At 18, just out of boot camp, John Pocock was on KP duty when the warning sounded.

The Japanese were about to lay down a massive air attack on the Pearl Harbor naval base. The raid would go down in history as a watershed event in American history: killing thousands, weakening the Navy's battleship force, and bringing the country straight into World War II.

“There is no blinking at the fact that that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger.” Franklin D. Roosevelt said after the attack. “With confidence in our armed forces—with the unbounding determination of our people—we will gain the inevitable triumph—so help us God.”

But before war was declared, and before Japan sent its first wave of aircraft over the island, Pocock was just a teenager in the mess kitchen of the USS Helena, wearing only his “skivvies” and a pair of flip-flops.

“We called them go-aheads then,” 84-year-old Pocock remembered, “because if you stepped backward you would walk right out of 'em.”

Like his fellow enlistees, Pocock spent the first three months of his naval career doing KP duty, or “kitchen police,” which meant “serving time” in the mess kitchen.

Pocock had wanted to be in the Army. The young Eaton resident, whose father had died when he was young and who was living with his mother and five sisters, had gone to Greeley to enlist with some friends but, at 17, he was told he was too young.

“The man told me 'The Army won't take you at 17 but the Navy will,'” Pocock said. “He told us to come back the next day, and we did. But I was the only one of us who enlisted that day. One of my buddies had flat feet and the other was under-weight. So, I was the only one.”

On Jan. 2, 1941, Pocock joined the Navy. He did boot camp in San Diego, Calif., and was then assigned to the USS Helena in Pearl Harbor in Oahu, Hawaii.

Serving on the light-cruiser moored in the east side of the harbor was his first taste of military life—and of battle.

“Then the Japanese bombed and unfortunately, we got hit,” Pocock said.

On Dec. 7, 1941, Pocock heard the warning and started to run to his battle station. There was a flash and a hot blast of air that threw him to his hands and knees. A torpedo had hit the Helena on the starboard side. It would flood one of the ship's boiler room and engine room. On that Sunday morning, the Helena was moored in the spot where the fleet's flagship Pennsylvania usually sat—which, unfortunately, was a target for the Japanese.

As the raid continued and the naval fleet began to respond, Pocock made his way to his battle station, a gun turret where he was supposed to man one of the six-inch guns. Those guns would not be used, and Pocock instead carried ammunition for the anti-aircraft guns.

“It was fine. I was lucky and didn't really get hurt: a sprained wrist but I never bled,” he said.

The crew ensured that the hole from the torpedo was sealed off and the ship was once again watertight; the Helena's anti-aircraft fire held off another Japanese attack on the ship.

After things cooled down, when the raid was over and the Japanese planes were gone, Pocock went to the hospital to take care of his wrist. They created a makeshift sling out of something that looked like the stuffing of a pillow, he said. It had blood on it from someone else.

“People would come up to me and ask if it was shrapnel, and I said, 'no, no, that’s not my blood,” he said.

Pocock made it through the attack unscathed—compared to the rest of the fleet. Among the 1,700 on board the Helena, about 20 died. Total, more than 2,400 people did not survive the attack on Pearl Harbor and more than 1,000 were injured. More than 20 ships were damaged or lost.

The Helena was fixed back up—they drained out the “yuck and mud” that had seeped into the torpedo hole and it was temporarily patched. The ship later made its way back to the United States for an overhaul, and then back out to sea, once again joining the Pacific fleet in the midst of fighting World War II.

Pocock and several other Pearl Harbor survivors continued life on the Helena.

In fact, he stayed with the cruiser until it sank in early 1943—Pocock now an experienced 19-year-old. The Helena had been positioned near Guadalcanal in the South Pacific, fighting in the Battle of Cape Esperance and the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal in November of 1942. But in July 1943, the Battle of Kula Gulf became the Helena's last fight. Three Japanese torpedoes finally took the ship down, jackknifing and sinking. More than 160 died.

“We didn't last very long. They sunk us pretty fast,” he said. “The first torpedo blew the bow off. I was in the water and it was black as night. There was so much oil in it that we all had the same color of hair and the same color of skin.”

Pocock feared for his life. The nearby island could be a dangerous destination for those who were in the water after the Helena was down.

“It was scary. We were in Japanese territory,” he said. “I couldn't see any beach or trees but just a big mountain. We lost almost 200 men that night. Low and behold, two destroyers had stayed back and picked us up.”

Pocock hopped from ship to ship and it took him months—until September of 1943—to get back to the United States. He later found another ship and headed back into battle. And he continued to serve in the Navy for years.

“I had in my mind that I wanted out. I was supposed to be out when I was 21, but the war wasn't over. So I signed on for another two years. But 10 months later, World War II was over and I had to stay another 14 months,” he said.

At 84, Pocock lives on his own in Eaton. His first wife was killed in a car accident when their two children were young; he's second wife died of breast cancer. He has three sons—and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. His memory is still strong: He remembers well his life in the military. He can even remember the names of his three boot camp commanders.

“They were very impressive,” he said. “They had us believing that they was God almighty. They called the shots and we answered.”

And, as he talks of Pearl Harbor and the Helena, he recalls the feeling of being attacked and of waiting for an attack.

“They had radars and they could pick up an object, but they couldn't ID it. They would pick them up at the range and sound battle stations. They would count it down from the range,” Pocock said, beginning to count down. “My God, it's getting scary then. Holy smoke. … And then there is firing. It's a tense moment, waiting all that time. It got so close that you might as well be throwing potatoes at one another.

“But one side always loses in a hurry,” he continued.