Local Pearl Harbor vet visits Hawaii

Paul Stroud and his wife, Bertha, at the Pearl Harbor Visitor Center. More than 5,000 people attended a ceremony there. Courtesty of Lonnie Harrison

A local Pearl Harbor veteran and more than 40 of his family members attended the ceremony for the 70th anniversary of the Japanese attack in Hawaii last week.

“I think I got the best kids in the world,” said Navy veteran Paul Stroud, about his offspring that quickly planned the trip last month after he expressed a desire to go.

Stroud was featured in a Dec. 6 front-page Triplicate article, “70 years later: Local man, 88, recalls Japan’s suprise attack.”

Flanked by his children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren, Stroud toured the harbor where he watched the beginning of the attack while standing aboard a destroyer.

Relatives traveled from as far as Wyoming, Bakersfield and Santa Barbara to meet their patriarch in Hawaii. In all, more than 5,000 people attended the ceremony at the Pearl Harbor Visitor Center, including more than 100 survivors.

During the ceremony, Stroud was sporting a hat with the name of his destroyer, the USS Ralph Talbot. A woman asked if Stroud knew her father, last name of Edwards, who was stationed on the same ship.

As one of the few remaining attack survivors, Stroud was approached by numerous well-wishers during his visit. Courtesty of Lonnie Harrison

“He was one of my best friends,” Stroud told the woman, adding that he used to spend time with the Edwards family in Southern California in between tours.

During a tour Stroud was pulling out his wallet to purchase a book about the USS Arizona, which sank during the attack, when a young Navy officer in uniform said to Stroud, “I want to buy that for you.”

A constant stream of people came up to Stroud to thank him, shake his hand, get his autograph and hear his tale.

“Seeing everybody honor him was really special to the family,” said his grandson Lonnie Harrison, a Del Norter who went on the trip. “He told everyone what they wanted to know.”

Stroud thought young people nowadays would not care about Pearl Harbor, but outside a restaurant a group of teenagers thanked him for his service and asked to shake his hand, Stroud said.

“You wouldn’t think that too many of them would even be thinking about that,” Stroud said.

The attack on Dec. 7, 1941, killed 2,390 Americans.

Stroud’s daughter, Courtney Axelson, appreciated experienceing the historical event with her father.

“It was really neat,” she said. “But it’s hard to imagine what happened there.”

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