawaii to commemorate the attacks — which permanently sank the USS Arizona and the USS Utah battleships and destroyed 188 craft — is besides a accidental to support live the representation of the 2,403 work members and civilians who were killed.

For the Brooks family, Pearl Harbor played retired successful an intensely idiosyncratic communicative that was recounted, with prodding, by their begetter — who didn’t speech astir overmuch astir it for years.

Eddie Brooks was a San Pedro kid who grew up tough, beardown and fast. He started boxing astatine the property of 8, winning a golden medal successful boxing astatine 17 portion serving with the National Guard. He ran the 100 gait dash successful 10 seconds level erstwhile helium was conscionable 15 years old, Robert Brooks said.

He graduated from San Pedro High successful the wintertime of 1938.

In 1939, Eddie Brooks joined the Navy.

He was stationed connected the USS Argonne but had spent astir of the time earlier the attack, Dec. 6, 1941, connected committee the USS Arizona, wherever 1 of his buddies from San Pedro, Paul Neipp, was stationed. After a boxing workout, they had meal and past the guys each gathered to ticker a movie — Eddie Brooks could ne'er retrieve what they saw.

He caught the shuttle backmost to the Argonne astatine astir 10 p.m.

The pursuing morning, the Arizona was destroyed wrong the archetypal 10 minutes of the 7:55 a.m. attack. All of Brooks’ friends were lost. Neipp’s name, on with Eddie Brooks’s, is connected the World War II Memorial Wall successful Green Hills Memorial Park successful Rancho Palos Verdes, wherever Brooks is buried. Neipp’s sanction besides is connected the Arizona partition astatine the Pearl Harbor memorial successful Hawaii.

The Argonne took immoderate hits but stayed afloat. The unit mobilized and sent retired a tiny rescue team, which included Eddie Brooks, to the USS West Virginia.

Some of the men were frozen successful fear, Eddie Brooks recalled later. Others were crying.

But Eddie Brooks was mad.

“All Eddie knew was that helium was huffy and wanted to fight,” Robert Brooks wrote years aboriginal astir his father’s experiences. “They loaded their instrumentality into the centrifugal whale vessel and headed for battleship enactment and the West Virginia. They were the archetypal rescue trade retired into the bay.

“Three-quarters of the mode crossed the bay, 2 Japanese planes dove connected them with their instrumentality guns wide open. Eddie turned to the 2 planes and shook his fist astatine them. He was cussing and saying the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ with each different word.”

The country was caught connected camera and past reproduced successful a coating commissioned by Robert Brooks years later.

When the centrifugal of their rescue vessel was changeable out, the men were told to instrumentality up the oars.

“My dada grew up with oars successful his hands,” Robert Brooks said. “His gramps had a lobster concern successful San Pedro.”

Arriving astatine the bow of the West Virginia, the crewmen made their mode to the injured.

Robert Brooks said his begetter told him the sights they saw that time were horrific.

Until then, the United States had stayed retired of the struggle playing retired successful Europe.

During a 1998 oral past interrogation for the Pearl Harbor memorial successful Hawaii, Eddie Brooks recalled the experience.

“We weren’t successful a warfare before. And each of a sudden, present comes each these planes,” helium said. “And they’re bombing, they’re diving and diving and diving. And bombs going off, and I seen radical crying. I seen ’em praying.”

Brooks Wood, 71, of Sarasota, Florida, has enactment unneurotic a tiny book, “From Pedro to Pearl,” that she’s selling connected eBay. Her brother, 73, of Cypress — retired from ILWU Local 94 — is looking to constitute a much in-depth publication astir their father’s experiences.

The household wants to support the memories of Pearl Harbor — arsenic traumatic arsenic they are — alive.

Robert Brooks, for his part, recalled going to the 60th day successful 2001, an particularly poignant infinitesimal since it came conscionable months aft the 9/11 attacks. Eddie Brooks was on for that one.

“There were inactive rather a fewer Pearl Harbor survivors and veterans,” Robert Brooks said of that gathering. “It was close aft 9/11 and determination were immoderate firemen determination who were progressive successful that. The closeness betwixt the Pearl Harbor survivors and the firemen was thing to see.”

While determination aren’t galore survivors astatine this week’s event, Brooks Wood said, she has managed to question them out, portion recorder successful hand. She grabs them erstwhile they locomotion by their luncheon array oregon she sees them with others strolling the grounds.

“It’s a driving unit successful me,” she said, “to speech to them, to get 1 much story.”