The Japanese fighter plane flew so close to Bernie Ordos that he saw the pilot "plain as day."
Ordos said he was about to be relieved from guard duty at the Navy base at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, when waves of Japanese fighter planes launched the surprise attack that hurtled the United States into World War II.
"I was waiting to go to breakfast. I never made it," said Ordos, 87, who will participate in a Pearl Harbor memorial ceremony at 12:55 p.m. today at Allegheny County Airport in West Mifflin.
He has thought about that morning every day for 66 years.
The Japanese planes hit the U.S. Fleet and its base at 7:55 a.m. An hour and a half later, five of eight battleships were sunk or sinking and the rest were damaged. Several other ships and hundreds of Hawaii-based combat planes were destroyed.
The bombers killed more than 2,400 Americans that day.
"One flew right over us and was machine-gunning toward a hill behind us. I could see that guy plain as day," said the West Mifflin man, one of about 46 Pearl Harbor survivors in Pennsylvania.
Ordos said he didn't initially realize the base was under attack. But when a plane took out a tank filled with gasoline about 100 yards from where he stood, the reality set in.
"Another came down on a steep dive and let his bombs go near the enlisted men's barracks. It was terrible," said Ordos, who was 21 years old.
Ordos and other soldiers grabbed weapons and jumped onto trucks that were heading to set up artillery positions.
"I was in the last truck. It was the worst place to be. They were firing machine guns at us. But I came through."
While her husband was fighting in the Pacific, Betty Ordos, 85, a self-described "Munhall girl," was living with his mother and working at a factory making gaskets for the war.
She wasn't able to communicate with her husband for about three months. She didn't know if he was dead or alive.
"It was a terrible thing. I thought he'd be killed," she said. The couple recently celebrated their 67th wedding anniversary.
Ordos served the remainder of his duty in Seattle and was joined there by his wife, who got a job working on bombers for Boeing.
Returning to Pennsylvania, he found a job at U.S. Steel's Homestead Works and worked in the mill for 35 years.
Ordos is a member of VFW Post 914 in West Mifflin.
"It's an honor to have someone who is a Pearl Harbor survivor as a member of our post. He is something else," said post Cmdr. Joseph Popovich.
Larger text
Smaller text
Print this article
E-mail this article
