Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day - 2019

Whit Criswell Bryan
1920-2001

I read today that today there are only three living survivors of Pearl Harbor. There are no living survivors in my part of Virginia where local survivors' names are engraved on a monument at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story.

The Pearl Harbor memorial was built and dedicated in 1990 on the Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story.  An expansion to the monument was completed in 2001 which includes 184  names of known local survivors of the attack.

Names were added to the monument
just a few months after my father's
death in 2001.

My father, Whit Criswell Bryan, was a survivor of the Pearl Harbor attack. Dad was stationed at the Mobile Naval Hospital #2 as a Pharmacist's Mate 3rd Class. He was one of many Naval personnel constructing the hospital and it was not complete when the bombing occurred. He didn't talk about his specific duties after the bombing so I did some searching to find out more. 

According to U.S. Navy Medicine, The Mobile Naval Hospital was not yet uncrated but provided personnel, supplies, and equipment to treat 110 patients on the day that Pearl Harbor was attacked. 

Hospital Corps Quarterly, Volumes 15-16 has a list of all officers and enlisted men stationed at the Mobile Naval Hospital on December 7, 1941.

Bernard Williams, a Pharmacist's Mate at the mobile hospital, stated that after the attack they began the task of cleaning up the debris and worked well into the night. 

LeRoy Knurr, a Navy carpenter, said his unit was quickly put to work building medical facilities for casualties. It was written that as soon as an area was finished, beds would be brought in and it would soon be filled by wounded. Edward C. Kenny stated they worked frantically to finish the mobile hospital to accommodate 400 burn victims. 

George Gorohoff's obituary stated that he was personally responsible for making over 3,000 battle dressings following the attack while working in a cane field. The mobile hospital was surrounded by cane fields. 

Robert Brunner and others from the mobile hospital crowded into trucks and hustled to the harbor. The most severely burned victims were taken to the naval hospital. More than 100 were treated in the still-unfinished mobile unit.

left - Whit Bryan and Robert "Bob" Brunner - Pearl Harbor - about 1941
right - Robert "Bob" Brunner and Whit Bryan - Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story - December 7, 1991

Visit these links to learn more about Dad's time in Pearl Harbor. 

• Friday's Photo: Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day 2012


Thoughts of Dad on Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day 2014
Remembering Dad and Pearl Harbor: Naval Mobile Hospital # 2
Friday's Photo: Pearl Harbor 
Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day - Dad was stationed at the Mobile Naval Hospital #2 in Aiea Heights, Territory of Hawaii
#52ancestors Post Fifty-One: The Second Anniversary of Mobile Hospital No. 2, Pearl Harbor - August 1943 
Friday's Photo: Pearl Harbor Survivors, Whit Bryan and Bob Brunner - 1991

If you want to know more about the families I research, click here to like my Facebook page where you will see each post and other genealogical finds. 

Diana

© 2019

Other Sources

Family photographs and documents from the collection Diana Bryan Quinn. 

“JEB Little Creek-Fort Story honors Pearl Harbor survivors and victims at annual remembrance ceremony .” 13newsnow.com, https://www.13newsnow.com/article/news/national/military-news/jeb-little-creek-fort-story-honors-pearl-harbor-survivors-and-victims-at-annual-remembrance-ceremony/291-d6ce17a8-ef1c-4274-815f-017330c444d4. Accessed 7 Dec. 2019.

Napa Valley Register (California) 9 February 2001, obit for George Gorohoff, GenealogyBank.com https://www.genealogybank.com/doc/obituaries/obit/13C7C709F1A0A2B8-13C7C709F1A0A2B8 : accessed 7 December 2019

Friday's Photo: Pearl Harbor Survivors, Whit Bryan and Bob Brunner - 1991

Bob Brunner and Whit Bryan at the Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story, Norfolk, VA
December 7, 1991. 

This is a photo of my father, Whit Criswell Bryan and fellow Pearl Harbor

 Survivor, Bob Brunner, following a memorial service for the 50th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor. Dad and Bob were both assigned to the Mobile Hospital #2 at Pearl Harbor only two weeks before the attack on December 7, 1941. 

Dad died in 2001 and Bob in 2013. There will be few survivors at next week's services to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. 

To read more about Dad and Bob in Pearl Harbor check out Pearl  HarborRemembrance Day 2011.

Dad's and Bob Brunner's names were
added to the monument pictured
below in 2001. 

Visit these links to learn more about Dad's time in Pearl Harbor. 

• Friday's Photo: Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day 2012

• Thoughts of Dad on Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day 2014

• Remembering Dad and Pearl Harbor: Naval Mobile Hospital # 2

•  Friday's Photo: Pearl Harbor 

• Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day - Dad was stationed at the Mobile Naval Hospital #2 in Aiea Heights, Territory of Hawaii

• #52ancestors Post Fifty-One: The Second Anniversary of Mobile Hospital No. 2, Pearl Harbor - August 1943

If you want to know more about the families I research, click here to like my Facebook page where you will see each post and other genealogical finds.

Diana

© 2016

Sources

Family photographs and documents from the collection of Diana Bryan Quinn

"Pearl Harbor survivors to hold remembrance ceremony at JEB Little Creek-Fort Story" WTKR.com. 30 November 2016. Web. 2 Dec. 2016. <http://wtkr.com/2016/11/30/pearl-harbor-survivors-to-hold-remembrance-ceremony-at-jeb-little-creek-fort-story/>.

Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day

Dad and Bob

I felt a wave of sadness as I read the headlines Sunday morning. “Pearl Harbor 70 Years Ago, The Last Witnesses” was the front page headline of the Virginian Pilot. The youngest sailors and soldiers present during the attack on Pearl Harbor are some of our oldest veterans. My father, Whit Criswell Bryan, was one of those young sailors.   

On page 8 of today’s Virginian Pilot Magazine is 89 year old Pearl Harbor survivor Bob Brunner of Norfolk. He and my father were stationed together at the Mobile Naval Hospital #2. They both arrived at the hospital site on December 1, 1941 and, as found on the muster below, both left Pearl Harbor in September 1943.  

   

Found at Ancestry.com

Dad died in 2001, but later that year his name, along with Bob Brunner’s name, was added to Pearl Harbor Memorial at Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek.

Diana

© 2011, copyright Diana Quinn