John Finn is the oldest living Medal of Honor recipient and
the first to receive one for actions during World War II. He was right where the
action occurred that brought the United States into the world spanning
conflagration on December 7th, 1941.
The following is a story surrounding the events that led to
Mr. Finn being recognized for his actions with a Medal of Honor during the
attack on Pearl Harbor.
Paradise
Lost
The First Attack
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Kaneohe
Bay is a sheltered cove on the west coastline of Oahu, a
beautiful series of sandy beaches and tall palms that catch
the first rays of sunlight reaching westward across the
Pacific Ocean. Today it is home to the Kaneohe Bay
Marine Corps Air Station. In 1941 it housed a small
Naval Air Station in support of three patrol squadrons, VP-11,
VP-12 and VP-14. Each squadron had twelve
patrol aircraft, most of them the newer PBY-5s.
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 For
more than a month the men at Kaneohe Bay had been on a limited
alert. The men of VP-14 had the duty assignment that
December morning and had spent the night in their hangar, the
newest of the three large hangars on the airfield. They
had arisen with dawn on Sunday morning, launched three of
their PBYs to conduct the routine daily submarine patrols,
then rotated shifts to the chow line for breakfast.
Three of VP-14's idle PBYs were anchored out in the bay, the
remaining six parked in and around the hangar in neat rows
along with the patrol aircraft of VP-11 and VP-12.
Half
the duty section of VP-14 was lounging around the hangar or
Barracks #2, smoking cigarettes and making small talk while
they waited for the remainder of their comrades to return from
chow for the 8 A.M. muster. The sound of approaching
aircraft engines drew little attention. Kaneohe Bay was
an AIR station, and aircraft was always coming and going.
The men watched as the first flight flew over their heads,
moving west towards Pearl Harbor. "Probably just
some early-bird Army aviators," most of them thought.
Then the sound of more aircraft could be heard, this time
coming closer. The slow rumble of high-flying airplanes
suddenly became the scream of low flying Japanese zeros,
diving on the airfield. The morning stillness was
interrupted by an explosion, then another, and the blue
morning sky was lit with the bright orange balls of fire.
It was a few minutes before eight o'clock on a bright Sunday
morning, December 7, 1941
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In his quarters a mile away from the airfield, VP-14's Chief
Aviation Ordnanceman John Finn had the day off and was looking
forward to spending the day with his wife, Alice.
"We weren't asleep," he says of that morning,
"we were just laying there talking about who was going to
get up and start the coffee." While they lay there,
in the distance they could hear the sounds of machine-gun
fire. "I thought, 'I'm the chief ordnance officer,
who the hell is firing machine guns today? Hey, it's
Sunday.'"
Chief
Finn struggled to brush the unexpected sound aside. It
was probably just someone testing a
malfunctioning machine gun. Nothing really to be
concerned about. He put his arm around his wife and
pulled her closer to him. Then another unexpected sound,
the whine of a small airplane engine....not the roar of the
twin-engine PBYs they were used to. The morning was a
puzzling mix of unexpected noise, strange sounds, but there
was still no hint of anything amiss.
Alice
got up and walked into the bathroom, pulled the curtains aside
and looked out at the dawn of the new day.
"It's beautiful," she turned to say, just as a knock
sounded on the door. Chief Finn grabbed his
trousers and walked downstairs to answer the door. It
was Lou Sullivan from next door, but there was still no hint
of how serious a crisis the early morning noises represented.
"They want you at the hangar," she said simply, then
turned and walked away. There hadn't even been time for
John to ask any questions. He turned, went back upstairs
to don his uniform shirt, hat and shoes, say
"goodbye" to Alice, and walked out to the parking
lot to his '38 Ford. As he slid behind the
steering wheel another neighbor, Charlie Clark, opened the
passenger-side door and got in. Neither man spoke a
word, more a matter of habit than anything else. Charlie
always rode to the airfield with Chief Finn. The events
THAT morning, mirrored those of many other mornings, the only
difference being, it was Sunday.
Chief
Finn turned the first corner out of the base quarters and
noticed another sailor standing there. "I guess we
should pick him up," Clark said. John pulled over
and the young sailor hopped in the back seat. Then the
three men continued the short drive to the airfield, still out
of sight behind a series of curves and a small incline.
Halfway
there the sound of the 38 Ford's engine was drowned out by a
loud roar from above, and Chief Finn looked out the window at
the low flying airplane. It was just starting a
"wing over". It was then he saw
the red circle on the underside of the zero's wing. For
the first time he realized something was terribly wrong.
"The damn Japs are attacking," he yelled as he threw
his Ford into second gear, hit the gas, and sped into the air
station. He wasn't prepared for the sight that met him
there.
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 As
they sped around the last turn leading down the hill and onto the
airfield, the three men in the old Ford could see for the first time,
the hell that was breaking loose below them. Japanese
Zeroes were flying low over the field, machine-guns spitting fire, as
they raked the PBYs neatly lined beside the hangars. Smoke was
beginning to waft upwards from vehicles parked outside Hangar #3,
their metal bodies showing evidence of the enemy strafing runs.
Men ran about in confusion, fear, and frustration, ducking behind any
semblance of shelter with the appearance of each new strafing run.
 Chief
Finn pulled to a stop near the dock, unloaded his passengers in the
open, and then made a mad dash for Hangar #3. As he did he heard
the whine of new incoming enemy planes. He saw the puffs of
bullets hitting the ground around him as he ran, then the drum-beat of
bullets against metal as hundreds of rounds raked Hangar #3.
Smoke began to billow, followed by the sounds of explosions.
The Japs weren't coming...they were HERE! And there seemed to be
little anyone could do to stop them.
Rushing through the smoke,
the fire, and the rain of bullets from the skies above, Chief Finn
entered the armory to break out machine-guns and ammunition stored in
an ordnance truck parked inside. Quickly he began passing them
out to start organizing some kind...any kind...of resistance.
(It was rumored that a couple of sailors even broke into a glass case
on the Air Station to retrieve an old BAR...Browning Automatic
Rifle...with which to fire back at the incoming enemy zeroes.)
 The
PBYs carried mounted guns, two 50 caliber and two 30 caliber
machine-guns. Even as smoke drifted from the burning wreckage,
sailors entered the open cockpits to remove guns and ammunition.
Caught unawares and unprepared for an attack like the one unleashed
upon Kaneohe Bay that morning, the men reacted swiftly and with great
determination.
 Hangar
#3 was now burning out of control, every PBY on the field was
bullet-scarred and smoking in ruin. In the pall that dropped
over the bay like a sudden, violent storm, Chief John Finn set up his
own machine-gun on an instruction platform near where the heaviest
activity seemed to be concentrated. In the open and masked only
by the thick clouds of smoke, he began firing back at each new wave of
enemy planes. Around him planes were exploding, bullets dug into
the ground beside him, and continued explosions shook the ground.
Finn was wounded, then wounded again, and again, and again.
Still he stayed behind his gun, firing back at the incoming planes.
He was frustrated at what was happening around him, and ANGRY!
"I was SO MAD," he says, "I guess I didn't have enough
sense to be frightened or scared."  Japs
kept coming, and Chief Finn kept shooting. Blood flowed
from numerous untended wounds but the intrepid Naval Chief wouldn't
give up, wouldn't abandon his station, wouldn't quit trying to give
back some of the destruction the Japanese were intent on raining down
on his men. He paused briefly to smile as smoke began trailing
from one of the zeroes, and watched as it plummeted into the ground.
He wasn't sure if he had shot it down but that didn't matter. It
was DOWN! That's what mattered.
 As
the enemy planes finally began to withdraw there was no sense of
relief, only the uncertain fear of their possible return at any moment
and the irrefutable evidence of total destruction at Kaneohe
Bay. Hangar #1 had burned and Hangar #3 destroyed by what
appeared to have been a bomb. Every PBY had been destroyed
beyond use. The departure of the enemy planes signaled only the
beginning of a monumental effort to clear the debris, rebuild from the
ashes, and organize a defense in case the zeroes DID return.
"I picked up quite a
few hits--18 to 21," John Finn later recalled. His injuries
ranged from scratches to serious flesh wounds received during the
brief time he had stood alone on the instruction platform, heedless of
the incoming enemy and the bombs and bullets that struck around him,
to defend his station. Now, as the sailors began trying to
extinguish fires, move debris, and bring some semblance of order to
Kaneohe Bay, they also began to urge Finn to get medical help for his
bleeding body. The 32-year old Chief refused. Kaneohe Bay
and his men needed him, needed his experience and his leadership.
Moving slowly and with
great pain, Chief John Finn began the task of repairing and setting up
machine-gun pits around the air station. Most of these
were 30 and 50 caliber weapons designed to be mounted and fired from
the PBYs. It was an all day task just to devise ways to mount
them for use on the ground. His wounds still untreated, Chief
Finn worked into the evening. The three returning patrol planes
were the only surviving aircraft at Kaneohe Bay, and Chief Finn was on
the field to welcome them back as night fell and to secure them for
the evening.
Finally, the majority of
his initial tasks completed and after being ordered to get medical
attention, he reported to the aid station. It was 2 A.M. on
Monday morning and he had been going non-stop.
When he arrived for
treatment, the aid station was full of other wounded men still
requiring attention, so Finn decided to wait and went home to check on
his wife. Later on the morning of Monday, December 8th he
reported back for treatment. He was immediately hospitalized,
and wasn't released until the 24th, Christmas Eve.
Nineteen people died at
Kaneohe Bay that bright Sunday morning that suddenly turned deadly.
One of the dead was a civilian, the remainder were young American
sailors who never dreamed their Naval service would so quickly turn
deadly. They were buried on the air station where they had
thought they would find their tour of duty in Paradise.
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Kaneohe
Bay was attacked five minutes before Pearl Harbor,
which some might argue makes John Finn's actions that
day the FIRST Medal of Honor action of World War
II. John never saw himself as a hero, just
a "Good Navy man doing my job".
Today, he makes his home on the Southern California
"ranch" where he and Alice settled down
after his retirement from the Navy in 1956. He
is the oldest LIVING Medal of Honor recipient, and the
LAST living Medal of Honor recipient from the Day of
Infamy, December 7, 1941. Alice Finn passed away
in 1998.
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