Robbie Silver, Casey Candelaria, Valerie Lemeshko

Robbie Silver, Casey Candelaria, Valerie Lemeshko

Mr. Corona

Honors U.S. History/P.3

27 May, 2008

King High Remembers Lou Roffman

Born in New York, February 22nd 1918, Lou Roffman came into this world and experienced tragedy and triumph. An orphan at eight months old, Roffman’s parents were killed in the ruthless Flu Epidemic of 1918. He then was brought up in a Catholic orphanage until he was in high school where foster parents took care of him. After graduating high school, Lou Roffman was caught in the Great Depression. He soon found two bread lines. He joined the military line because the food looked a lot better.

Roffman began basic training at Randolph Field in Texas. Basic training was not as complex as it is today due to the rush the military needs to take to build up the arm forces. According to Roffman, the salute and the march was all it took to complete a basic training. Thirty quick days later, Roffman moved to Illinois to begin training toward his passion. Being an airplane mechanic in the Army Air Corps was the ultimate experience. “When I was finished at that school I was able to tear an airplane apart and put it back together, I knew everything.” He was then transferred to Hawaii as a flight engineer for the legendary B17 bomber.

Roffman was stationed at Hickham field where he spent most of his time doing aerial maneuvers. In November of 1941, Pearl Harbor was put on high alert until December 5th. There was a lingering suspicion of sabotage from a surprise attack. He was given an order to group the planes together in front of the hangers because many thought the attack would come from within Pearl Harbor. They knew “war was coming, but did not know when.” The next day, Lou was given his monthly paycheck after thirty days of hard work. He decided to go into town to “get drunk” and head back to bed around one in the morning. Upon the rising sun of December 7th, Lou woke up to an explosion at the end of the airfield. He thought it was maneuver practice until his barracks broke in two from a bomb. “I thought, don’t they know it is Sunday!” This was the first time he has ever seen a dead man. He soon realized that all the people who went to breakfast early were dead. The only reason he wasn’t dead too was because he was “too drunk” to get out of bed. It was at that moment that he knew for sure something was terribly wrong. Roffman was able to dodge the burning hangers at Hickham field. Pearl Harbor was burning.

After the Day of Infamy, Lou was up and ready to search for the Japanese fleet. Up in the air, the planes were doing “pie maneuvers” which allowed them to search around an eight hundred radius. His plane went southwest looking for the Japanese, but they were coming from the northeast, if he had not been pointed in the wrong direction, Lou would have not been with us today because the Japanese would have found them.

They finally caught the fleet on June 5th. The B17 dropped bombs and “scared the hell out of” cruisers, transports, oil tankers, and refuel boats. Then it was back to Hawaii by June 8th. It was now time for the “real war” where the harsh realities were set into his mind. Ten Minuets out of Darwin, Australia Lou was in enemy waters. At least four to five times a week they were hit and had to quickly repair the damage. Hit by a flack, with the smoke filling the air, it felt like he hit a wall. Caught in confusion, he said “my fatigues were sticking to me, I was hit and I did not even realize it. My captain had to slap me ten times to get me to stop crying.” His number three engine was hit and the co-pilot “blown away.” Roffman covered him up with a blanket and returned to his post. For a short time there was a comic relief to World War Two. In Australia, the “girls loved us and they said I was good looking.” Roffman later walked into a bar for a drink that ended up costing him five cents. One drink was only enough for him because he did not want to “fly with a hang over.” After he was finished with his drink, Lou put the glass upside down on the table, accidentally challenged someone to a fight. One brought him outside punched and gave him a couple of black eyes. Decades later, Lou contacted that man to meet him at the same bar. They became friends as Lou was introduced as the “American bloak that got decked.”

Between all the back and forth to the states, a pilot friend set him up on a blind date with who later became his wife. “I thought she was actually blind,” laughed Roffman. Later, he was assigned to an embassy with his wife in South Africa for three years. He then came back to the states for one year. After South Africa, he went to Cairo, Egypt for three more years. While stationed in Holland, Lou attended a Dutch language school. “I graduated second in my class…there were only two of us,” he joked. Out of the overall experience he said his favorite plane was the one that would bring him home safely. Roffman was thankful every time he came back to America untouched and unarmed.

During the interview, Roffman gave insight toward the Japanese people and their government after the war. He continues to not hold any animosity toward the Japanese people because they had nothing to do with the actions of what their country did to the United States. However he has “anger” toward the Japanese government because they ruthlessly murdered so many Americans without any kind of hesitation. Their government took pointless time to make false peace talks to the American people, but all they did was take time to push their heartless brutality into full force. Roffman even thought Japanese interment camps were a very good idea at the time, but later he realized it was a big mistake. This was the fact the Japanese Americans were still American no matter what.

Even though Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the president during World War Two, Roffman did not think much of him as a person who made the right decisions. Roffman states that if Roosevelt were alive today, he would be tried for treason. “We needed to go to war, but not at the expense of so many American lives.” Regarding the controversy behind the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan, Lou believes it eventually “saved American lives” from perishing into the hands of the Japanese. Dropping the atomic bomb was “the most courageous action Truman could have ever taken.” “He truly had the guts” to take action on what was needed to be done to save the lives of many Americans.

Even today, Roffman believes “war is a necessity,” but we are blind sighted on what we are fighting for. Like the attack on Pearl Harbor on United States soil, we were struck again in the heart of New York where we lost many lives to terrorists in 2001. We “know who the enemy is and we need to find him.” Those terrorists in the Middle East are “brainwashing kids” and need to be stop to keep future generations from turning their lives into terrorism.

In the end, Lou Roffman had spent over twenty-five thousand hours in the air. He was paid twenty-one dollars a month until he made more due to his flying experience after thirty-one years in the service. Now a part of the Pearl Harbor Survivors and Optimist Scholarship organizations, Roffman uses these associations as a means of keeping in touch and socializing with friends, along with helping out student to find their educational pathways. He saw the world, while keeping magic in his heart. We will always remember Lou Roffman, Pearl Harbor survivor.