HONOLULU -- He heard the roar of war planes swooping down and saw the fury of the Japanese -- all five minutes sooner than most during the attack on Pearl Harbor 54 years ago.
So John Finn will pause five minutes earlier than other survivors Thursday to pay tribute to those who died. His moment of silence will come at 7:50 a.m., the time Japanese planes swept over the Marine Corps base at Kaneohe Bay in Windward Oahu.
"Kaneohe Bay was hit first," said Finn, who was stationed there on Dec. 7, 1941. "Although I had never seen a picture of a Japanese plane, the minute I saw them, I knew what it was. It was the real McCoy."
Finn, who will be the keynote speaker yesterday at the National Park Service's annual memorial program at the USS Arizona Visitor Center, is one of 15 survivors who received the Medal of Honor for heroism the day of the attack. He was the only person stationed at Kaneohe to receive the medal.
Adm. Richard Macke, outgoing commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, will speak at the Navy's ceremony aboard the USS Arizona Memorial.
Macke resigned recently following remarks he made about three U.S. servicemen accused of raping a 12-year-old girl on Okinawa, Japan. He will remain on the job until President Clinton names a successor.
"I just did my job like anyone would have. Just like a mason, or a barber or a cook would," Finn said. Now 86, he lives on a cattle ranch in Southern California.
With Navy patrol planes burning and sinking into the bay, the military's only reliable defense was blasted away in seconds, said Finn, who had 15 years of Navy service at the time.
The Navy's head gunnery officer at Kaneohe, Finn was in charge of ordnance. For two hours, he initiated the only counterattack possible. With only a 30-man crew, he managed to fight off the bombers with the extra machine guns originally meant to be attached to the planes that were burning on the ground.
"I thought the Navy could beat the whole world until I saw all the planes burning and melting," he said. "And the thing that bugged me the whole time was that I was so damned mad at the way we got caught."
Finn is still eager to tell the rarely heard story of the attack on Kaneohe Bay.
"It's the cross you have to bear once they hang that Medal of Honor around your neck," he said. "I get five pounds of mail a week. Some guys can never get enough of prying into history."