By Mark D. Faram
Story and photos courtesy Navy Times

Port Everglades, Fla. — What John Zarli says most people don’t know about Dec. 7, 1941, and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, was that Friday, Dec. 5 was Navy Payday.

“Most people don’t know that,” said the 89-year old former sailor. “That means most of the fleet had been out partying that weekend and weren’t in the best shape on Sunday morning.”

But, he guesses that the Japanese knew that quite well.

Zarli and an Army veteran of the attacks, Abe Stein, were honored at the Ft. Lauderdale Coast Guard Station on Dec. 4 in a ceremony held by the Coast Guard, the Navy League and the Broward County Navy Days.

The ceremony included dropping a wreath in the water to honor the XXX U.S. service members who died that day and a young Coast Guardsman playing taps on a bugle.

But the fact it was payday was how Zarli, a machinist’s mate and a submariner came to have the duty on Dec. 7th. It was he who was standing the quarderdeck watch on the small seaplane tender Swan when the attack started around just before 8am.

“I’d just made third class on Dec. 3 and as the most junior petty officer in the crew, I pulled the duty Saturday night — putting me on the quarterdeck watch on Sunday morning, Dec. 7.

Zarli wasn’t even supposed to be in Pearl Harbor that Sunday morning and he wasn’t a permanent part of the Swan’s crew. His real command — a diesel submarine had left on patrol nearly two months before and he’d been sick — too sick to accompany his shipmates.

“So I got stashed in various jobs — the first was as the engineer on an admiral’s barge where I got to meet Halsey and Nimitz among others — then it was on to the Swan.

But though his first taste of combat was onboard ship — that ship wasn’t in the water. Instead it was purched on a large marine railway car inside a drydock when the Japanese started dropping bombs all around.

As the watch, it was Zarli who saw the first Japanese bombs drop at 7:55 am and he immediately called away general quarters. Seconds later he heard from the gunners manning the ship’s two machine guns and two 3” mounts that they had no ammunition — it was locked up below for the weekend.

“I went below to the armory and found it locked up tight as a drum,” Zarli recalled “It had one of those very large Navy padlocks on it and whoever had the key was nowhere in site.”

It was decision time. Zarli said that padlocks in the Navy are sacred — you don’t go around breaking them off without a good reason.

But immediately he realized this was as good a reason as any. Across the passageway he found a found a fire axe with a broad blade on one side and a pointed pick on the other and grabbed it.

“My shipmates were warning me — ‘don’t do it, don’t break down that door — it’s a court martial offense’,” he said. “Somehow that didn’t bother me and I did what I had to do and got our gun crews the ammunition they needed — I’m still waiting for that court-martial.”

Zarli’s quick action got the Swan’s gunner’s working almost immediately — making them among the first to fire back at the Japanese aircraft at 8:05 am. At 187 feet long and 35 feet wide, the Swan was probably one of the smallest ships to fight back at the Japanese that Sunday morning, they made an impact nun the less.

“We did manage to shoot down a more than one airplane that day,” Zarli said.

Official Navy records confirm Zarli’s story — at least in part.

Here’s some excerpts from the official reports filed by the Pacific fleet and dated Dec. 11.

“The 3″ anti-aircraft battery opened fire at 0803,” the reports read. “Some 50 caliber fire only was heard at this time — after this no chronological log was possible.”

In the thick of the fighting, the report said, the gunners were spotting their own targets and firing away on their own because “targets were changing too rapidly for spotting,” the report said.

Meanwhile, Zarli and others were moving ammunition topside as quickly as possible, while the rest of the engineering gang prepared the ship to get back in the water

“One direct hit was obtained by the 3″ battery, and the plane crashed in flames, beyond the dry dock area,” ” as the report officially credits the Swan with it’s own kill burt as for Zarli’s claims they got more — it’s not so definitive.

“The ship was firing on two other planes that crashed, but it was impossible to determine which guns were effective,” the report said as it summed up the Swan’s participation.

The Swan didn’t take any hits and suffered no damage in the attack and was back in the water and underway quickly after the attack.

They did have one casualty, the report read as “the port 3″ gun pointer was injured slightly by machine gun fire,” though the report didn’t say whose fire it was.

“The entire crew showed exceptional calmness and courage throughout the action,” the reports summary said.

The newly minted 3rd Class machinist’s mate was soon back on duty onboard submarines and spent the rest of the war – “doing some good” in the Western Pacific taking the fight directly to the Japanese.

Zarli would make chief before the end of the war and left the service to get a degree in civil engineering before being called back to duty for two years during the Korean War.

“I did a total of eight years on active duty,” he said. “I didn’t do anything special, really — I did what I had to do at the time – we all did.”