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EYE
EYEWITNESS
ASSASSINATED!
WHAT REALLY HAPPENED
ON 22 NOVEMBER 1963
■
FALL OF SAIGON
SPECIAL EDITION
BLOODY SUNDAY
■
MOON LANDINGS
■
HIROSHIMA
THE DAY AMERICA WAS ATTACKED
‘‘We expected them to come back. I thought the Japanese
would take over Pearl and probably the States’’
CONTENTS
EYEWITNESS
In our Eye Witness series we talk to those who
were present for the moments that changed
the world. We dig beneath the surface, get their
first-hand account of the sights, sounds and
smells on the ground and find out what it was
like to witness history in the making.
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Andrew Brown
Editor
04
Pearl Harbor
The surprise Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor wreaked devastation
and destruction, bringing the
United States into the bloody
conflict of World War II
20
Icelandic
volcano eruption
When a volcano came to life in
a small Icelandic fishing village
its inhabitants found themselves
fighting for their lives
08
Bloody Sunday
A peaceful march in Northern
Ireland on 30 January 1972
descended into chaos and led to the
deaths of 13 people at the hands of
British soldiers
24
Assassination of
John F Kennedy
12
First man on
the Moon
The inside story on one of the 20th
century’s defining moments from a
journalist standing a stone’s throw
away from JFK when he was shot
In 1969, the whole world held its
breath as humanity prepared to land
on the Moon – discover what it was
like inside NASA control centre on
that momentous occasion
28
The first
atomic bomb
One of the crew that dropped the
first atomic bomb on Hiroshima in
1945 tells us about the moment that
changed the world
16
Fall of Saigon
As the Vietnamese army made their
way toward the capital of South
Vietnam, Saigon, panic and chaos
struck the streets of the city as
people rushed to escape
32
The fall of
Baghdad
Saddam Hussein had ruled Iraq as
a dictator for decades, until in 2003,
when American tanks and troops
entered to topple him and his statue
04
08
Be part of history
2
www.historyanswers.co.uk
/AllAboutHistory
@AboutHistoryMag
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Pearl Harbor
HAWAII, USA,
7 DECEMBER 1941
Written by Jonathan O’Callaghan
CHARLES EUGENE EBEL
Now 94 years
of age Charles
Ebel, from
Guilderland,
New York, was
serving as a
seaman first class aboard the
USS Curtiss, a seaplane tender,
when Japanese warplanes
attacked the US naval base
at Pearl Harbor. From his
unique vantage point across
Ford Island, Ebel saw many
ships sunk in the most deadly
foreign attack on American
soil until 11 September 2001.
‘‘
We expected them
to come back. I thought
the Japanese would take
over Pearl and probably
the States
’’
O
n the morning of 7 December 1941, Charles
Eugene Ebel and a friend were getting ready to go
surfing at Waikiki Beach, totally oblivious of the
horror that was heading their way.
“My buddy and I were learning to surf,” said
Ebel. “We’d ride these [3.6-metre] 12-foot bores and
sometimes you’d be on one wave and your board would
be on another, so you’re just trying to catch it.”
And then, in the blink of an eye, everything changed.
“I was looking out the hatch [aboard the USS Curtiss]
and I heard this roar, and I just saw a plane drop a bomb
right onto that poor island where the planes were. And
then he came back by the hatch I was standing in, so he
was side on, and he had this big smile [on his face]. He
went up the channel – he was looking for another target,
I guess – and that was the start of it. From then on you
knew it was [going to be] tough.”
Ebel sprung to action. Once all hell had broken loose,
his captain told him to head to the main deck to see if
there was anything he could do. There was one machine
gun on the deck which was unmanned. “In one flowing
moment I jumped onto it and fired that for a while,” said
Ebel. “If there was any goal it was to stay alive.”
What had started as just another day for Ebel in the
idyllic setting of Honolulu in Hawaii turned out to be
the scene for the greatest loss of life on American soil
at foreign hands until 9/11 60 years later. Around 2,400
Americans were killed and 1,200 wounded.
In the months prior to Pearl Harbor, Ebel had been on
cruisers in the South Pacific. On 6 December his ship,
the USS Curtiss, had dropped gas off at Wake Island
north of the Marshall Islands. A last-minute decision saw
the Curtiss head for Honolulu. Upon arrival another ship
had taken the Curtiss’s berthing point near Pearl Harbor,
so the captain ordered the ship to swing around behind
Ford Island (see map). On the way the Curtiss picked
up 378,540 litres (100,000 gallons) of gasoline, before
berthing at night on 6 December 1941.
When the attack broke out, the Curtiss was somewhat
fortunate with its position. Its berthing point was far
enough away from Pearl Harbor to avoid the majority
of the Japanese onslaught, however the horrors they
witnessed were anything but fortunate.
As Ebel explains though, they weren’t completely
removed from the action. “Our ship got credit for
shooting down three planes and partial credit for a
submarine,” he said. “When we were in battle this
submarine popped up behind us, and so we fired over
the top of the sub. It went down but when it came back
up it let go of a torpedo and it went right by our ship
5

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