"My first thought was they were pulling target sleeves ... but it was early and a Sunday morning, so I rushed to a screen window. My first realization came when I saw a plane in a dive dropping a bomb on the depot. The Rising Sun emblem was visible as the plane pulled out of the dive."

"It was a shock, such a shock I forgot the combination to get into the wall locker, so I broke it open. We didn't have guns or ammunition. They had issued gas masks, which was what we were trained to get."

"Guys were jumping out of bed and running around. One fellow had a blanket pulled over his head. I told him to 'get his ass up' because a blanket is no protection."

A firm believer in being prepared, Southern said. We were not ready, by any stretch of reality, for the attack on Pearl Habor. Every month, they sent us through the gas chamber, because our commanders believed the next war would be a gas war. But, they did not teach us to shoot: "I was in the Air Corps for six years, one month, and 21 days and was sent out to the firing range just once."

Southern said there were two waves of attack. Each attack lasted about 45 minutes and there was a 15 minute lull between.

Southern was on the fourth floor when the first attack began. By the time he reached the ground floor, "the whole hanger line was on fire."

"Nobody was in command," he said. A Sergeant, who believed a land invasion would follow the air attack, ordered the men to march in columns of two to go to headquarters and defend it."

Southern recalled the men scattering when the second wave came. He recalled shooting at the Japanese planes as they attempted to strife the US Flag off of the pole outside the headquarters.

"We were afraid a land invasion would follow the air attacks," Southern said he teamed up with a small group including a friend named Claude Jackson. "Claude said he wanted to be with me because I actually knew how to shoot. We moved down into a residential area and set up our defense post in a storm drain. We took off the manhole cover and braced for a last ditch stand we never had to make."

The United States aircraft carriers, which were not at Pearl Harbor the day of the attack, were returning and sent planes ahead that night. This was a mistake. "All hell broke loose. We shot down several of our own planes. I never saw so many tracers. It was a wild scene."

If the invasion had come, Southern said they planned to head for the mountainous eastern slopes. "We had Hershey bars and were calculating how many we needed to make it out. It is a good thing the Japanese didn't follow-up with a land invasion because we would not have stood a chance in Hell."

It was a survival thing. Before the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, we were on a low level alert but not in war mode. Hawaii was an isolated island paradise.

It took two to three days for us to get organized in the aftermath of the attack.

In retrospect, Southern said the mistakes are easier to see. Hawaii was a territory, not a state, at the time of the attack. Army General Short, who believed in Calvary military strategy, was in command. "We had fixed position cannons, designed to be moved by mules, which couldn't shoot down a plane."

"I went into the Air Corp to fly but wasn't allowed to after they discovered I'm color blind," he said. "I ended up pulling weeds in the General's lawn. And, then came Pearl Harbor. From there it was the Pacific Theatre of World War II."

President Roosevelt described the Pearl Harbor attack as "a date that will live in infamy."

Southern said, Sept. 11, 2001, will also go down in history as an infamous day but 911   is not the same as Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor was a surprise military attack on a military target. 911 was a criminal terrorist attack on civilians. "There is similarity in terms of loss of life," he added.

Southern said it did bother him that it was 50 years before the veterans who served in World War II were properly recognized for their sacrifices.

"Was it necessary?" is the question that will be asked in reference to every war. The Civil War was the most gruesome, followed by World War I and World War II.

The frightening element of the War on Terror is a cultural divide. "We do not understand" a failure to value human life, Southern said.