Calling all Pearl Harbor veterans

AUSTIN, Texas -- Before September 11, 2001, the deadliest surprise attack on American owned soil was Pearl Harbor. More than 2,400 people were killed, a thousand were injured.

The youngest of the survivors are now in their 90's. But for Andrew Derochers, it seems like yesterday.

"We were all terrified and scared to death," he recalls. "Bombs coming down there and before your eyes these things are sinking."

It was nearly 73 years ago. Derochers and fellow Pearl Harbor veterans Clarence Heidemann and Henri Grenier are, for a younger generation, living history.

"I'd just got out of boot camp," says Heidemann. "I didn't know anything. I'd never seen a .50 caliber machine gun. I was .50 caliber machine gunner that day."

Grenier spent five years away from home after Pearl Harbor, fighting in the Pacific theater.

"One island to the other," he says. "Guadalcanal, New Guinea, Hickam field."

All three were offered seats on what's called an honor flight to the World War II memorial this December 7. The Austin chapter of Honor Flight is the only one in the nation asked to bring Pearl Harbor veterans to a special service.

"They won a world war," says Allen Bergeron with Honor Flight Austin. "They came back and they rebuilt America."

But finding Pearl Harbor survivors in Austin and in the surrounding area has proved difficult. So Honor Flight Austin is putting out a call across the state of Texas.

There is room for any Pearl Harbor survivor who wants to go. Heidemann and Grenier will be making that flight. Andrew Desrochers won't. He's too frail, losing his sight and his hearing. But not his memory of that day and what it still means three quarters of a century later.

"Maybe we could have stopped it," he laments. "But we didn't. It happened."

It's a history lesson especially applicable today of all days.

If you are a Pearl Harbor survivor or you know of one who might be interested in traveling to Washington DC on December 7, visit http://www.honorflightaustin.org/ for details.