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Hickam Veteran reaches for the past, bids farewell to friends

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Erin Smith
  • 15th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
HICKAM AIR FORCE BASE, Hawaii --  He ran a trembling hand over the words, "PFC Jack W. Fox." Then stood up, stepped back and rendered a long, slow salute.

 "He was a great soldier," said Henry Heim, Hickam Airfield attack survivor, as he glanced at the memorial with tears in his eyes. "I knew the other guys, every one of them, but he was a buddy -- a real buddy." 

More than 60 years after the attack on Pearl Harbor and Hickam Airfield, Mr. Heim, who currently resides in New Cumberland, Penn., returned to Hawaii and stepped back in time, sharing his story and an integral part of Air Force history. 

"I don't know if I have the intelligence or the vocabulary to tell you how great it feels," he said of his return to Hickam. "It's so wonderful. And it's still sad. I try my best not to break down, but it's something. I not only look at new people but what I do is I see my friends, like at that wall over there. When I saw his name and I touched it, I [saw] him." 

Mr. Heim said that seeing his friends brought back memories and gave him a chance to pay his final respects.

"You know what, I'm [going to] get a chance to say hello again to my brothers, the men I was with, and I'm going to say goodbye to them too," he said. 

His goodbyes not only included his friends at Hickam but also a hometown friend, Navy Seaman 1st Class Paul Shiley, who was killed aboard the USS Arizona, Dec. 7, 1941. The first leg of Mr. Heim's journey was a trip to the USS Arizona for the opportunity to do just that. 

"We have a very special person on board today," said Daniel Martinez, Arizona Memorial Park ranger, as the water trolley floated toward the Arizona Memorial. "Private First Class [Henry] Heim was here on Dec. 7, 1941 and he's coming to say goodbye to a friend today, Seaman 1st Class Paul Shiley, who's still serving aboard the USS Arizona." 

Seaman 1st Class Shiley had invited Mr. Heim to the Arizona just a week prior to Dec. 7 to show him where he lived. The next weekend, on Dec. 7, Seaman 1st Class Shiley had planned to visit the barracks at Hickam Field but never made that trip. 

The morning of Dec. 7, Mr. Heim was in the barracks writing a letter to his brother. No sooner than he'd written "Dec. 7, 1941," he heard airplanes and explosions.

 "I ran up to the window and I started to look out and about that time I caught something out of the corner of my eye," he said. "I looked over and here comes this plane, and he's shooting. Not from the front, he had a gunner. He shot through the screening as I hit the floor." 

After the Japanese dropped a bomb on the barracks, it felt like a trap in there. Mr. Heim said that it was a chaotic trying to get out. Once he escaped, the 19-year-old ran up the street to the hangars, trying to get to the armory. 

"I wanted to get in, get a machine gun and ammunition and put it in my airplane, which I found out later, wasn't flyable," he said. 

It was inside what is now Hangar 9 that he was injured by the concussion of a 500-pound bomb exploding nearby. 

"I ran into [the] hangar and a guy was running at me. He went to yell something and, 'Boom!' That's the last thing I remember," he said. "I came to and there was blood all over the place. Then my attitude changed -- I got mad." 

Wounded from the blast and bleeding from the mouth, he continued on toward a B-18 parked outside the hangar, put his gun in the nose turret and started firing back at the Japanese. 

"They must have got mad too," he said, "Because they raked up one side of the plane and down the other. The plexi-glass front of the plane shattered and the plane caught fire." 

He got out quickly and ran toward the irrigation ditch, as planes continued passing overhead. 

"There were a couple of times where I could feel the shutter of the bullets hitting the ground alongside me and kicking up dirt into my face and my arm," he reminisced. "After being strafed three times, I finally got to the irrigation ditch and I thought I was safe but I wasn't because this one time, this one airplane came down strafing the irrigation ditch."

Once the attack ceased, he ran to the hospital to get help. 

"When I got in the door, I heard screaming," he said. Upon seeing hundreds of injured men, "I figured I wasn't that bad after all." 

As he was walking away from the medical group, a lieutenant picked him up in a truck and took Heim and others out to the beach to spend the night. 

"He told us, 'You won't retreat. You will fight to the death,'" Mr. Heim said. "I laid down. The [jaw] wound hurt so bad." 

At daybreak, he heard planes flying toward the base again. 

"I was lying against an officers house," he said. "I set up my bayonet then cried like a baby. I was scared. I thought this was my last day." 

But to his relief, they were U.S. Navy planes. 

"I went and got help," he said. "My tongue was split and my molars were up in my gums. It was painful." 

Mr. Heim, who was voted 'least likely to succeed' in his high school class, went on to earn his pilot wings on Nov. 25, 1942, and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1944. After flying 78 combat missions in World War II and the Korean War, he separated from the Air Force as a major.

"It motivated me as much as anything," he said of his senior class superlative. "I never thought I would ever live beyond that first day [Dec. 7, 1941]. And even after that, there were days, not necessarily here, but once I became a pilot." 

Surviving the attacks and becoming a pilot was quite an accomplishment in itself. 

"I don't consider myself a very bright person but I had to pass a written test," he said. "Not one of my buddies here wanted to take it. I said 'Well, I'm going to.'" 

"Well, you'll never pass," they said. 

"I said, 'Yes, I may not, but how do I know this if I never try?' I took the test and tried. I flew 78 missions." 

As he walked into the "I-wing" of his old barracks, now the Pacific Air Forces Headquarters building, and stepped back into time, he pointed to himself in a photo on the wall. 

"That black head right there -- that's me," he said. "That photo was taken in front of a B-17." 

Then, he slowly made his way up the stairs, noting the bullet holes as he passed to the second floor where his bed used to be located. 

"Saturday nights, we'd lie and listen to music at the Officers' Club," he said as he wistfully looked out one of the PACAF HQ windows toward the flag pole in Atterbury Circle. "After the raid, it was horror -- uncertain futures. One thing I see as I look out [this] window is the American Flag. It flew about like that. I'm patriotic. I love my country with a passion.

... And to my crew, I'd tell them, which I lost all of them, 'get the engines warmed up. I'll see ya soon.'" 

(More information Henry Heim can be found in the book, World War II in their own Words; Oral History of Pennsylvania's Veterans, pub. 2005 by Lockman and Cupper) The book is available at the Hickam AFB library.