75 years ago, the Imperial Japanese Air Force bombed the US Naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Although Europe had been engulfed in conflict since 1939, and the Japanese had invaded China even earlier in the decade, the attack on Pearl Harbor was the event that catapulted the United States into the Second World War.
2,400 people were killed in the Pearl Harbor attack, and 1,177 of those victims were on the USS Arizona. Reporter Meg Jones was interested in just 21 of those victims for her story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: the 21 members of the Navy band assigned to the USS Arizona.
"Most of the ships that were stationed at Pearl Harbor had their own bands and so did the USS Arizona," says Jones. "So typically there were 20 guys and then a band leader, so 21 people, and all of them had gone through the U.S. Navy music school out in Washington D.C."
The process to becoming a U.S. Navy band member wasn't exactly easy. Musicians had to join the Navy, go through boot camp and then audition.
"It was really a great gig for a lot of these guys, because they were musicians already and remember, 1940, 1941, it's still is kind of the last of the Depression, America's not at war," she continues. "And so for a lot of these guys it was a way for them to continue playing music, and then still get 'three hots and a cot,' so to speak."
