Once on board, his “shoe soles started to smoke form the heat of the deck.” The first thing he saw was “four barbecued sailors.”

Kuhn thought there was no way any of these men could have survived in this condition. He yelled to see if he could render aid to anyone else on board.

A man with “no eyes, eyes burnt out, skin charred, moaned, and reached for my hand. When I grabbed his hand, all the meat from it came off. I threw it on the deck.” Just in that moment of grasping the sailor’s hand, “our Lord called him.”

Somehow amid the chaos, Kuhn spotted a quarter on the deck. He picked it up and has it to this day. An old “swabbie” friend and USS Arizona survivor, Clare Hetrick from Bullhead, Ariz., still lays claim to it, stating, “It had ‘In God We Trust’ on it.”

Hetrick was years ago asked, “Did you lose a lot of buddies?” at one of the speaking engagements Kuhn participated in. In tears, Hetrick answered, “No, I lost all of them,” referring to those lost on the USS Arizona.

Kuhn still states that 1,102 men are entombed in the watery grave of the USS Arizona. When asked about the seemingly extra number two and why he doesn’t simply say 1,100, he will answer that the two Becker brothers from his Kansas high school also perished on that day.

When Kuhn abandoned the USS Arizona, thousands upon thousands of leaflets were drifting down from the sky. The messages from the Japanese read: “You damned, go to the devil,” “Listen to the voice of doom,” and “Wake up blind fools.”

Upon return from his horrifying rescue effort, again Navy megaphones were calling for volunteers. This time for volunteers to break all the plate glass windows on the Ford Island base, as “shards of glass were flying and injuring men.” So men grabbed pipes and hammers and took part in what Kuhn termed, “authorized vandalism,” to make the base safer.

While handing out clothing from his locker to those in need, (for which the Navy later reimbursed him), Kuhn heard a familiar voice call out from the far end of the barracks, “Adolph, is that you?” “Who wants to know?” Kuhn returned. “Kellogg,” the man yelled back.

Kellogg had been at the dance the evening before, but was now in sorry shape. He was aboard the USS Oklahoma when it was hit. “The poor guy was sitting on a bed, bleeding from his shoulders and hips, bleeding to death.” Kellogg explained that he and a group of fellow sailors had been trapped while the ship was sinking, and one of the men remarked that they needn’t all die, that at least the skinny guys could escape. “He poked them through the portholes,” hence the bloodied hips and shoulders from squeezing out of the sinking ship.

Kuhn was “sopping up the blood with pillowcases when Kellogg asked, ‘Did the Navy ever find shoes for you?’” Kuhn was thinking this guy is about to die, and he’s asking about his shoes. Kuhn luckily found some medics to come for Kellogg, and said good bye.

Some fifty‑odd years later at a Pearl Harbor Survivor day in Oceanside, Calif., where Kuhn now resides, he met another USS Oklahoma survivor. “He married a waitress,” Kuhn was told, glad to hear of one he never saw again, but who survived.

After assisting in a mess hall turned hospital and with a sand bag detail, Kuhn had heard the “scuttlebutt that the Japs were returning in total darkness, to kill all the rest when nighttime came.”

On a drizzly night with the moon peeking out occasionally, Kuhn and a friend, Allan Hoffman, got a hold of a bloody mattress from the mess hall and headed to the hangar to get some rest. The base was keyed up in expectancy of the worst yet from the enemy.

Everyone was waiting for the Japanese to come, and the two tired, frightened men were no different. While talking about the rumors in the hangar, they looked at the far wall and it seemed as if their fates were sealed. There was a “wall lit with eyes, and the eyes got closer.” Suddenly, Kuhn realized that they weren’t the eyes of Japanese soldiers and burst out laughing. “The eyes were aircraft instruments, radium dials, so the pilots could see them at night.” With laughter breaking the suspense, the two fell asleep, and so ended that infamous day.

Kuhn remembers the breakfast he shared with his buddy, Allan Hoffman, on Monday, Dec. 8, 1941. “We had a can of swimming pool water and a Powerhouse candy bar.” As the sinking of the USS Arizona broke the water line, Kuhn said the men “drank pool water for 3 days.”

Kuhn still regrets the “orders to clutter the runways so Japanese planes couldn’t land.” Seventy‑seven U.S. planes out on maneuvers therefore also couldn’t land. That day, he found one of the crashed pilot’s leather jackets “littered with American bullets,” an under‑reported occurrence of every war’s “friendly fire.” In the previous night’s paranoia, Kuhn said he was “more scared by American bullets than Japanese bullets.”

His duty that day after was to “fish out the bodies and body parts from the water and put them in burlap sacks and bed sheets.” A lot of the bodies were brought to Honolulu’s Punchbowl Cemetary. In the days, weeks, and months following, Kuhn participated in the massive cleanup on the base.

These days, Kuhn stays active within the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association at speaking engagements, walking or riding in parades, or appearing at holiday functions. He also spends a good deal of time with his wife Elsie, working on his writings and other hobbies.

In this day and age, when American values of service to God and country are so often shrouded in gray cynicism, Kuhn serves as a reminder of a bygone era when these values were clearly imprinted in Americans’ minds in black and white. He embodies more than an idea of patriotism, he personifies a sincere and unshakeable belief in America. His speaking engagements outline that heartfelt, heartland commitment to America, as do his writings, all of which are followed with messages imploring the citizenry to “keep America alert,” “thank a vet,” or “remember Pearl Harbor.”

Kuhn offers his books for purchase, with all proceeds going to the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association or other veterans’ groups. “Pearl Harbor Remembered,” a book of over 350 pages with poems and personal anecdotes can be purchased for $23, ($18 for the book, plus $5 for shipping). A shorter tome, “Pearl Harbor Poems,” is available for $14, ($10 for the book, plus $4 for shipping). Send a check or money order to: Adolph Kuhn, PEARL HARBOR SURVIVOR, 3500 Lake Blvd., Apt. 121, Oceanside, CA 92056‑4600.

A sample of Kuhn’s poems can be seen by visiting www.thedesertadvocate.com