Alumni Salute Colonist Military in Dec. 7 Pearl Harbor Attack

Anaheim High salutes Colonists veterans who witnessed the attack on Pearl Harbor today Dec. 7,  1941. 

Junior Perkins – Class of 1941

Our own Anaheim High alumnus Junior Perkins, Class of 1941, was on the U.S.S. Navy Destroyer Shaw docked in the harbor at the very moment of the enemy attack. Perkins survived the attack without a scratch, though his best friend standing next to him was killed.

While at Anaheim, Perkins was a Varsity Letterman who played the running back position for the Colonist Sunset League championship team. He made football history in 1939 when he carried the ball 11 successive times for 77 yards and made the lone touch down of the game which gave the Colonists their first football victory over Fullerton in 16 years. The photo included here of Perkins carrying the ball is considered on of the most iconic photos in Colonist football history.

Perkins also was one of the original classmates in the late 1980s that started the first-Saturday-of-the-month “Old Timers’ Breakfast.” Perkins passed away in 1999 at the Long Beach VA Hospital.

Keith Burdick ’40

Among several other Anaheim residents who were at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7 was Keith Douglas Burdick, a member of Class of 1940.  He played Varsity Football for three years earning All-League Guard and Tackle. He also played baseball and was a member of the Varsity A Club.

While not know for certain, one would assume Perkins and Burdick were friends and shared stories about surviving the attack when they were back home in Anaheim.

After the Pearl Harbor attack, the basement of the Anaheim High School Cook Auditorium was converted into an air raid bomb shelter under the control of the Civil Defense for the duration of the war.

In conjunction with the Civil Defense, the shelter was also the site of the America Red Cross and the Office of Price Administration (OPA). The basement was fully equipped with stretchers, cots, hospital beds, and a complete stock of tourniquets and surgical supplies. The bomb shelter was staffed 24/7 in the event of an enemy attack over the city and rural areas.

The AT&T building at 217 N. Lemon was considered a prime target for the Japanese military to bomb.  The Anaheim Police Department had the responsibility to guard the AT&T building from the roof top.

The entire Southern California coastal communities were placed on emergency alert.  Volunteer air raid wardens were called to duty and black outs became a way of life.

The OPA issued families ration stamp books.  A stamp was required to purchase such items as shortening, meat, coffee, sugar, gasoline, tires, shoes and much more.

Fears along the West Coast were especially high when on Feb. 23, 1942 at 7:15 p.m. an Imperial Japanese Navy submarine 1-17 surfaced and shelled the Bankline Oil Refinery located 12 miles north of the Santa Barbara Channel near Goleta. The shelling did minor damage to a pier and derrick and the Japanese ceased firing at 7:35 p.m. The sub was observed still on the surface exiting the south end of the Santa Barbara Channel at 8:30 p.m. United States planes gave chase, but the sub got away. After this attack, coastal defenses were improved.