Reading the obituaries has given me countless of unplanned, uncontrollable, unpredictable lessons born from the lives of those who died yesterday. Today, we get an old lesson:
If it smells like a fish, and looks like a fish, and feels like a fish, it really could be a fish.
George Elliott, 85, Dies; Warned of Planes Nearing Pearl Harbor
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla., Dec. 24 — George E. Elliott Jr., an Army radar operator whose warnings about aircraft approaching Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, went unheeded, died here on Saturday. He was 85.
The cause was complications of a stroke, his family said.
Mr. Elliott, then an Army private, detected the incoming Japanese aircraft and issued a warning that was brushed aside. An hour later, enemy planes reached the Navy fleet.
A 50-year anniversary article by The Associated Press told how Mr. Elliott and another private, Joseph L. Lockard, had been on duty since 4 a.m. at Kahuku Point on the northern tip of Oahu, Hawaii, familiarizing themselves with the new radar system.
Just after 7 a.m., Mr. Elliott saw “something completely out of the ordinary” on the screen: a huge blip, due north, 137 miles out. The information was relayed to headquarters, and the operators were told it was a flight of B-17 Flying Fortresses from California.
They kept tracking for practice, and the blip grew so large that Mr. Lockard figured the radar set was broken. They turned it off at 7:45, after the blip disappeared behind Oahu’s mountains.
About 10 minutes later, the first bombs were falling on Pearl Harbor.
Mr. Elliott served in the Army until 1945, then worked for New Jersey Bell Telephone for 33 years before retiring.
Survivors include a son, Tom, and a brother, Clarence, of Port Charlotte.