As the 67th anniversary of the day that President Franklin D. Roosevelt described as “a date which will live in infamy” approaches, Sacramento veterans Haile H. “Jake” Jaekel and Samuel E. Clower are hoping that Roosevelt’s proclamation will remain true for many years to come.

In an exclusive interview with The Union last week, Jaekel and Clower explained their personal connections to the Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and their desire and efforts to keep the memory of this day in history alive.

“We’re both Pearl Harbor survivors,” said Clower with a proud voice, as he sat near Jaekel in his Rosemont-area home. “[Pearl Harbor] was a part of the history of our nation and we feel that we are a part of a history that should always be remembered.”

Clower, 89, who joined the Army at the age of 20 and began serving in Hawaii in 1939, added that unfortunately today’s generation of youth is much less aware of what happened on that tragic day of Dec. 7, 1941 than youth in previous generations.

“You say Pearl Harbor to a lot of the kids today and they ask, ‘Who was she?’,” Clower said.

Keeping History Alive
Because of their fear that this historic day could one day fade away to mere footnotes in history books, Clower and Jaekel said that they are doing what they can to avoid such an occurrence from happening.

Among their contributions to preserving the legacy of Pearl Harbor, Clower has spent many hours as a guest speaker at local schools and other venues and Jaekel has built and managed a Web site dedicated to the memories of Pearl Harbor. The site, www.pearlharborsurvivorsonline.org, was launched in January 2002.

But Jaekel and Clower do not act alone in Sacramento, as they are members of the local chapter of the national Pearl Harbor Survivors Association.

Jaekel, 84, recalled the formation of the Sacramento group, Pearl Harbor Chapter 6, which was founded by another local Pearl Harbor survivor, Bob Addobati, in 1964. The national organization was founded six years earlier.

“Bob Addobati, who worked for the post office, had heard about [the organization], so he put it in the paper [for Pearl Harbor survivors] to get together at his house,” Jaekel said. “There were about a dozen of us or two [dozen] to begin with who got together at his house and then we got the word out in the paper again to get people to come to a dinner. We ended up with 42 people from the Sacramento area who went on the charter. They’re all dead now, except for five of us, and that’s how the Sacramento organization was formed.”

Today, the Sacramento chapter has 48 members, which is much less than the number of members that the organization had during its most prominent period in the 1990s.

“We were up to about 145 members at some point, but Mother Nature has taken its course,” Clower said.

Lessons from the Past
The Pearl Harbor Survivors Association is far from just a social organization. And the Sacramento chapter alone is continuously involved in fundraising activities, which have assisted such organizations as the Sacramento Children’s Home, Loaves and Fishes and W.E.A.V.E.

The local chapter also worked with Wal-Mart to raise funds for a national veterans’ memorial in Washington D.C. and in conjunction with the Sacramento River Cats for the designing and construction of a baseball field for children with disabilities in south Sacramento.

Clower said that belonging to an organization that unites Pearl Harbor survivors has been a great experience in his life.

“We meet once a month and have a luncheon,” Clower said. “It’s great to get together with everyone, because we’re all so close. And like Jake and I or Addobati, we’re probably more close than we would be with a brother, because of our connection.”

As survivors of Pearl Harbor, both Jaekel and Clower shared their personal memories of the morning of Dec. 7, 1941.

Jaekel, who joined the Navy on his 17th birthday, arrived at Pearl Harbor on Oct. 14, 1941, following his time in boot camp in San Diego.

While temporarily stationed at the Marine barracks at the entrance of Pearl Harbor, Jaekel, whose late brother Robert was also a Pearl Harbor survivor, recalls seeing Japanese planes prior to the attack.

“I was looking out to sea at 8 o’clock in the morning and these planes started coming over and I thought, ‘More maneuvers again today on Sunday?’” Jaekel said. “I thought the Air Corps was doing a full attack. They dived and came down and I thought, ‘Oh boy, this looks like it’s real,’ and then I saw meatballs [or Japanese rising sun emblems] on the wing of one [plane] and one of them launched a torpedo. [One plane] came around the channel and it went by where I was and the rear seat guy was pumping shells, shooting at us and I just lied down and tried to crawl up between the ties. [The gunner] was so close that I could see the expression on his face. I didn’t get hit, but the guy right below me was in the phone booth and he got hit and the phone booth just shattered.”

Later during the attack, Jaekel, who was raised on a sheep ranch in The Dalles, Ore., was injured when he was hit in his leg by a piece of shrapnel while in a boat picking up survivors in the harbor.

Clower, who grew up in Texas and New Mexico, said that he saw the Japanese planes before Jaekel since he was stationed about 20 miles north of Pearl Harbor at Schofield Barracks.

“We saw the first flight coming in of the Japanese, but of course, we didn’t know what they were,” Clower said. “My comment at the time was, ‘Hey, look at those guys there. They’re lucky. They’re going to make the turn here and come around and they’re going to land at Wheeler [Field] and go play golf and we’re going to still be on guard.’ But they didn’t make a turn for that. They made a turn alright, but they destroyed Wheeler.”

Pearl Harbor at the Forefront
With youthful vigor, Jaekel and Clower and other members of Pearl Harbor Chapter 6 continue their efforts to keep the memory of Pearl Harbor alive.

Their next effort will occur this Sunday, Dec. 7, when the public is invited to meet Jaekel and other local Pearl Harbor survivors at a special Pearl Harbor Day event at the VFW Hall, 8990 Kruithof Way, in Fair Oaks. Clower will not be present at the event, as he will be joining three other local survivors in representing the chapter at the national Pearl Harbor Survivors Association convention in Fredericksburg, Texas.

Admission to the event is $8 and includes breakfast at 8 a.m. and a ceremony honoring Russ Burkle, a local Pearl Harbor survivor who passed away on April 24, at 9:55 a.m.

For additional information about this event, call (916) 725-5180.