LAKEPORT, Calif. – The last member of the local cadre of sailors who witnessed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor more than seven decades ago shared his memories during an annual commemoration held Sunday in Lakeport.

The ceremony began in Library Park, at the base of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association memorial mast – with a restored Army Jeep owned by Bob Bartley parked nearby – before moving across the street to the council chambers at Lakeport City Hall.

The Sunday ceremony started at 9 a.m., which would have been 8 a.m. Honolulu time; the attack came just minutes before 8 a.m.

As the United States flag was raised on the memorial mast, the Lake County Military Funeral Honors Team was on hand to give a rifle volley and play “Taps,” as Clear Lake lapped loudly against the Library Park seawall, a sound reminiscent of the Pacific Ocean.

And that's where it all took place 73 years ago – on Dec. 7, 1941, also a Sunday morning – when the Japanese launched an attack across several locations in the Pacific, with the main bullseye being the US Naval Base at Pearl Harbor.

At the Sunday morning event, Lake County's last known Pearl Harbor survivor, 90-year-old Bill Slater of Lakeport, was given the place of honor.

Seated beside him was Alice Darrow of Kelseyville, a Pearl Harbor Survivor Association “sweetheart” – the title for widows of survivors – whose husband, Dean Darrow, had been aboard the USS West Virginia. He died in 1991.

“We're not here to celebrate, we're here to commemorate a seminal moment in our country's history,” said Clearlake Oaks resident Ronnie Bogner, who along with wife Janeane, has for several years organized the Pearl Harbor events. The couple became involved with the survivors association in 2002.

However, Ronnie Bogner said there was an element of celebration when it came to recognizing Slater – who after the death of Lakeport's Henry Anderson in January, became the county's last survivor – and Darrow.

Slater and Darrow were invited to have a champagne toast reminiscent of that held by the last surviving members of Doolittle's Raiders – 80 men who had taken part in a bombing mission on Japan following Pearl Harbor – in 2013. A similar toast had been shared by Slater and Anderson a few years ago, Bogner said.

The event's guest speaker was Col. Bradley Clair, MD, a member of the US Army's Medical Corp and vice chief of staff at Sutter Lakeside Hospital.

Clair recounted the loss of human life in the attack. There were 2,335 members of the service and 68 civilians killed, with another 1,178 wounded.

He said the attack changed the course of American – and world – history.

He explained that Slater had been an ammunition handler on the USS Pennsylvania. On that morning, Slater had been sent below deck to retrieve ammunition manually because a hoist had broken. A bomb then hit the ship right where Slater had been standing.

Clair then gave both Slater and Darrow commander's medals for service.

One of the results of the war, said Clair, was that the United States “helped our enemies give birth to their democracies.”

He said there are still people in the United States with the same courage and character as the “greatest generation,” as those who fought in World War II have been dubbed.

Clair also thanked veterans of the Korean and Vietnam wars, the veterans of more recent conflicts, including those in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as those who supported the military.

Sharing memories

As part of the annual event's tradition, Alice Darrow brought with her the bullet recovered from her late husband's heart in the months after the attack.

Dean Darrow had been thrown from his ship into the water by the explosion caused by a torpedo. While he was being pulled from the water, he was hit by a bullet from a Japanese plane that was strafing the area.

Alice Darrow said the bullet had on it paint from the side of a ship. It had ricocheted before hitting him, lodging in the muscle of his heart. In the months afterward, he had a series of unexplained fainting spells that finally were diagnosed as the result of the bullet in his heart.

She met her future husband at Mare Island, where she was a Navy nurse, and he had been brought in April 1942 for what was, at that time, a rare procedure – open heart surgery.

Dean Darrow decided to take the risk that he might die of surgery over the certainty that he would die without it.

An incentive for the young sailor was the promise he elicited from his nurse, that she would go on liberty with him following surgery – a promise she had made while not really believing he would survive.

After surgery, Dean Darrow woke up and told her, “Oh, we're going on liberty, aren't we?” They were married four months later, in August 1942, and would be married for nearly 50 years and raise four children together before his death.

“He always said the best thing he got out of the service was his nurse,” Alice Darrow said, adding she worked to fill the hole in his heart that the bullet had left behind with her love.

Slater, known for his humorous storytelling and quick wit, recounted how that – at age 17 – he thought, “Man, I'm home free now,” when he was assigned to the big battleship, the USS Pennsylvania, believing he would be safe.

He thanked his daughter and son-in-law, the Bogners and all those who came to remember the attack's anniversary and the people who lost their lives in it.

Slater said that if the ammunition hoist hadn't broken down that day he wouldn't have been below deck manually retrieving shells. That's when the one bomb that hit the USS Pennsylvania landed where he had been standing.

“I was lucky then and I'm lucky now,” he said.

Slater said 24 men were killed by the bomb that he had narrowly missed.

“Death is death, doesn't make any difference where it comes from,” he said.

He pointed out that 1,100 men died when the Pennsylvania's sister ship, the USS Arizona, exploded.

Slater said the worst day he ever spent at sea was coming home on the heavy cruiser USS Salt Lake City in October 1945 and being hit by a huge swell as they were crossing the Columbia River bar in Oregon.

Slater said he appreciated his time in the service, noting it set him on the straight and narrow – as much as a sailor could be set on the straight and narrow, he quipped.

There are dark memories, however, that he carries with him, and one of those come through during Slater's comments Sunday.

He said he recalled an officer coming to him on the day of the Pearl Harbor attack with a pan holding a pair of boots, and giving him instructions on taking them to a specific canister for disposal.

The young Slater wondered at the orders, and as he went to carry out them out realized that a man's feet were still in the boots.

He acknowledged that he doesn't like to talk too much about that particular incident.

Then there were the efforts to identify the badly burned bodies of victims, and his visit with a friend who had been so burned in the attack that he wouldn't have recognized him had he not been told who he was. That man lived, and the two would visit years later.

Slater added, “Hopefully, I'll be here next year, but I wouldn't bet too much money on it.”

Bogner added that Slater has been predicting his own demise for all the years he's known him, which has become a kind of ritual for warding off mortality.

Bogner said that in one recent instance he pointed that out to Slater, who replied, “Well, it's worked so far, hasn't it?”

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – Pearl Harbor Survivors, Chapter 23 North, Lake County, will observe the 73nd anniversary of the attack of Pearl Harbor on Sunday,  Dec. 7.

The ceremony will be held from 9 to 9:15 a.m. at Library Park and 9:15 to 10 a.m. in Lakeport City Council Chambers at Lakeport City Hall, 225 Park St.

The guest speaker is Lakeport resident Col. Bradley Clair.

Clair's Army career started as an enlisted military policeman in 1975 when he volunteered in the post-Vietnam era army.

Upon his discharge in 1978, he utilized the GI Bill to attend college and medical school, and ultimately became an internist, cardiologist and emergency room doctor.

After a 20-year service break, Dr. Clair was directly commissioned in the Medical Corps as a major in April 2001 and has served all over the world including the Iraq/Afghanistan theater.

Col. Clair currently serves as vice chief of staff Sutter Lakeside Hospital.

Military ceremonies will be performed by the Lake County Military Honors Team.

Middletown High School senior Joseph Swehla will sing the national anthem. 

The public is welcome to attend the annual luncheon at Woody’s Café Grill & Pub, located at 2555 N. Main St. in Kelseyville. 

A tri-tip buffet will be served at noon with a cost of $15 per person.

Reservations for the lunch are requested by Tuesday, Dec. 2, by calling Janeane Bogner at 707-998-3280.