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December 9, 2016
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Pacific base still at peace on pastor’s Pearl Harbor By Garth Snow
VALOR IN THE PACIFIC: A REMEMBRANCE
gsnow@kpcmedia.com
The U.S. military base of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, was big, busy and at peace on Saturday, Dec. 6, 1941. It remains so on Fort Wayne pastor Todd Hammond’s 1-2,400 scale model. Pearl Harbor and the world changed the next morning, Sunday, Dec. 7. Japan sent 353 aircraft and 52 ships and submarines on a surprise attack that destroyed or disabled 19 U.S. Navy ships and more than 300 U.S. aircraft. The attack claimed 2,403 military and civilian lives, with more than half that number aboard the USS Arizona. By the next day, the U.S. was at war with the Empire of Japan. Within days, the U.S. was swept up in a global conflict. The Great War that had been fought just one generation before Pearl Harbor would now be known simply as World War I. The U.S. and its
Presented by the National Museum of the U.S. Navy. The exhibit will be open through March 1, 2017, in the Temporary Gallery at 805 Kidder Breese St. SE, Washington, D.C. The museum is free and open to the public. The exhibit includes a Pearl Harbor scale model created by Fort Wayne pastor Todd Hammond. The pastor is seeking funding to offset the cost of transporting the model to the capital; visit gofundme.com. The exhibit incorporates artifacts, photographs and film footage. Find more information about the exhibit at history.navy. mil/nmusn.
PHOTO BY GARTH SNOW
Todd Hammond’s scale model of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, occupies most of his Fort Wayne garage. The model is part of an exhibit through March 1 at the National Museum of the U.S. Navy in Washington, D.C.
allies would win the new war less than four years later. The cost of the struggle between World War II victors would continue to be paid at new borders across the globe for generations to come.
Hammond chooses to remember the last day before that dramatic and permanent change. It’s still a bright Saturday on Hammond’s little, peaceful Pacific island, which is on display 75 Decem-
COURTESY PHOTO
Santa Train riders might climb aboard a wooden caboose built in the late 1800s, or a steel caboose built in 1962.
Santa’s ride begins, ends at New Haven train yard Santa Claus is riding the rails as the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society hosts the jolly old elf and families for train rides at the 15808 Edgerton Road facility east of New Haven. Santa
Train excursions continue two more Saturdays, Dec. 10 and 17, and Sunday, Dec. 18, from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. According to Society Vice President Kelly Lynch, tickets went on sale Nov. 16 and can be obtained at the Society’s website at fortwaynerail-
road.org. “By purchasing tickets for a specific time, they can eliminate standing in long lines to board,” Lynch said. “Ticket prices are $7 for children and adults. This is the second year we have used the online ticketing See TRAIN, Page A21
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By Rod King
bers later at the National Museum of the U.S. Navy in Washington, D.C. The USS Arizona rests in Battleship Row. Hammond, the pastor of Agape Church of the Brethren, has preserved
that moment on a meticulously painted plywood base that holds ships, housing and airfields. His 25-year project won the support of a survivor of that attack. Chief Frank Ruby, USN, retired, was aboard an oiling barge moored off Merry Point that morning in 1941. Ruby first visited Hammond’s scale Pearl Harbor years ago in Dayton, Ohio. “He was very impressed when I first met him and I invited him to come and see my little mini-museum,” Hammond said.
“He was just sort of humoring me. He thought it would be a few model ships. In fact, he had made a model of the Arizona and then he had seen someone else’s model of the Arizona Memorial, so he was keen to come see it. But then he saw the size of it and the detail involved and he was terribly impressed, and he said ‘Oh, you have to share this.’ And at that point there were a number of friends of his — veterans, both Navy and Army Air Corps — who See PEARL, Page A22