THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2021
BAKER CITY HERALD — A5
OREGON
From Bend to Pearl Harbor: Survivor
Dick Higgins fi nds his place in history
By KYLE SPURR
The (Bend) Bulletin
BEND — The room in the
quiet house on Harvard Place
in Bend is full of memories,
but when Dick Higgins needs
help bringing the oldest ones
into focus, he’ll often grab a
magnifying glass.
At 100, Higgins won’t
let himself forget how he
survived the Dec. 7, 1941,
attack on Pearl Harbor. He
has surrounded himself with
handwritten notes, books and
black-and-white photographs
at a table in the home he
shares with his granddaugh-
ter and her family.
His hand shakes as he
holds the magnifying glass
to a logbook he used as a
20-year-old Navy radio opera-
tor in Pearl Harbor. He turns
his attention to a nearby
stack of history books about
the attack full of his written
descriptions in the margins.
One note reminds Higgins of
how he sought cover under a
plane fi lled with 1,500 gallons
of fuel. The plane could have
easily exploded.
“Not a good place to be at
the time!” Higgins wrote.
Higgins has made it a point
to honor a promise that Pearl
Harbor survivors hold close
to their hearts: to remember
what happened that day and
those who died in the hail of
death delivered by Japanese
warplanes on an otherwise
quiet Sunday morning in
Hawaii.
The blue ballcap Higgins
wears nearly every day helps
with that.
As long as his family can
remember, Higgins has worn
the cap that identifi es his
naval squadron, VP-22, and is
embroidered with the words
“Pearl Harbor Survivor.”
There are seven pins on the
cap, including one that reads,
“Remember Pearl Harbor.”
People notice the ballcap
when they see Higgins in a
grocery store, at a restaurant
or on the streets of Bend. He
always stops to share his
story, just as he did 15 years
ago when he was president of
the Pearl Harbor Survivors
Association chapter in Orange
County, California. Back then,
he often spoke to schoolchil-
dren about the attack.
The last time Higgins was
at Pearl Harbor was on Dec. 7,
2016, when there were three
known survivors living in
Bend. Now he is the only one.
The other survivor in
Central Oregon is 99-year-old
Marvin Emmarson, of Sisters,
who served in the Navy dur-
ing the attack.
Ever since his trip in 2016,
Higgins vowed to attend the
Tuesday, Dec. 7 ceremony
honoring the 80th anniversary
of the attack. The great-grand-
father isn’t planning another
trip. His family knows he has
longevity in his veins, but the
reality is that if Higgins lives
to see the 85th anniversary, he
will be too frail to travel.
For the centenarian to
stand on the edge of the
harbor this week, at the place
where his life was cemented
into history, is a moment that
will never happen again.
“I want to reminisce and
see the beach down there
again,” Higgins said. “I’ll try to
fi gure the details of that day
and honor the people who lost
their lives.”
Ryan Brennecke/Bulletin fi le photo
Dick Higgins smiles while talking with a visitor during
his 100th birthday celebration in Bend on Saturday,
July 24, 2021.
got a chance to live the kind
of full life survivors did. In
the years after the attack,
Higgins pursued a career in
radio engineering, got married
and raised two children. In
the 1960s, he briefl y ran a
Winchell’s Donut House in
Southern California. Today,
he has two grandchildren and
four great-grandchildren, who
are all accompanying him on
the trip back.
All the men in Higgins’
barracks survived the attack.
But Higgins still witnessed
the destruction that killed
2,390 Americans.
Higgins served in a
130-member squadron and
was assigned to a fl ight crew
as a second class radioman
on Ford Island in the center
of Pearl Harbor. He often fl ew
on missions in PBY Catalina
amphibious aircraft.
The devastation sticks with
the survivors. Some have even
returned after death, their
ashes interred by divers on
the sunken hull of the battle-
ship USS Arizona, which lies
on the harbor bottom below
a gleaming white memorial.
More than 900 Arizona crew-
men remain entombed in the
ship.
Emily Pruett, a spokes-
person for the Pearl Harbor
National Memorial, whose
great-uncle survived the
attack, said the survivors are
living links to that era.
“It’s so meaningful for ev-
erybody to have that tangible
access to the past,” Pruett said.
Their motivation to return
inspired the National Park
Service to host an 80th an-
niversary event, despite the
complications created by the
COVID-19 pandemic, Pruett
said. Last year’s anniversary
was done virtually due to the
virus.
Pruett expected Tuesday’s
ceremony to host between 150
to 250 World War II veterans,
including about 40 Pearl
Harbor survivors. Their pres-
ence is especially meaningful
because for many, it will be
their last visit. The youngest
Pearl Harbor survivors today
are 98.
“Their willingness to travel
speaks to their generation’s
character,” Pruett said.
Their attendance is im-
pressive for another reason.
No more than 75 survivors
are thought to be alive, said
Kathleen Farley, the Califor-
nia chapter president with
Sons and Daughters of Pearl
Honoring the legacy
Going back to Pearl Harbor Harbor Survivors.
Farley said the fi rst cer-
honors the dead who never
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emony at Pearl Harbor was
held in 1966 to mark the 25th
anniversary of the attack.
Before then, the Pearl Harbor
Survivors Association formed
in 1958 and held a reunion
Dec. 7, 1960, at Disneyland.
The association disbanded
in 2011, due to the survivors
getting older, leaving Sons
and Daughters chapters to
keep the memories alive.
Today, there are 13 chapters
in 12 states.
Farley, a retired high school
teacher from Concord, Califor-
nia, has worked with the Sons
and Daughters group for more
than 30 years. She has dedi-
cated her life to preserving the
legacy of those who fought and
died that day. Her father, John
J. Farley, was aboard the USS
California during the attack.
He survived for one reason.
“He knew how to swim,”
she said.
Farley went back to Pearl
Harbor with her father for the
50th anniversary in 1991, and
again every fi ve years until
her father’s death in 2007. She
has gone back every year since
to honor him.
The site of the attack is
sacred to the survivors and
the need to return is powerful,
Farley said.
“I have heard from many
survivors that they will return
to Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7 to be
the voice of the survivors that
didn’t make it,” Farley said.
For most of the last 80
years, the Pearl Harbor sur-
vivors have returned to mark
each anniversary. They joined
diplomats, admirals and presi-
dents. They brought memories
to share and children — and
later, grandchildren — to
share them with.
The 50th anniversary drew
more than 2,000 survivors,
who were feted with a parade
through the streets of Waikiki.
Time has thinned their ranks,
however.
By 2016, an estimated 300
survivors returned for the
75th anniversary. About 15 ar-
rived in 2018 and a dozen the
following year.
Their annual pilgrimage
has been called a last hurrah
for several decades, but it may
fi nally be true in 2021.
Higgins has returned to
Pearl Harbor several times.
His fi rst trip back was in
1991 with his late wife, Win-
nie Ruth Higgins, to mark
the 50th anniversary of the
attack.
He went back fi ve years
later, and he was there for the
60th anniversary, less than
three months after the terror-
ist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
About 800 Pearl Harbor Sur-
vivors returned that year and
the presence of an estimated
600 New Yorkers — police,
fi refi ghters and their fami-
lies — linked both surprise
attacks.
“When the planes went
into the towers I was really
ticked off,” Higgins recalled.
“Very familiar feeling to Pearl
Harbor.”
He would return three
more times — in 2006, 2011
and 2016.
When he traveled to
Hawaii to mark the 65th anni-
versary in 2006, he wanted to
see where he was stationed on
Ford Island. It can be reached
by bridge but is not open to
civilian traffi c.
Higgins and other sur-
vivors were invited to the
island for a tour of the newly
opened Pearl Harbor Aviation
Museum. He went with his
granddaughter’s husband,
Ryan Norton.
The two strayed away
from the tour to visit the site
of a hangar used by Higgins’
squadron that was destroyed
in the attack. But they wan-
dered too far from the tour
and missed the bus back to
their hotel.
At that moment, an offi cer
stepped out of a nearby build-
ing, thinking Higgins and
Norton were trespassing.
“He looks at grandpa and
says, ‘Stay there,’” said Norton,
a 46-year-old loan offi cer in
Bend. “He went back inside
and we thought we were in
trouble.”
Instead, having realized
Higgins was a Pearl Harbor
survivor, the offi cer brought
six sailors to meet him. The
sailors were no older than
Higgins was when he was
serving in Hawaii. They gath-
ered around to hear Higgins’
story.
“It was really so cool to see
these guys listen and grandpa
describing exactly what hap-
pened,” Norton said. “They
stayed with us for an hour.”
After talking with the sail-
ors, the offi cer drove Higgins
and Norton to their hotel.
Every trip back to Pearl
Harbor makes Higgins feel
like royalty. On other trips,
Higgins was stopped for
photographs with people, has
signed autographs and met
strangers who offered to pay
for his dinner.
He accepts the atten-
tion, but only as much as his
humble nature will allow.
After all, he and the other
survivors didn’t choose their
role in history.
“It felt nice that they were
honoring us,” Higgins recalled.
“We were just doing what we
were supposed to be doing.”
From the Dust Bowl
to Waikiki
Higgins smiles whenever
he calls himself a survivor.
And he’s not always referring
to Pearl Harbor. He’s been at
the forefront of other major
moments in American History.
In the 1930s, he overcame a
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childhood in the Dust Bowl
and Great Depression. Last
year, he beat COVID-19 when
he was 99.
And three weeks before
the trip, Higgins was briefl y
hospitalized in Bend, suffering
from pneumonia symptoms.
He was born July 24,
1921, near the small town
of Mangum, Oklahoma. His
parents, Ernest and Lula
Elizabeth Higgins, were farm-
ers who grew cotton, corn, and
grain and often struggled to
make ends meet.
“We were po’folks,” Higgins
likes to say in his Sooner
accent.
One of Higgins’ childhood
memories is seeing the large
plumes of dust blanket his
town.
“The dust came rolling in
on the ground,” Higgins said.
“Street lights came on around
noontime because it was so
dark.”
Higgins went to high school
in a class of 13 students. After
school, he worked in a hat fac-
tory and dreamed of a better
life. In December 1939, Hig-
gins enlisted in the Navy and
was assigned to an air station
in San Diego, where he saw
the ocean for the fi rst time. He
was 18.
Higgins couldn’t believe his
luck when he was assigned to
Pearl Harbor in October 1940.
Living in Honolulu was like
visiting a remote paradise. He
spent his free time bodysurf-
ing off the shore of Waikiki,
laying on the beach to get a
suntan and fl irting with girls
at a local malt shop. He even
tried surfi ng once.
“Those things would turn
you every way but loose,” Hig-
gins said of riding a surfboard.
“I tried that and I couldn’t do
it. I was not a good swimmer.”
Higgins made friends with
the men in his squadron,
and they would stay out late
exploring the island. But they
had to be back by midnight.
They called it their “Cinderella
liberty.”
One evening, Higgins and
a friend took out a boat in the
harbor and invited some girls
to join them.
They had no idea a war
loomed over the horizon.
“We had some good times
out there,” Higgins said. “The
Japanese messed it up.”
‘It keeps him alive’
The attack on Pearl
Harbor began when Japa-
nese planes dropped out
of the skies above Oahu at
7:55 a.m., the same moment
every year that the base falls
silent and those gathered
there pause to refl ect on the
fury unleashed that day.
For nearly two hours that
Sunday, Japanese bombers
and torpedo planes delivered
blow after blow, and not
only at Pearl Harbor, but
across Oahu. When they had
fi nished, boils of fi re and black
smoke rose over the harbor,
and the U.S. Pacifi c fl eet had
been severely crippled.
Higgins woke up that
morning to the sound of Japa-
nese warplanes overhead. He
was ordered to stay in his bar-
racks during the fi rst wave of
the attack. Higgins’ command-
ers then sent his squadron to
the airfi eld to salvage as many
airplanes as possible.
“We fi nally got down to the
hangar and started moving
planes around to get them
away from the ones that were
on fi re,” Higgins said. “When
they explode, they throw gas
over the others.”
Higgins was covered in ash
and oil as he moved planes
on the airfi eld. He worked
nonstop and didn’t return to
his barracks for three days.
He was assigned to saving
planes rather than people, so
he was spared the trauma of
watching his colleagues die.
Other survivors are left with
the unsettling memories of
seeing friends disappear into
the water.
Still, Higgins experienced
carnage he could not have
imagined.
“They witnessed it all day,”
said Angela Norton, Higgins’
granddaughter. “He was out
there working and trying
to get everything back to
somewhat normal for them to
be able to get out and start a
war.”
Norton, 44, is her grandfa-
ther’s primary caregiver since
he moved in with her family
in 2015. She watches over
him along with her 7-year-old
son, Josiah, and 2-year-old
daughter, Noelle. She listens
to her grandfather’s stories
and takes videos of him for his
Instagram account, where he
shares the history of his life.
In recent years, on the
anniversary of the Pearl
Harbor attack, Norton leads
her grandfather to the frozen
shore of the Deschutes River
for the annual ceremony at
Brooks Park in Bend. Norton
has made it her mission to ful-
fi ll Higgins’ dream of return-
ing for the 80th anniversary.
“It keeps him alive, having
this goal,” Norton said. “It’s all
he talks about.”
At some point on Tuesday,
perhaps after the ceremony
at Kilo Pier, Higgins and his
family planned to make the
short walk to the shore of
Pearl Harbor and embrace the
memory one more time.
It is tradition to throw a
fl ower lei into the water near
the USS Arizona Memorial.
Half of the dead at Pearl Har-
bor were on the battleship.
Higgins planned to reach
the waterfront and honor the
promise he has kept for eight
decades.
He would look out at the
harbor and then gently toss
the lei.
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