One of the most pivotal moments in the history of the United States marks its 80th anniversary next week as Southwest Florida and the country remembers the attack on Pearl Harbor.

On the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Air Service on the Honolulu, Hawaii, naval base shifted the then-neutral United States’ position and resulted in its entry into World War II.

In Cape Coral at the Brotherhood of Heroes Resource Center and Museum, residents can get an up-close-and-personal look at period artifacts and become educated on the incident that took the lives of nearly 2,5000 Americans.

The Brotherhood of Heroes is working on a display surrounding the events at Pearl Harbor, highlighted by pieces from Lt. Col. Phil Rasmussen, who was one of three pilots in what was then called the Army Air Core, able to get a plane in the sky that day, and who retired to Fort Myers in 1965 until his death in 2005 at the age of 86. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

“He’s a big deal, and he remained a big deal until his death. He used to go to a lot of reunions,” said Brotherhood of Heroes and Southwest Florida Military Museum & Library Historian Jim Zbick.

The display features a mannequin dressed halfway in a flight suit, with his slacks missing. That’s for one very particular reason.

“Phil Rasmussen is known as the pajama pilot because when the Japanese attacked us, it was on a surprise Sunday morning, and he just jumped into his plane and got it in the air,” Zbick said. “He ended up shooting down a Japanese Zero (plane) before his guns jammed. The three pilots that managed to get in the air engaged 11 enemy aircrafts. The odds were really against them. (Rasmussen) started into a plunge and regained control of his plane and landed at Wheeler Field. But when he landed, there were no brakes, canopy rudder, no tail wheel and the plane was riddled by over 500 bullet holes.”

Rasmussen received the Silver Star for his heroism at Pearl Harbor and went on to fly other combat missions during the war, including a bombing mission over Japan that earned him additional adoration.

There’s an exhibit in the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force featuring a pajama pilot climbing into his plane of the time, a Curtiss P-36 Hawk.

The Brotherhood also has a signed poster from Rasmussen’s caretaker of him at a Pearl Harbor Anniversary Memorial in 2003, .50 caliber bullet casings that belonged to Rasmussen and a die cast plane of a P-36 hawk with Rasmussen’s photo at the front. The museum also houses a Hawaii license plate found in the ground for a truck/trailer dated 1941 and an actual seat from a Japanese Zero plane.

On that morning in Hawaii at 7:48 a.m., the base was under siege by 353 Imperial Japanese planes of different varieties in two separate waves. Of the eight U.S. Navy battleships on site, four sunk and all were damaged. The Japanese also impacted three cruisers, three destroyers, an anti-aircraft training ship and a minelayer. All in all, 188 U.S. aircrafts were destroyed, 1,403 Americans killed and 1,178 other wounded. The U.S. made the choice to enter World War II the following day.

“A lot of people, if they don’t remember Pearl Harbor, they remember 9/11,” Zbick said. “People related (9/11 to Pearl Harbor) when 9/11 occurred, because it was the same kind of thing – history repeated itself. We were surprised by a morning attack by planes. And even though they weren’t fighter planes, they were used as weapons against us on 9/11. It took us totally off guard. We were surprised in both cases even though they were 60 years apart. History has a tendency to repeat itself until we wise up. It’ll continue that way.”

The Brotherhood of Heroes Resource Center and Museum is at 4522 Del Prado Blvd. and is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday. Admission is $4 per person and free for military and first responders. For more information, visit www.thebrotherhoodofheroes.com.

A son’s story

Army SSgt. Walter Raymond Bowers forever had his life changed on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941. Not only where he was stationed at the Schofield Barracks under attack by Japanese planes, the aftermath of the events that day altered his surname.

Cape Coral resident Vance Bowers, whose father was SSgt. Bowers, said while his father and mother, Mary Hazel, were heading to a church on base following the attack, someone came over the loudspeaker and said, “Somebody get Bowers!” The thing was, his last name was Bower, not Bowers.

“So, everybody started calling him Bowers, and every order that got written up said ‘Sergeant Bowers,'” Vance said. “At family reunions, we’re the only ‘Bowers’ there, everybody else is ‘Bower.’ My dad said he didn’t want to change it. It was made then.”

Vance’s mother Mary, who was pregnant with his brother at the time, was actually sent to the base after the incident with other wives and women to check aid children that were there. He said they loaded her up on the back of a military jeep, and that there was a .50 caliber gun hanging off of the back.

“They went around some corners, and she actually grabbed a hold of both handles of the gun and sent rounds, and actually hit an (enemy) plane,” Vance recalled. “I said, ‘I can’t believe it. Mom is a war hero.’ She just didn’t want to fall out of the jeep.”

Vance, whose family are Pennsylvania natives, recalls his father Walter saying that whoever planned the attack didn’t do their homework, because behind Schofield Barracks up on the hill, are nine big oil tanks where all of the oil for the island is kept.

“And nobody, nobody shot it,” Vance said. “Nobody hit it. Nobody dropped a bomb on it. All they were interested in is getting the ships in the harbor.”

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