With Dec. 7 marking the 84th anniversary and with so few veterans who witnessed that awful day first-hand remaining, the attack on Pearl Harbor seems like a moment fading into history with each passing year.
However, for two World War II veterans in Northern California, the horrors of Pearl Harbor seem as fresh as yesterday.
E. Paul Ball, 99, both a Navy and Army veteran, said the damaging effects of the Japanese ambush were still evident two years later when Ball arrived at Pearl Harbor in late 1943. The wreckage of bomb-out ships still floated in the harbor. Occasionally, Ball could smell oil and fuel permeating to the surface…