Alabama man recalls Pearl Harbor attack

KEITH CLINES

Huntsville Times

ATHENS, Ala. — Gilbert Crutchfield of Tanner wishes he had had a machine gun instead of a shotgun.

If he had, he promises, he would have wiped the smiles off the faces of the Japanese fighter pilots that Sunday morning in Hawaii 68 years ago.

Instead, about all he could do was guard the railroad bridge from the mountainside overlooking Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

“I could see it all,” Crutchfield, 88, said. “I had a ringside seat for it.”

Crutchfield was a special guest Sunday for the locally produced play “We Interrupt This Program — Pearl Harbor Remembered.” He participated in a question-and- answer segment with the play’s author after the show.

Crutchfield, who joined the Army in 1938, had been stationed at Schofield Barracks in Honolulu for 18 months when the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor in a sneak attack that killed more than 2,400 American service members.

A rifleman in the 27th Infantry Regiment of the 25th Infantry Division, Crutchfield said units in the regiment had assigned sabotage positions to guard for months before the attack.

He and three other soldiers were assigned to guard a railroad bridge on a rail line used to ship ammunition to Honolulu. They were given live ammo for the first time when they were dropped off at the bridge about 10 days before the attack.

“They told us to load and lock and challenge,” Crutchfield said.

The soldiers moved to a school on a mountain overlooking Pearl Harbor about a week before the attack. The night before the attack, Crutchfield said he played poker before going to bed in the tents set up on the school’s football field.

He awoke to the sound of shells exploding and went outside to see what was happening.

“I saw the planes and looked down at Pearl Harbor,” Crutchfield said. “Smoke was boiling everywhere.”

Crutchfield, who didn’t have a weapon, went to the supply tent where he got a shotgun and five shells. His squad went to the railroad bridge, where they stayed for several days without food or communications.

“Two or three planes flew over us,” Crutchfield said. “I could see their eyes. I had a shotgun. What good could I do?”

Later, Crutchfield was among four soldiers assigned as personal bodyguards to the military governor and stayed in a Hawaiian palace.

In December 1942, Crutchfield’s division was sent to Guadalcanal where they relieved Marines who had repelled Japanese attempts to retake the island for months.

Crutchfield served in the Florida Islands and New Zealand before going home.

After the war, he got married and took a reserve commission. He was reactivated for the Korean War and retired in 1958 as a first lieutenant.