Pearl Harbor survivors among Iowa’s last

Daniel Kramer will be 100 years old in September. But the events of a clear December morning when he was 25 remains fresh in his mind.

'I thought it was a drill,' Kramer said as he sat in his recliner last month next to his wife, Mary Jane, in a small suite at Prairie Hills Assisted Living in Clinton. 'It was Sunday, 8 a.m., I thought, 'What a nutty time to have a drill.''

What he was seeing that morning wasn't a drill — it was the Japanese Air Force bombing Pearl Harbor.

Kramer is among the last known living Pearl Harbor survivors in Iowa, as the 75th anniversary of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack nears.

Kramer, who had graduated from Dubuque Senior High School and attended the University of Iowa, enlisted in the Naval Reserve on Labor Day weekend 1940.

'Sleeping in a tent in the rain didn't appeal to me,' he said. 'I'd never seen the ocean, and I wanted to travel the world.'

Kramer trained at Great Lakes Naval Station near Chicago. He eventually was sent to Hawaii, where as an ensign he was assigned to the USS California.

On the morning of Dec. 7, Kramer, who was training with Senior Ensign John Renfro, reported to his battle station on the bridge of the California.

'I was the most junior officer. I was standing there with my mouth shut and my ears open,' Kramer said.

The crew tried to get the California underway, but it didn't make it.

'Nobody ever dreamed that it would happen,' Kramer said of the attack. 'That's why it was so successful. It was way beyond imagination.'

Kramer said he heard a large roar as the planes hit a number of ships, including his and the USS Arizona, which exploded and sank. At that time, the USS Oklahoma, USS Nevada and USS Tennessee were between the California and the Arizona.

That morning, Francis Riley, 93, was a signalman aboard the USS Vestal, which was tied up to the Arizona at the time, preparing to install radar on the battleship.

Riley is a What Cheer native who was 18 years old and living in Cedar Rapids when he decided to join the Navy on Jan. 2, 1941.

'The guys coming back on leave seemed happy,' he said last week while sitting at the kitchen table inside his cozy ranch home in northwest Cedar Rapids.

Riley also was sent to Great Lakes Naval Station to train before being sent to Pearl Harbor. On the morning of Dec. 7, he was on the bow of the Vestal when the Japanese bombed the Arizona.

'They flew over the bow and one of the (Japanese pilots) smiled and waved. He sure didn't look mad. I didn't know what that was,' he said.

Riley, as with Kramer, remembers the tremendously loud noise as he watched the Arizona explode.

'It blew the captain (of the Vestal) and the people coming aboard into the water,' Riley said.

The Vestal's captain, Cassin Young, was able to get back aboard.

'Someone had yelled, 'Abandon ship,' and he got on the loudspeaker and ordered us to get the ship underway,' Riley said.

Two tugboats came to help. The first was blown up, but the second, which Riley had signaled, made it to the Vestal.

The ship was able to escape its berth and ultimately grounded on 'Aiea Bay. Young was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions, but he later died at Guadalcanal.

'I loved him, he was a great guy,' Riley said of Young. 'He saved our ship.'

After the attack, Kramer said it was 18 days before his wife learned from a postcard that he had survived.

'You just didn't know,' recalled Mary Jane Kramer, who is now 98. 'It was a relief to find out he was alive.'

Kramer and Riley's paths diverged after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Kramer served with the VII Interceptor Command for a while in Hawaii before being assigned to the USS Absecon (AVP-23) in Florida, where he helped train pilots. He was honorably discharged from the military in December 1944.

'I was happy to see the war end. There was a lot sadness. I lost a lot of friends,' he said.

Afterward, he came back to Iowa and worked for DuPont in Clinton until retirement.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Riley went on to serve in Italy, France and England. He also was present during the Battle of Casablanca and served on Okinawa. After the war, he was near Bikini Atoll when the United States tested nuclear explosives.

'We were 10 miles out. It tested us just as much,' he said.

Riley also spent time in China before coming back to the United States.

'I got around the world a couple of times,' he said.

When he returned to Iowa, Riley worked at Cryovac as a printer before retiring.

Kramer and Riley have revisited Pearl Harbor since the war ended. Kramer went for the 25th anniversary in 1966, as well as the 50th anniversary in 1991. Riley also attended the 50th anniversary celebration.

''91 was fantastic. Ten thousand veterans returned. It was just unbelievable,' Kramer said. 'There was a big parade of everyone who served on the ships.'

Kramer said Pearl Harbor hadn't changed a lot, and he could still recognize it.

'I think of that day and what happened. We were not fully alert,' Kramer said. 'It's always the unexpected that causes the worst damage.'

Riley said when he went to Pearl Harbor in 1991, he was the only Vestal crew member there. There had been 250 people on the ship.

Kramer and his wife aren't planning to go out for the 75th anniversary celebration this year, but Riley's daughter, Vi Steine, said there is a possibility Riley will go.

'If his health holds out, we'll see,' she said.