Steve Krawczyk remembers the events of Dec. 7, 1941 like it was yesterday.
Seventy years ago, the then-23-year-old Krawczyk was a sergeant in the Army Air Corps stationed at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked the base, drawing the United States into World War II.
"To have a plane coming right at you with machine guns rattling, I hit the ground. Boy, that was the closest I've ever been to terror in my life," he said.
Krawczyk, who lives in Manassas, is originally from Patterson, N.J. He gave a presentation Wednesday night at the Freedom Museum about his experience during the attack on Pearl Harbor.
"What was a guy from New Jersey doing halfway around the world when all this happened?" he asked. "It was the later part of the Great Depression. High school graduates at that time had no place to go as far as the workforce was concerned."
Krawczyk found work in a lumber mill after graduating from high school, but he said conditions there were very poor.
"It was not a good experience," he said. Krawczyk ran into one of his former high school teachers one day and told him about what was happening at the mill.
"He recommended that I go into the service," he continued. "That way I would be able to pick up a trade and when I got discharged I'd be more marketable as far as employment."
Krawczyk took his former teacher's advice and visited a recruiting office in New York City. He passed the entrance test and physical, but found out that there was a six-month waiting list to join the service. He returned home to Patterson and visited a recruiting office there, where he learned there were openings in the Army Air Corps in Hawaii and Panama.
"That was a no brainer," he said. "I used to listen to the Hawaii Call program Saturday. When I got this opportunity I really grabbed on to it."
Krawczyk said life in Hawaii was pretty "easy and enjoyable." In addition to his military duties, he coached the 22nd Material Squadron's basketball team, which had won the championship in the days leading up to the attack. The team returned to Pearl Harbor following a tour of nearby bases on Dec. 5.
Two days later, Krawczyk was up early, enjoying chow.
"It was a beautiful day," he said. "All of a sudden, we heard a blast. That was uncharacteristic. Almost immediately, we heard another, then another."
Krawczyk and his fellow servicemembers ran outside the building and looked up into the sky.
"The planes were coming in so low you could see the pilots," Krawczyk recalled. "It was a traumatic experience."
The entire attack lasted about 2 1/2 hours.
"I looked up," he said. "There over the field came Zeros, dive bombers. I saw a big red ball, the Japanese insignia. In the blink of an eye we went from peace to war."
Krawczyk made his way to a supply room, grabbed a rifle and began firing back at the Japanese.
"As these planes would come over, there was good number of them, we would fire at them," he said. "They would hit the hangars, they would hit the barracks, and they would hit the harbor."
During the fight, a Japanese bomb detonated near Krawczyk, knocking him backwards six feet.
"When I landed I still had the rifle in my hand," he said with a shake of his head. "The force of that concussion just kind of blacked me out."
Krawczyk was soon back in the fight, showering the enemy planes with blasts from his rifle. He continued to serve in the Army Air Corps throughout World War II. Afterwards, he returned home, married, raised a family and worked as a businessman.
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