On Dec. 6, 1941, SSgt. Leo V. Johnson was more than ready for some action.
Bellows Field, Oahu, Hawaii, where Johnson was stationed, had been under alert for far too long and the 21-year-old farm boy from Twin Lake was ready for a change of scenery.
"They called off the alert and gave us a weekend pass," Johnson, now 92 and living in Norton Shores, recalled. "When we were under alert we had to keep things hush-hush so we played poker under a blanket with flashlights."
Although he'd grown up on a farm, Johnson was no rube. "I won a car playing poker with a warrant officer," Johnson said. By the time the alert was called off the day before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, there weren't many left at Bellows Field who wanted to try their luck against Johnson.
But there were plenty at Wheeler Field, the U.S. Army Air Corps' main base 40 miles away in the center of the island.
"I filled up with 100 octane (aviation) gas and headed up to Wheeler with a couple of five gallon cans in the trunk," Johnson remembered. "The MP at the gate didn't like me because I was a staff sergeant. He knew I'd have extra gas so he decided he'd inspect the car and turned me in to the Provost Marshall."
"What do you plan to do with that gas," the provost barked at Johnson.
"Burn it in my car, just like an officer," Johnson shot back.
The bluff worked.
"Well, you better be careful," the provost warned him, then let him go.
Just before 8 a.m. next morning, all hell broke lose.
"It was hell. It's kind of hard to explain," Johnson said. "We didn't have any guns and all the planes were lined up nice and neat. All our guns and the ammunition was in the No. 6 barracks and that was the first place to get hit."
"It made me mad," Johnson said. "All that time on alert and nothing happened. At night you had to move supplies with blue (headlights) on the trucks and all that other BS and then you get attacked like that. It'd make anybody mad. We all knew we'd been set up."
Although his car survived the attack unscathed, Johnson was stuck at Wheeler for quite some time in the chaos which followed the attack.
Johnson had to sell his car when the U.S. went on the offensive in the Pacific.
"I had six hours to sell it after we got orders we were going to the Solomon Islands," Johnson said. "I sold it for next to nothing and that night I played poker and lost it all anyway."
Johnson spent the rest of the war in the Solomon Islands, maintaining fighter planes.
"We got bombed and strafed all the time," he says. "It was different from (Pearl Harbor) because we were ready for it."
Savvy fighter pilots sought out Johnson for his expertise in machine gun maintenance.
"I never had a gun that didn't work," Johnson said.
His secret was an old deer-hunting trick he learned from his big brother Theo.
"When I was a kid, Theo showed me how to use a lot of really thick oil, then wipe most of it off and that way the guns would never freeze up."
Smart enough to qualify as a pilot, the colorblind Johnson could never pass the eye exam.
"I never wanted to be a GI," said Johnson, who enlisted when he was 18. "At that time, if you went someplace looking for a job they laughed at you at said, 'You dumba--. Go join the Army.' Needless to say, most of us wanted to get out as soon as we could."
So when an eager Major offered Johnson a free trip to Borneo with the U.S. Army Air Corps if he'd reenlist, he politely declined the officer's generous offer.
On his trip home to Muskegon after the war, Johnson never paid for a meal, a drink or bus ride.
"People gave us doughnuts, coffee, pie, whatever," Johnson remembers. "In Chicago, the streetcars didn't cost us anything. I was there for four days, got drunk and never paid for anything."
It was a different story when he reached Muskegon.
"I got on the bus to ride the two miles to my brother-in-law's house and the driver said, 'Hey soidier! Nobody here rides for free.'"
Johnson worked in the core room at Campbell, Wyant & Cannon Foundry before landing a better job as a troubleshooter for the power company. He retired in 1975 after 25 years with the utility.
For years the Johnson's took the annual family vacation at the little cottage he bought in Hawaii. "That first one got covered with lava, so I bought another one," Johnson said.
Johnson lost all his war mementos in a fire which destroyed his Muskegon-area home in 1978.
He'll be 93 on March 3, 2013.
West Michigan-area men at Pearl Harbor
Killed in action, Dec. 7
Homer Hopkins, 20, Muskegon, U.S. Navy, Seaman 1st Class, USS Arizona,
Stanley Malinowski, 17), Muskegon, U.S. Navy, Signalman, USS Arizona
Killed in action
Joseph A. Butor, Hesperia, U.S. Navy, Torpedoman's Mate Chief Petty Officer, lost with all hands aboard submarine USS Golet off Japan on June 14, 1944.
At Pearl Harbor during attack
Harry Brill, Muskegon, died October 1, 1981
Russell E. Burkhardt, Twin Lake, U.S. Army, MSgt., died Jan. 18, 1973
John Cates, Muskegon, US Navy, Fireman 1st Class, died July, 27, 1990
James E. Ferro, Muskegon, nurse at Schofield Barracks, died Oct. 26, 1996
Louis J. Hammond Jr., Hesperia, U.S. Army Air Corps, died Dec. 19, 1994
Floyd Henry, Grand Haven, died April 27, 1996
Max D. Jensen, Hesperia, U.S. Army Air Corps, deceased.
Leo V. Johnson, Norton Shores, SSgt., U.S. Army Air Corps, 92
Raymond E. Lunde, Ludington, died 1987
John B. Mines, Whitehall, died 1993
Ernest B. Moran, Ludington, U.S. Navy, died Feb. 23, 1979
William A. Osborne, Egelston Township, U.S. Army, died June 18, 1997
Andrew H. Palovich, Norton Shores, died Jan. 14, 2007
Grant Playter, Hesperia, U.S. Army Air Corps, unknown
John R. Reberg, Muskegon, U.S. Army Air Corps, PFC, died Oct. 22, 1998
Dale Sartwell, Hesperia, U.S. Army Air Corps, died Jan. 9, 1972
Harrison C. Scranton, Norton Shores, U.S. Army Air Corps, Ret. Col., unknown
Basil Staysa, Muskegon, U.S. Army Air Corps, died 1984
Robert G. Walley, Roosevelt Park, died 2003
Harold E. Warren, Muskegon, U.S. Navy, Ret. Cmdr., died 1979
This week 71 years ago...
After years on the brink, the U.S. was jolted into WWII by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. At least two dozen West Michigan men were stationed in Hawaii during the attack. A hastily printed extra edition of The Chronicle gave readers the first sketchy details of an event none would ever forget.
On Dec. 7, 1941, The Chronicle said,
US And Japan At War!
Washington, Dec. 7 – Japan attacked the United States today, striking with naval and air units at the great Pearl Harbor naval base at Honolulu and at Manila and latest reports indicated that the United States had won the first battle in the new World War.
"The Army and Navy it appears, now have the air and sea under control," said an NBC broadcast from Honolulu, a few hours after the Japanese opened the assault.
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