Pearl Harbor Survivor Earl “Chuck” Kohler, 100-years-old, was a 17-year-old Seaman 1st Class when he charged across Ford Island base in the center of Pearl Harbor the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, with bombs and machine gun bullets raining down on him as he grabbed a .50 caliber machine gun, hopped into an aircraft and started firing into the sky. Now he’s a Concord resident and fixture at the annual beacon lighting, which this year marked the 83rd anniversary of the surprise attack that killed 2,403 Americans and thrust the U.S. into the second World War.
From a press release – “the Beacon lighting is a tribute to those individuals that lost their lives at Pearl Harbor,” remarked Earl “Chuck” Kohler, Pearl Harbor Survivor.
The rotating lantern was installed in the late 1920s to assist transcontinental aviation. To ease fears that the beacon would be used as a navigational aid by enemy submarines, the system was deactivated during World War II, and only reignited on Pearl Harbor Day for one night only in 1964 at the suggestion of retired Admiral Chester Nimitz, wartime commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
Taps is played during a National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day ceremony in Concord, before the annual lighting of the Mount Diablo Beacon, Saturday evening, Dec. 7, 2024. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)
As part of National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, 100-year-old Naval veteran Earl “Chuck” Kohler flipped a switch illuminating the Mount Diablo Beacon during a ceremony in Concord on Saturday, Dec. 7, 2024. Kohler, of Clayton, Calif., is one of only 16 known American military survivors of the Pearl Harbor attack. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)
As part of National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, the Beacon atop Mount Diablo glows Saturday evening, Dec. 7, 2024. Pearl Harbor survivor Earl “Chuck” Kohler, now 100 years old, flipped a switch illuminating the mountaintop light. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)
On overflow crowd attends a National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day event at California State University, East Bay’s Concord Campus to listen to speeches and light the Beacon atop Mount Diablo, Saturday evening, Dec. 7, 2024. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)
Kathleen Farley, the California state chair of the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors, speaks during a remembrance ceremony in Concord before the annual lighting of the Mount Diablo Beacon, Saturday evening, Dec. 7, 2024. Farley knows of only 16 survivors still living of the 87,000 military personnel who were on Oahu on the day of the attack. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)
Pearl Harbor survivor Earl “Chuck” Kohler arrives to flip a switch illuminating the Mount Diablo Beacon at a ceremony in Concord, Calif., Saturday, Dec. 7, 2024. Kohler, of Clayton, Calif., is one of only 16 known American military survivors of the Pearl Harbor attack. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)
