Eighty years ago today, a 9-year-old boy looked through his window and met the eyes of a Japanese fighter pilot streaking through the sky over his home near Honolulu.
It was one second, maybe even less, on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941 — but time froze.
The boy never forgot the man's face.
Dudley Kendall Jr. is spending his retirement in Eugene, a home he chose for its natural beauty and quiet nature.
But on that morning of infamy, he was still a boy living with his family on the Pearl Harbor Naval Base in Hawaii, the site of the surprise attack by the Empire of Japan that destroyed nearly 20 U.S. Navy ships and more than 300 planes, killed about 2,400 people and catalyzed the United States' entrance into World War II.
"It was the most profound moment of my life," Kendall said.
The complexity of the events that lead to the Pearl Harbor attack were well beyond the understanding of 9-year-old Kendall. But he understood that his father, a Navy serviceman stationed at Pearl Harbor, took aerial photographs meant to guide bombers to their targets. He knew his house was nestled between the harbor, where many mighty warships were anchored, and the airfield, where military airplanes roosted.
Kendall also knew the circular red emblem on the wings of planes passing that morning. The American planes were marked differently. Those overhead, he knew, belonged to the Empire of Japan.
Staring from his window in a frozen moment of time, Kendall watched as the Japanese warplane raced past, wobbling, smoking and, by all appearances, destined for a crash.
"It was as if time stopped instantaneously for just a moment. The pilot saw me and I saw the pilot," Kendall said. "I knew that I was witnessing his last moments."
When it was clear the base was under attack, things around him began to move quickly.
His father tripped over his pants trying to put them on and get out the door, leaving him, his sister and mother behind.
Kendall's mother carried a heavy feather mattress down the stairs, putting it on the dining room floor and stashing her children underneath it.
"Occasionally, the bullets were coming through the roof. She was protecting us," Kendall said. "I'm 9 years old and exceptionally curious. My mother left to get something for her sister, and I saw my opportunity to run out of the front door — and I did."
Another Japanese fighter flew overhead, and he said it looked like it would crash, too.
Americans only were able to shoot down 29 of 353 Japanese aircraft used in the attack. The chaos those planes delivered has lived ever since in the American consciousness, the definition of dishonor and the beginning of a national unity never quite repeated.
A profound, permanent mark
Nearly half the Americans who died during the raid were aboard the USS Arizona, struck by an armor-piercing torpedo that detonated the battleship's magazine. The hull of the ship, in which many Americans are entombed, today rests at the bottom of the harbor and is straddled by one of the sites which make up the Pearl Harbor National Memorial.
Kendall said he should have been hiding with his sister underneath that mattress where his mother left them — but he was too curious. When the battleship exploded, the boy was watching.
"I was on the grass in my front yard and the concussion knocked me over. Then I saw men spread eagle in mid-air," he said. "When you see human beings tossed around like rag dolls, it leaves a profound, permanent mark on your psyche. It never goes away."
The events of that day are also seared into the nation's consciousness and have been since President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave his speech to the country the following day.
"No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory," Roosevelt said in his call for war against Japan. "I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us."
Though he joined the Navy in 1952, his talents as a pianist kept him out of the Korean War. Kendall played United Service Organizations shows during his two years of service before returning to San Diego, where he lived after Pearl Harbor, to begin his life as a jazz musician. His music career would last for decades.
For Kendall, the attack on Pearl Harbor was all he ever wanted to experience of war.
"I never believed in war again. I still don't," Kendall said.
