Gun fired in Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941

Volunteer Steve Weekley has worked for years with other members of the South Carolina Military Vehicles Preservation Association on a rare Pearl Harbor gun. The Twin 40 mm Bofors anti-aircraft gun survived the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and nearly a half century later was acquired by Celebrate Freedom. Restoration on the gun began in 2001, and there is still much to be done.

More than 60 years ago, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt told Americans December 7, 1941, was "a date which will live in infamy." On that morning, America was attacked without warning and without provocation. More than 2,400 Americans died and 1,100 were wounded. The USS Arizona Memorial in Honolulu, Hawaii, stands as a monument to that ship's 1,177 crew members who died as a result of the attack. Since the Memorial's dedication, more than 40 million visitors have honored the heroism of these brave sailors and marines.

By Rachel Haynie

Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day is just one of the days Steve Weekley honors WWII veterans. He is part of a cadre of volunteers who work tirelessly during their off-time, restoring vintage military vehicles and a rare anti-aircraft gun.

Every time Weekley returns to the historic Curtiss-Wright hangar at Owens Field where the volunteers work, he is silently saluting patriots who were already fighting for America's freedom a generation before he became a gunner's mate.

"I understood it. That's why I offered my help," said Weekley, whose interest in restoring the gun salvaged from the USS Downes has endured multiple stages already. "When we started, it looked like an impossible task. Not only were the barrels filled with concrete, (common practice for weapons being taken out of service)," Weekley said. "They don't even make parts for such a gun anymore.

"We have manufactured what we needed, from gun sites to railings." One example Weekley gave was: "There are no start buttons to be had anymore, so I made one out of a piece of inner tube, a tubeless tire valve, and a spring."

Weekley is sure "the cumulative number of man hours we have in restoring the gun alone surpasses 1,000. We have worked on it two or three days a week, three or four hours a night, sandblasting, painting, and whatever else was needed."

He said, "The beauty of having the number of people working on it that we do is that somebody always comes up with an idea when we need a solution." Getting through challenges has made all the work worth it.

For the US Navy veteran, one reward came during last year's Celebrate Freedom Festival in Camden. "I met a crewman from the (USS) Downes who had seen our site on the Internet and had driven down from Ohio just to see this gun."

Weekley said the man, who had been a fire control technician on the destroyer, brought a packet of personal history that included information on the ship. The Navy veteran left it here to be part of Celebrate Freedom's archives.

The Pearl Harbor gun in Columbia is the last known surviving part of the Downes, a ship nearly destroyed at Pearl Harbor. It was re-installed on another ship commissioned as USS Downes and continues to attract a lot of attention today.

Although volunteers were able to get the gun into condition for its debut appearance in the annual Veterans' Day Parade in 2002, there is still much to be done.

For more information about getting involved with the Military Vehicle Preservation group, contact David Cartledge at 960-3731 or dtcartledge@yahoo.com.

The Military Vehicle Preservation Association is an international organization for military vehicle enthusiasts, historians, preservationists and collectors interested in the acquisition, restoration, preservation, safe operation and public education of historic military transport.