Fifty-eight airmen in the Jack Edwards Airport Lobby were a bit slack-jawed with grins on their faces as they listened to Chuck Wheeler talk about the USS Enterprise and World War II. These Ancient Airmen of South Alabama knew that they were in for a treat without baloney.

Wheeler was in the pre-war Navy on the Enterprise CV-6 (www.CV-6.org) and missed the Pearl Harbor attack by two days because they had to slow for rough seas. They had been ordered to Pearl Harbor earlier in the week.

Wheeler was familiar with Pearl. He said that pre-war Pearl “stunk: with little for the soldiers to do on the weekend except to drink.He said that the Japanese knew Pearl also and chose Sunday morning to strike realizing that there would be a lot of hang-overs from Saturday night partying. The officers were at another club watching the “hootchi-koochi.”

The USS Enterprise did not tarry long at Pearl, not only because the Japanese might return but also because they wanted to encounter the enemy on the open sea. So they refueled, provisioned and left with complicated directives “Go get those Japs!” and they did.

Before the attack on Pearl, Enterprise scout planes had spotted a squadron of Japanese planes. Wheeler said that throughout November 1941 there was a state of war and they had orders to sink subs and encounter any Japanese presence. The Japanese at the time were distant and concentrating on one objective.

Wheeler was proud to have served on the Enterprise, a carrier that fought the most through the entire War. Between December 7, ’41 and May 14, 1945 when the Enterprise took on a gaping hole on the flight deck executed by a Kamikaze attack off Kyushu, Japan, the “flat top’ was busy and always not very far from the next battle.

The ship participated in most of the major battles of the Pacific War. Her planes and guns downed over 900 enemy planes, her bombers sank 71 ships, and damaged or destroyed 192 more.

There’s a lot of history and aircraft carrier science to be learned from this eighty-eight year old veteran who will be your guide at the Naval Air Station Museum in Pensacola. Don’t miss his memories, knowledge and your heritage.