Above all else about that day at Pearl Harbor, Jim Doyle remembers the smell.
Doyle, a Navy pilot, was standing next to a hanger when the attack started. He and a few others hid under a piece of sheet metal before scrambling into the few salvageable planes.
The smell from the fires — the smell of burning flesh — was there at takeoff, and it was stronger when he returned from chasing Japanese planes for 200 miles. It is something he has never forgotten.
On Monday, Doyle and four other Colorado Pearl Harbor survivors gathered to help make sure no one else forgets, either. They were honored at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2461 in Denver where prayers, medals and the somber notes of taps marked the anniversary of the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which killed 2,403 people.
Of the 16 million men and women who served in World War II, only 2 million are still living, said retired Brig. Gen. Sal Villano. About 1,100 World War II veterans die every day.
“I feel that it is my job, along with many other veterans, to recognize these men before they pass on,” Villano said.
O’Connell Middle School students presented Wayne Martin, David Wilson, Luz Valerio, Milton Schachtrle and Doyle with handmade medals of honor.
Doyle, 86, delicately pointed to each of his service medals, including two Purple Hearts. The medals are slightly tarnished from 68 years of wear, but Doyle’s memory of how he earned them is not.
“I woke up to a nightmare,” he said.
Doyle was raised on a ranch in Meeker. He learned how to fly when he was 14 from a family friend who owned a crop-dusting service.
Doyle was 16 when he enlisted in 1939.
While hunkering beneath a metal sheet, Doyle remembers, he watched people scramble behind trees and into empty swimming pools. Few of those people made it out of hiding, he said.
“You stayed low and tight on the ground,” Doyle said. “You didn’t dare expose yourself because that meant you were dead.”
After the attack, Doyle and the others took off in unarmed planes, trying to track down the Japanese. They flew out 200 miles, but the enemy planes were long gone, Doyle said.
When Doyle and his comrades circled around to land, American forces mistook them for enemy planes and began to fire.
“I landed with bullet holes in my plane,” Doyle said.
Doyle served for two years after Pearl Harbor. He was discharged after an injury in 1943.
Jordan Steffen:303-954-1638 of jsteffen@denverpost.com
