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| Whit Criswell Bryan 1920 - 2001 The Pearl Harbor Memorial (above) at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story honors local survivors and victims of the 1941 attack and is a site of annual remembrance ceremonies. My father’s name, Whit C. Bryan, is on the memorial. Right above his name is Robert R. Brunner, a fellow survivor who was also stationed at U.S. Naval Mobile Hospital Number 2. As of today, only 12 Pearl Harbor Survivors are living. |
Each year on December 7, we pause to remember the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and honor those who served and sacrificed. For most, it is a day of remembrance; for me, it is personal. My father, Whit Criswell Bryan, was a Pharmacist’s Mate 3rd Class assigned to Mobile Naval Hospital Number 2, then under construction in ʻAiea Heights in the hills north of Pearl Harbor.
Dad enlisted in the U.S. Navy on 10 January 1940 in Texas and served until retiring in 1969 as a Chief Petty Officer (HMC). He never spoke much about his early service, but I often think about what life must have been like for a young recruit from the Texas Panhandle adjusting to the faraway Territory of Hawaii. I wish I had asked him more about those days. I began exploring our family’s history only a few years before his death in 2001, and since creating a blog in 2011, I’ve honored him each December 7th with a post of remembrance. Along the way, I’ve learned so much more.
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| Whit C. Bryan at the Mobile Base Hospital No. 2 |
When the attack on Pearl Harbor began, Dad said he was delivering newspapers for a friend who had a paper route. He had driven the friend’s car and was at the top of a hill when he saw planes approaching, first thinking they were American. When the bombing started, he left the car and ran back to the Mobile Hospital. He told my brother that from the hill, he could see into the cockpits of the Japanese planes.
I don’t know exactly what he did after the attack, but oral histories, newspaper accounts, and other records help fill in the picture. Bernard Williams, another Pharmacist’s Mate, recalled that after the attack, they worked through the night clearing debris. Robert Brunner and others from the mobile hospital crowded into trucks and rushed to the harbor to help transport casualties. George Gorohoff’s obituary noted that he personally prepared more than 3,000 battle dressings while working in a sugar cane field near the hospital.
Dad said that only the sleeping quarters for those assigned to the hospital had been completed. Patients slept there, while medical personnel and others slept in trenches. Navy carpenter LeRoy Knurr recalled how his unit worked nonstop to finish the new medical wards. Edward C. Kenny reported that as soon as each building was ready, it was filled with the wounded, many of them burn victims.
National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day is observed each year on December 7th to honor those who lost their lives during the 1941 attack. More than 2,400 Americans were killed and over 1,000 injured when aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy struck the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in the Territory of Hawaii. The following day, the United States entered the Second World War.
Each December 7th, I pause to remember the events that shaped our nation and the generations who served with courage, duty, and quiet resolve, including my father, whose service became part of that history.
This post brings together several earlier pieces I’ve written about my father’s time at Pearl Harbor. You can find links to those past posts below.
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
"Attack on Pearl Harbor." Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor : accessed 4 Dec. 2020).
“Last witnesses – Memories of Pearl Harbor attack,” The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, Va.), 4 December 2011 (https://www.pilotonline.com/2011/12/04/last-witnesses-memories-of-pearl-harbor-attack/ : accessed 20 October 2025)
Meg Jones, “Film Shows Veterans Return to Pearl Harbor,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Milwaukee, Wisconsin), 4 December 2012; archived article, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Archive (https://archive.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/film-shows-veterans-return-to-pearl-harbor-vk7skfi-182091441.html : accessed 20 October 2025).
Napa Valley Register (California), 9 February 2001, obituary for George Gorohoff, GenealogyBank.com (https://www.genealogybank.com/doc/obituaries/obit/13C7C709F1A0A2B8-13C7C709F1A0A2B8 : accessed 7 December 2019).
Navy Medicine Historical Files Collection, Facilities – Mobile Hospitals, image 12-0270-001, “Mobile Hospital No. 2, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.” Flickr: Photo Sharing, uploaded by NavyMedicine, n.d. (https://www.flickr.com/photos/navymedicine/8253012532/in/album-72157628320849325/ : accessed 6 December 2015).
St. Cloud Times, 5 December 1986, Page 9. Via Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/article/st-cloud-times-mobile-naval-hospital/40093894/ : accessed 20 October 2025), clipped page for Mobile Naval Hospital – Bernard Williams by user dewquinn.
“Veterans of Pearl,” Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.), 8 December 1991 (https://www.sun-sentinel.com/1991/12/08/veterans-of-pearl/ : accessed 20 October 2025).
U.S. Navy, Official Military Personnel File (OMPF) for Whit Criswell Bryan, 1940–1969; Department of the Navy, National Personnel Records Center, St. Louis, Missouri, copy held by Diana Quinn, Virginia Beach, VA, 2002.
