Hubert L. Puckett was born in Newton, Mississippi in May 1919. He moved to Dekalb, Mississippi with this family when he was only two months old. During the Great Depression [Annotator's Note: The Great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1945], food and clothing was sparse. He was able to go to school when he did not have to help his family on the farm. He missed one whole year of school because his family needed help on the farm. His childhood consisted of a lot of struggles. Before the Great Depression, his family was well off for farmers. The price for crops, like cotton, was good. When the Great Depression hit in 1929, they had to move to Dekalb, and his family suffered. He finished high school in 1939 and there was no jobs. He joined the Civilian Conservation Corps and he sent some of the money home to his parents. After about one year and a half, he found a job in Meridian, Mississippi working at Sturgis Wholesale Grocery company. [Annotator's Note: Interviewer pauses interview and video breaks at 0:03:53.000.] He lived in a boarding house while he worked at the grocery company. He was 20 years old at the time. There was a saying, "If you are free, white, and 21, you will be subject to the draft." He knew that he was going to get drafted, but he did not want to be in the Army. He and his friend, William Hopper, decided to go to the recruiting office of Meridian and join the Navy. The Navy was not accepting anymore recruits, so Puckett and Hopper went across the hall and joined the Marines. They were sent to boot camp in San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California] and then were given assignments in Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii]. He sailed on the USS Chaumont (AP-5) to Pearl Harbor and arrived 21 January 1941. On the voyage over, there was a bad storm and many of the people on board got seasick, including Hopper. Puckett did not. At one point, Hopper was laying stomach down on the deck with his face hanging over the side because the mist of the ocean water gave him to relief of the nausea. A petty officer came over and told Hopper that the water that is splashing on his face is coming from the bathroom the level below. When Hopper got to Pearl Harbor, he volunteered for the Navy Yard Fire Department while Puckett stayed in the guard company. After a while, Puckett applied for the Navy Yard Police Force because he got tired of standing around for eight hours a day. He liked the idea of driving or bicycling around. Not long after he joined to Police Force, Puckett was made assistant police chief because he showed a lot of promise. He was given the corporal and sergeant's exams in a short period of time and passed them both. He was promoted to buck sergeant [Annotator's Note: the lowest rank of sergeant in the military; E5].

On 7 December 1941 [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] at six o'clock in the morning, Hubert L. Puckett was ordered to stand outside the admiral's house to guard it. There was a flagpole in front of the house, and Puckett was working on getting the eight o'clock signal flag raised up with the cooperation of the signal guard. He suddenly saw planes in the sky. He told the signal guard that the planes were funny looking. Puckett realized they were Japanese by the "rising sun" insignia on the aircraft. The planes soon began to drop bombs. One of the planes tried to hit a hangar but missed, so the bomb landed in the water. Seconds later the water shot up 300 feet high in the air. The second plane dropped his bomb on the hangar, and it exploded. After that, the planes were coming from everywhere. Torpedo planes came in and one dropped a torpedo hitting the USS Oklahoma (BB-37). Puckett watched the ship turn bottom up in a matter of seven minutes. The ship went under water and then surfaced several times before finally staying underwater. Many of the sailors jumped off the ship into the water. The water had oil on fire and some of sailors were burned up. The sailors that survived the attack went straight to the hospital. Puckett saw another torpedo plane coming through but then a sailor on a submarine shot at the plane and made a direct hit. Puckett also witnessed the scene when Admiral Kidd [Annotator's Note: US Navy Rear Admiral Isaac Campbell Kidd] was killed in the explosion of the USS Arizona (BB-39). Puckett thinks he saw a 300-pound bomb go directly down a smokestack of the USS Arizona and that's what caused its demise. The pilot that flew over him stuck his tongue out at him. Puckett had nothing to defend himself with expect a .45 [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber M1911 semi-automatic pistol]. He tried to take a shot at the pilot but missed. Because his barracks were put on alert a few days before, 75 percent of the military personnel were out on shore duty and only 25 percent were at the camp. They were put on an incorrect alert by their admiral. Some of the Marines had to break the lock of a warehouse to roll out .50 caliber machine guns [Annotator's Note: Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun] onto the parade field. They were able to shoot the Japanese pilot down that stuck his tongue out at him. The plane crashed past the hospital. Puckett's friend, Hopper, who was in the Navy Yard Fire Department was trying to put a fire out near a dry dock when a bomb landed 15 feet from him making the black top explode up. Hopper was holding onto a fire hose at the time. He was trained to never let go of the fire hose because if it got loose, it could hit him and kill him. After the incident he walked away with a scuff on his knuckles and loss of hearing for a few days. Puckett was ordered to stay at his post throughout the attack. When the attack started, he ran across the street to wake Admiral Brock [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify], but when he got to his room, the Admiral was already awake and getting dressed. Puckett told him what was happening, and the Admiral just ran out the front door and heading towards the administration buildings.

In the aftermath of Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941], Hubert L. Puckett and several Marines headed to the hospital to see what was going on. Many people were being transported over there all day and the hospitals had run out of room. The workers had stacked bodies up outside in three stacks. It was a pitiful sight to see and Puckett could hardly stomach it. He did not talk about it for years. Hickam Field [Annotator's Note: now Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Oahu, Hawaii] never got a plane off the ground. They cranked the planes up, but the gas lines were cut due to sabotage. The whole event was hard to believe. He saw one Japanese pilot bailout over a cane field and not open his parachute. Puckett heard that some of the Japanese planes ran out of gas and crashed landed on some of the nearby islands as a suicide mission. President Kennedy [Annotator's Note: John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President of the United States, 1961-1963] was stationed on a torpedo boat and tried to catch up with some of the Japanese planes but could not get to them in time. Puckett also heard that some of the Japanese pilots had high school rings from a school in Honolulu [Annotator's Note: Honolulu, Hawaii]. The pilots knew where to go and how to get there. During the attack, Puckett had to threaten many of the Marines and sailors to get out of the way and take cover. He said Admiral Brock [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] left his house and not long after his driver came by to pick him up. The car was all shot up. He was not afraid during the attack. There was a Japanese submarine in the harbor during the attack, but the Navy was able to catch it by dropping an "ashcan" shell [Annotator's Note: also called a depth charge or depth bomb; an anti-submarine explosive munition resembling a metal barrel or drum] and blowing the top off. Somehow the submarine survived and eventually toured the United States. Not a week later, another Japanese submarine tried to enter the harbor, but was caught too. When they brought the submarine up, Puckett went over to look at it and was amazed how small the quarters were for the Japanese move around in. An American would not be able to fit in the space. Puckett remained at Pearl Harbor until November 1943. When he left, he sailed on the SS President Grant with a convoy. The ship took a zig zag [Annotator's Note: a naval anti-submarine maneuver] course back to the United States. After he landed in San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California], he was stationed at Camp Elliott [Annotator's Note: in San Diego, California] and reclassified to work in the post exchange. Shortly after, he was sent to Camp Pendleton [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, California] where he worked as a warehouse steward. Within months, he was promoted several times. He was discharged as a master tech sergeant.

It took 20 or 30 years for Hubert L. Puckett to talk about what he experienced during Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He now talks to younger generation. He can get very emotional when he opens up to others about the events of Pearl Harbor. He believes there should be institutions like the National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana], and they should continue to teach World War 2 to future generations because there are so many children in our country do not know anything about Pearl Harbor. Many of the younger generation does not appreciate the people that serve our country. He is not sure if World War 2 changed him. He is a very easy-going person and has been that way his whole life. Sometimes he is a little bitter because he missed much of his youth during his service in the Marine Corps. He wishes he could have had a chance to get an education and find a better job. He retired from the Post Office in December 1976 after 30 years of service. Puckett did not want to join the Army and hears that most of them were drunks. He later found out that the Marines were just as bad. When the Army, Navy, and Marines got into fights, the Marines would always win. He and a group of Marines ran off some Navy men from a movie theater. The Marines could not go out alone because the natives would sometimes attack them. Puckett and his friends were tired of it, so they bought some beer and went around town knocking the natives with empty beer bottles. The natives stopped attacking the service men not long after. Puckett feels no resentment towards the Japanese. He is a Christian and has been taught to forgive. He has purchased Japanese cars and loves them.