Everett Hyland was born in Stamford, Connecticut in March 1923. His father died when he was one year old. He had one older brother. He joined the Navy in November 1940. His brother had been in the Marine Corps and in the CCC [Annotator's Note: Civilian Conservation Corps]. His brother joined the Marine Corps in 1938, and he was a big kid. He had gone through sea school [Annotator's Note: a training course meant to prepare Marines for duty abooard surface ships at sea] with the Marine Corps and was on the Indianapolis [Annotator's Note: USS Indianapolis (CA-35)]. Hyland thought if he joined the Navy, he might get to be with his brother. They would put groups of brothers together. That is how there were 37 groups of brothers on the Arizona [Annotator's Note: USS Arizona (BB-39), sunk in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. When Hyland went out with the Pennsy [Annotator's Note: nickname for the USS Pennsylvania (BB-38)], he made the request, but it never was honored. He does not know what his mother thought about his enlistment. He went to boot camp in Newport, Rhode Island. He knew how to march because he had spent two summers in the CMTC [Annotator's Note: Citizens Military Training Camps] and he knew how to tie knots which he had learned in Sea Scouts [Annotator's Note: international Scouting movement with an emphasis on water-based activities]. It was cold there and their barracks were built for the Civil War [Annotator's Note: American Civil War, 1861 to 1865]. There was no heat. They insisted that the windows be open at night. They had no toilet seats, just porcelain. Try sitting on that in the winter. He went to Communications school in San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California]. While he was waiting to go to school, he lived on the USS Constellation. He volunteered for communications school. He does not recall why he chose that. He learned Morse Code. When he got out, most of his class went to battleships. He transferred from San Diego to San Pedro [Annotator's Note: San Pedro, California] on the USS Crane (DD-109), an old four-stacker destroyer. In San Pedro he was assigned to the Pennsy.

[Annotator's Note: Everett Hyland served in the Navy as a radio operator. He reported aboard the battleship USS Pennsylvania (BB-38) in San Pedro, California]. He was impressed by the ship and he liked it. Battleship sailors are better than the others. Especially being on the Pennsylvania. It was Kimmel's [Annotator's Note: US Navy Rear Admiral Husband Edward Kimmel] ship and the flagship of the fleet. They knew they were better than other people. [Annotator's Note: Hyland laughs and says it is terrible to say that.] He went directly to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. They would spend two weeks in [Annotator's Note: in port] and two weeks out on patrol. There is a book called Battleship Sailor written by a third-class petty officer [Annotator's Note: Theodore C. Mason] on the West Virginia [Annotator's Note: USS West Virginia (BB-48)]. When Hyland read the book, it brought back a great deal of things he forgot. Someone who read the book asked him if he lived under conditions like that. He told them that the fellow who wrote the book lived like a king compared to him. Hyland was a seaman. Like everything else, you forget the bad things; you remember the good things. Reading the book reminded him it was a harsh life. The conditions they lived under. Sleeping in a hammock. It was not meant to be easy. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks him what a normal day at sea was like and Hyland responds that he is bringing up things he never thought about.] He was in the deck division at first until there was an opening in the radio gang. He would do four on and four off [Annotator's Note: four hour shifts]. His job was to make the coffee. He was working a mid-watch and was told to make coffee. He spent a good while cleaning it, and when he took it down to the radio room, they chewed him out for wrecking it. It took them 20 years to get it that dirty. [Annotator's Note: Hyland laughs.]

In Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Everett Hyland did hear rumors of going to war. When out on their two weeks at sea, and at general quarters, they would be telling each other the Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] were attacking. Hyland's battle station was topside. The radio rooms were way down in the ship. That was the last place in the world he wanted to be trapped in a battle. He volunteered for antenna repair to get a battle station that was topside. On the morning of the seventh [Annotator's Note: 7 December 1941; Japanese attack], he was below and coming up. The men were saying that the Japs were attacking, and he thought they were kidding. They were in dry dock. They were the only battleship able to fight all through the attack because they could not be sunk. When he got topside, he found out they were right. People ask him why he was on the ship during the attack. It was his home. When general quarters was sounded, Hyland was in his living compartment. He does not remember having breakfast that morning. There was a compartment on the aft part of the ship for his crew to meet. Hyland's first job was to batten down the battle ports on the starboard side of the ship. He would stick his head out of each one to see what was going on. He says that he tries to be very careful with his stories now, because the older veterans get, the more their imaginations grow. He thought he saw people from the USS Arizona (BB-39) going to a ship alongside of them. When he started volunteering [Annotator's Note: at the Pearl Harbor National Memorial, Oahu, Hawaii], he asked about it and was told by the park rangers they had never heard of that. He tells people what he thinks he saw. About five years ago, Stratton [Annotator's Note: Donald Stratton survived the sinking of the USS Arizona (BB-39); Stratton's oral history is also available on the Digital Collections website], a survivor from the Arizona described getting off the ship that way, so Hyland did see that. There was not much need for radio communication. He and his crew were next to the clipping room where the ammunition comes out to the three inch 50 [Annotator's Note: three inch 50 caliber gun] on the fantail [Annotator's Note: overhang of the deck extending aft of the sternpost of a ship]. Hyland started working that line. Hyland did not even look up to see the bombers. He was busy doing his job.

[Annotator's Note: Everett Hyland served in the Navy as a radio operator on the USS Pennsylvania (BB-38) and was aboard ship during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] He was working an ammunition line when they got hit. Hyland never heard anything go off. The first thing he knew, he was flat on his face with his arms out in front of him. His skin was curled and peeled, and he was bleeding. He picked himself up, and wondered where the gun crew went. One of the nice things about when you get hit really badly, you do not feel any pain for a while. He was standing there, and his feet felt wet. He looked down and saw blood coming out of a hole in his left leg. He took his finger and pushed it on the hole. It went into his leg up to the second joint. His right ankle was shot open. He had been shot through the thigh, had five pieces of shrapnel in his leg. He lost part of his left arm. His combat uniform was shorts and a t-shirt. He got caught in the fireball of the explosion and got flash burned. This all took place within seconds. An officer hollered to get him to sick bay and he was taken down there. He just sat down on the deck. He has no idea how long he was there. He did not feel much. He remembers a radioman named Osmond was there. Osmond looked at him and asked who he was. He told him he was Hyland. Osmond uttered a sound and backed away from him. Shortly after that, the feeling started to come back. The Navy had his wounds listed as superficial. He found that out years later when he applied for compensation. They were working on the burns to try and keep him alive. He likely got morphine and vaguely remembers being put into a truck. He does not remember getting to the hospital.

[Annotator's Note: Everett Hyland was hospitalized after being wounded on the USS Pennsylvania (BB-38) during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. Everett Hyland would go in and out of consciousness and thought he saw his brother visiting him in his dress blues. His brother had been out on patrol on the Indy [Annotator's Note: USS Indianapolis (CA-35)] during the attack. He came to look for Hyland when he returned to port and saw he was listed as missing. He went to the hospital and recognized him by his toe tag. Dog tags were not issued to them until after the war started. If their uniform burned off, there was no way to know who they were. This is one of the reasons there are so many unknowns in the memorial. Vanderpool [Annotator's Note: US Navy Fireman 2nd Class Payton L. Vanderpool] off the Pennsy [Annotator's Note: USS Pennsylvania (BB-38)] was hit on the dock. They carried him onto the ship and between there and the hospital, he became an unknown. Hyland always wondered if they really tagged them before they were dead. Later, at a World War 2 symposium, Hyland was on a panel and told this story. He went to be interviewed and Lenore Rickert walked in where he was. She told him she was one of the 19 nurses at that hospital and worked the burn ward. Hyland thanked her for taking care of him. He told her about the toe tag, and Rickert got tears in her eyes. She said that they would tag them when they thought they had no chance of survival. He later had a visitor at the memorial [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor National Memorial, Oahu, Hawaii] who had a Naval Hospital hat on. Hyland told him the same story. The man said that they not only tagged them, they moved them out so they would not die in front of the other fellows. He could not confirm the story with his brother, as he was killed on Iwo Jima. A year after the attack, he met his brother on the mainland, but he cannot recall what he was going to say about it. He was in the hospital for nine months. He was sent to Mare Island Naval Hospital in Vallejo, California [Annotator's Note: Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, California]. He wanted to go to a hospital in Corona, California for physical therapy. There was another hospital in Brooklyn, New York. There was a sailor who lived in the Bronx [Annotator's Note: The Bronx, New York]. Hyland's mother lived in San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California]. The other sailor went to Corona and Hyland went to Brooklyn. He went back to sea from Brooklyn in September 1942 on the USS Memphis (CL-13).

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Everett Hyland what he saw from the USS Pennsylvania (BB-38) during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] Everett Hyland was going down the starboard side of the ship and remembers someone telling him the Oklahoma [Annotator's Note: USS Oklahoma (BB-37)] was upside down. He does not think he even looked up to see the ones that hit the ship. About seven years ago [Annotator's Note: seven years prior to this interview], he had dinner with one of the pilots from that group. They have a group called Unabarakai [Annotator's Note: nonprofit association, Tokyo, Japan] and were in town [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii]. Yoshida-San [Annotator's Note: Captain Yoshio Yoshida], a Zero [Annotator's Note: Japanese Mitsubishi A6M fighter aircraft, known as the Zeke or Zero] pilot, was in charge of them. Hyland told Yoshida he would like to meet anyone who had bombed his ship, so he was invited to a party. Hyland and his wife attended. There, he met a Mr. Otawa who was in one of the high altitude bombers. All five of the airplanes released their bombs at one time. The Pennsylvania took one hit, the Cassin [Annotator's Note: USS Cassin (DD-372)] and Downes [Annotator's Note: USS Downes (DD-375)] each took one hit, one hit the dock, and the other two landed in the harbor. Otawa was 76 years old and still flying then. They were young fellows doing a job.

[Annotator's Note: Everett Hyland served in the Navy as a radio operator on the USS Pennsylvania (BB-38) and was aboard ship during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] During the attack, general quarters was sounded, and Everett Hyland ran to his battle station. He does not really remember much. It was not until 50 years later that he found out what he was doing. He was at a reunion and there were men at a table. Hyland sat down at one and the man across from him started to cry. Ken Engelken [Annotator's Note: unable to identify further] had been a radioman on the ship. For 50 years, he thought Hyland was dead. Engelken told him that the two of them had been getting ready to go to church. The reason he thought Hyland was dead, the word came down that the antenna repair squad was wiped out. Engelken was transferred to another ship. The Pennsy [Annotator's Note: USS Pennsylvania (BB-38)] came into San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California] in summer 1942. Hyland got liberty from the hospital and went down to the ship and see who was left on it. Hyland would have liked to be reassigned to the ship but since he was on the East Coast, they kept him there. The Pennsy was a great ship. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer says he has heard ships described as happy or unhappy.] When Hyland was assigned to the Memphis [Annotator's Note: USS Memphis (CL-13)], he would not have described it as an unhappy ship, but maybe that is what it was. He was a West Coast sailor and he was with East Coast sailors but unhappy probably describes it. He thinks it trickles down from the top. The Pennsylvania was a happy ship. He had a ball.

Everett Hyland was on the radio gang on the Memphis [Annotator's Note: USS Memphis (CL-13)]. They picked up 200 passengers from the East Coast to take to South America. They got over to Bermuda. The first morning, there were a lot of patrol craft around them. The next morning there were more. They were escorting them to North Africa for the campaign starting there. It was crowded and cramped. They ended up off the coast. Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] was the big show for Hyland. He did have some encounters with Q-boats [Annotator's Note: also called Q-ships, decoy vessels, special service ships, mystery ships; heavily armed merchant ships with concealed weaponry] which were commercial ships rigged with guns, but no big deal. They had submarine sightings in the Atlantic. Hyland was outside of the radio shack once and the water was clear. He looked down and saw a torpedo coming at them. It went right underneath them. Somebody told him if you get hit with a torpedo, you get up on your toes to not break your ankles. He was transferred to a Naval Air Station in Charleston, South Carolina. He was there until the war almost ended. He had requested a transfer to an LSD [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship Dock] but never got there before the war was over and he was discharged. He had the points to get out and he did not reenlist.

Everett Hyland had gone back to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in the 1960s and 1980s as a tourist. He thinks of Pearl Harbor every day when he gets out of bed. [Annotator's Note: Hyland laughs.] Getting hit is what comes to mind. He keeps in touch with Colin "Coke" MacKenzie, who was the man Hyland was handing the ammo to when they were hit. He did not even know him at the time, since Hyland was not normally a part of the gun crew. He got to know him while they were in the hospital. They still keep in touch. Hyland was ushering people into the theater [Annotator's Note: at the Pearl Harbor National Memorial in Oahu, Hawaii], when a man walking by said "hi Everett". Hyland just figured he had read his bio on the way in. The man then told him he was in the radio gang on the Pennsy [Annotator's Note: USS Pennsylvania (BB-38)]. Hyland does not recall his name. There are others who came through who were on the ship, but Hyland did not know them. There were about 1,600 men on the ship. He has met many of the Japanese veterans and most of them are sorry. They were under the impression that war had been declared. When they found out they had attacked without that, it bothered them. The pilots were likely older than the American sailors. They are all nice fellows and they are not the enemy now. Hyland supposes he felt angry during his service time. He was being interviewed by Sam Donaldson [Annotator's Note: Samuel Andrew Donaldson, Jr., American reporter and news anchor] once. Donaldson had him enumerate everywhere he had been hit and then asked him if he had any animosity toward the Japanese people. He told Donaldson that his wife is from Japan. [Annotator's Note: Hyland laughs.] You will run into fellows that still have a chip on their shoulder. Hyland feels sorry for them. That is not a way to live.

Everett Hyland's wounds still bother him. He had a nerve check done on him in San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California]. They were trying to find a neutral spot on him to get their readings. The head of the department came in to help out and said that he did not have a neutral spot on his body. He had been burned on the arms, legs, face. Any exposed skin came off. He was only wearing shorts and a t-shirt. He tells the young men who come back from Iraq and Afghanistan that he went into combat with just shorts and t-shirt and they just shake their heads. A lot of them come and he talks to them. He tells them none of it is any fun. He got a Purple Heart [Annotator's Note: US military decoration awarded to those wounded or killed as a result of enemy action] in 1943. Ray Emory [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor survivor and advocate for unknown wartime casualties; Emory's oral history is also available on the digital Collections website] told him that he was probably one of the first to get one. The Navy did not traditionally give them out. Hyland was on the way to another ship in New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana] when he had enough points to leave the service. He figured he had never been to New Orleans, so he went down there. He handed his papers to the receiving officer who asked him what he was doing there since he knew he was to be discharged. He called Hyland some names and slammed the paperwork down. He told him he was going to put him on the ship and send him to the Pacific and stomped out of the room. There was a yeoman there who cleaned up the papers and asked Hyland how long it would take him to see New Orleans. Hyland told him a week. The yeoman gave him a billet, access to the mess hall, and told him to be back in one week or they both were in trouble. They sent him up to New York to be discharged after that week. This was in November 1945. He went to school at the University of Connecticut [Annotator's Note: Storrs, Connecticut] in the school of agriculture. He was a scientist for two or three years and then became a science teacher in Las Vegas, Nevada. He retired in 1983 and moved to California. He met his wife in Hawaii and moved there. His granddaughter graduated from Annapolis [Annotator's Note: United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland]. His daughter said he requested he wear his Pearl Harbor hat to the ceremony, but he was not sure and wrote her about it. The reply was, "Pearl Harbor cover is mandatory." [Annotator's Note: Hyland laughs.]