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The fiftieth U.S. state, Hawaii, an overseas territory of the United States, is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Command. On the island of O\u02bbahu, in Pearl Harbor (Wai Momi in Hawaiian), lies a naval base set in a naturally formed, round bay with Ford Island in the center and a narrow opening to the ocean. Long considered an ideal anchorage for most of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, history proved that neither ideal harbors nor safe times truly exist.<\/p>\n
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Without a formal declaration of war, on December 7, 1941, Japanese military aircraft attacked Pearl Harbor and brought the previously neutral United States into World War II. The attack by 183 aircraft and the sinking and total destruction of the battleships USS Arizona<\/em>, USS Utah<\/em>, and USS Oklahoma<\/em> had been preceded by an attempt by Japanese midget submarines to break into the harbor itself, though those actions achieved only limited success. The air attack dealt the heaviest blow: it severely damaged or destroyed numerous ships and temporarily secured Japanese supremacy in the Pacific. That day, 21 U.S. Navy ships were damaged or destroyed, about 2,400 people were killed, including 68 civilians, and 1,178 were wounded.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Many Croatians were serving on American warships that morning. The USS Arizona<\/em>, on which all 1,177 crew members perished, has since been turned into a memorial site open to visitors.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n USS Arizona today<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Among those who lost their lives on the Arizona<\/em> was John Claudius Hazdovac<\/strong>, son of Petar Hazdovac, born in Blato on Mljet in 1894, who lived in Monterey in Northern California with his wife and four children. Census records from 1930 list Petar Hazdovac as the owner of The Rainbow Caf\u00e9 on Del Monte Avenue; later he and his wife Mamie, n\u00e9e Nielsen, ran the Kimball Hotel.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Peter Hazdovac in his Caf\u00e9<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Their eldest son, John Claudius (known as Jack), was born in Monterey on April 19, 1920, and became one of the thousand victims of the destruction of the battleship Arizona<\/em>. Two childhood friends and relatives\u2014Michael Criscuolo and Tom Trovato\u2014also died with him in the attack on Pearl Harbor. All three grew up in the same neighborhood and attended Monterey Union High School. One by one, they enlisted in the Navy, and on December 7, 1941, they were serving together on the Arizona<\/em>. Jack Hazdovac was a member of the high school drama group and graduated in 1938. Local newspapers frequently mentioned him as a participant in softball, basketball, bowling, and golf. In 1937 he won a \u201chole-in-one\u201d contest by stopping the ball 14 inches from the hole; his prize was a $5 golf pass awarded by the city of Pacific Grove. That same year, he placed sixth in an open-water swimming race in Pacific Grove. He enlisted in the Navy in August 1940 and became a Seaman First Class.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Jack Hazdovac in uniform<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Jack\u2019s nephew, John Hazdovac (born 1959), once told a journalist that in the last letter Jack sent home he wrote to his mother \u201cnot to worry about him because he was on the biggest battleship of the biggest navy in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n At the end of January 1942, his parents received notice that he was \u201cmissing in action,\u201d but they continued to hope that, amid the wartime chaos, it was a mistake. However, the remains of all three young men still lie entombed in the wreck of the Arizona<\/em>, resting in the silt of Pearl Harbor.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Information and photographs of Jack Hazdovac were provided by the aforementioned John Hazdovac and Nicole Pickering Hazdovac.<\/p>\n The Hazdovac family traces its roots to Vushko Radojkovi\u0107, a banker from Bosnia who apparently bore the nickname Gazda (the boss),<\/em>\u00a0which over time evolved into Hazdovac<\/em>. According to documents preserved in Dubrovnik, Radojkovi\u0107 purchased land in Babino Polje (island of Mljet) on July 26, 1448. Giovanni Hazdovac, Jack\u2019s ancestor, was born there in 1762, as was his brother Matteo, born in 1784, Nicole\u2019s ancestor. After reaching adulthood, Giovanni moved to Blato, where he established the local branch of the Hazdovac family in the 18th century. Jack and her father were fourth cousins, but they remained very close because they all lived in Monterey.<\/p>\n Nicole recalled: \u201cOne morning, Jack visited my grandparents, Miho and Kate (Mike and Catherine, n\u00e9e Sestich), to say goodbye before leaving in a day or two. He wore his formal Navy uniform, the so-called Dress Whites, which deeply impressed my father, who was only five at the time. Jack sat at the kitchen table\u2014right in Dad\u2019s seat\u2014which was a special honor. My father Nicholas stood aside, listening and watching the adults talk. Everyone remembered Jack saying, \u2018Don\u2019t worry, I\u2019ll be on that beautiful big ship called the U.S.S. Arizona<\/em>!\u2019 He was very proud and excited to be serving in the U.S. Navy. It\u2019s a sad story of loss, but an important one to remember. Thank you for helping my family\u2019s name to live on in history,\u201d concluded Nicole Pickering Hazdovac.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Hazdovac, however, was not the only Croatian who died on the Arizona<\/em>.<\/p>\n Also killed on the ship were brothers Joseph<\/strong> and Charles Starkovich<\/strong>. Joseph was born in Ronald on February 4, 1915, and Charles in Roslyn on November 3, 1916. Their family moved from the mining town of Roslyn to Bellingham, also in Washington State, where the brothers grew up and enlisted in the Navy in 1940. After their deaths, their brothers Fred and Harry also joined the service.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Charles Starkovich<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Joseph Starkovich<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Joseph and Charles Starkovich<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Among the Croatian crew members who perished on the Arizona<\/em> were:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Joe Borovich<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Their fate evokes the words of English philosopher Francis Bacon: \u201cIn peace, sons bury their fathers; in war, fathers bury their sons.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Heroic Act of Peter Tomich<\/strong><\/p>\n At the moment of the attack on Pearl Harbor\u2014though aboard the battleship Utah<\/em>, which was also destroyed\u2014was Peter Tomich<\/strong>. Born in 1893 in Prolog near Vrgorac as Petar Herceg, with the family nickname Toni\u0107 (later turned into the surname Tomich), he was the son of Ante Herceg and Iva (n\u00e9e Tolj). He arrived in America in 1913, joined the Army, and after World War I transferred to the Navy. As a senior non-commissioned officer, he became Chief Watertender on the Utah<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n When World War II reached Pearl Harbor, the Utah<\/em> was struck by two torpedoes. Tomich remained in the engineering plant to tend the machinery and prevent the boilers from exploding until most of the crew escaped. While Japanese planes rained bombs on the harbor and the ship listed heavily, Tomich pushed the remaining men toward safety, knowing that a boiler explosion could kill even those already in the water. He himself did not leave. Witnesses said he could have escaped but chose to stay so that a few more men might live. He died when the ship capsized.<\/p>\n Together with 58 crew members out of a total of 1001, he remained trapped in the sunken hull near shore. Next to the overturned wreck of the Utah<\/em>, still lying askew by Ford Island, stands a memorial plaque describing Tomich\u2019s heroism. It was erected on the 30th anniversary of the attack, when Senator Frank G. Moss expressed hope that future memorials would be dedicated not to war victims, but to people living in peace.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Remains of USS Utah in Pearl Harbor<\/p>\n <\/p>\n From the left: Gabriela Brajevich from San Pedro, Blake Vaughn and Branka Bezi\u0107 Filipovi\u0107<\/p>\n <\/p>\n USS Utah memorial<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Divers placed an urn containing Tomich\u2019s ashes inside what remained of the ship: the vessel had been his home, duty, and destiny. A year after his death, in 1942, the U.S. Navy launched a ship named USS Tomich<\/em> from the Brown Shipbuilding yard in Houston. It served for thirty years until being scrapped in 1974.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n USS Tomich<\/p>\n <\/p>\n President Franklin D. Roosevelt posthumously awarded Peter Tomich the Congressional Medal of Honor. In 1989, the Navy built a museum, school, and residence hall named Tomich Hall in Newport, Rhode Island, where the medal was displayed for many years because his family could not be located. Only after his true surname was confirmed was the medal presented to his relatives in Croatia on May 18, 2006, during a visit of the aircraft carrier Enterprise<\/em> to the port of Split.<\/p>\n Also serving on the Utah<\/em> that fateful December 7 was radioman George Jurkovich<\/strong>, who luckily survived and left a valuable account of the chaos. Explosions woke him from sleep; when he reached the deck, the ship was already listing and he fell into oil-covered water. A small boat rescued him. In the confusion, frightened and uninformed Americans even fired on their own aircraft from the Enterprise<\/em>, thinking they were Japanese.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Echoes of Pearl Harbor on the California Coast<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The attack on Pearl Harbor resonated strongly among residents of the California coast, more than 2,500 miles away. Concern was especially high on Catalina Island off Los Angeles, the most exposed point on Southern California\u2019s shoreline. In Avalon, the island\u2019s only town, there was a small but close-knit community of Croatian fishermen.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Catalina Island<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In 2006, American Bill Pence wrote memories of fishing life and the albacore tuna season from 1942 to 1955, during which his father, Parker, fished alongside Croatians. In his unpublished notes\u2014which I obtained by a fortunate coincidence\u2014he described how the island was gripped by anxiety and readiness after the Pearl Harbor attack:<\/p>\n \u201cThe islanders knew that the West Coast was almost completely undefended at that time. The only large ship in the area was the aircraft carrier Saratoga<\/em>, in dry dock in Bremerton, Washington. Afraid of a possible Japanese landing, men dug trenches in Catalina\u2019s hills, felled trees to block the small airport runway, and practiced nighttime \u2018blackouts\u2019 to make the town invisible from the sea.<\/p>\n Fishermen organized nighttime patrols at sea so they could warn the military in San Pedro if danger arose. They chose the fast 36-foot fishing boat Skipjack<\/em>, captained by Smitty Smith, for the patrols. Armed only with hunting rifles and revolvers, they believed they could overpower small submarines similar to those found in Pearl Harbor.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Fishing boat<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Around Christmas 1941, a potentially crucial encounter took place. During one patrol, the Skipjack<\/em> crew saw a bright flash between Catalina and the smaller San Clemente Island. Approaching, they suddenly found themselves between two enormous ocean-going submarines\u2014one surfacing on each side. Skipjack<\/em> was boxed in, bow facing open sea. When Smitty tried to flee, the submarines matched his speed. Only when he cut his engines sharply, turned, and sped back toward Catalina did the submarines continue straight and disappear into the darkness. Smitty immediately reported the incident.<\/p>\n Two nights later, Avalon\u2019s residents stood in complete darkness on Crescent Avenue, watching searchlights and anti-aircraft fire over San Pedro and Long Beach. They were sure Los Angeles was under Japanese attack. The next day, it became known that a Japanese submarine\u2014likely one of the two Skipjack<\/em> encountered\u2014had boldly entered San Pedro harbor and shelled a tanker anchored at Terminal Island. When Americans saw the explosion, they assumed it was an air raid and fired into the sky, allowing the submarine to escape. The following night, the same submarine attacked and set fire to a small oil refinery in the Santa Barbara Channel and was seen from the shore.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Although the press did not report these events, many along the West Coast learned of them by word of mouth. Fishermen remained fearful for months, until it gradually became clear that an attack on California was unlikely.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Three Croatians with U.S. Navy Ships Named After Them<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n During World War II, in addition to the USS Tomich<\/em>, two more Navy ships were named after Croatians. USS Francovich<\/em> was named after Albert Anthony Francovich<\/strong>, born in Shamokin, Pennsylvania, in 1920. He was an aviation machinist and was killed in 1942 during the Solomon Islands campaign, in the Battle of Guadalcanal. He was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross.<\/p>\n In the same battle, Milton Frank Pavlic<\/strong>\u2014born in Trieste in 1909 and serving as a senior lieutenant\u2014also lost his life. In 1943 a ship was named USS Pavlic<\/em> in his honor.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Other Croatians on U.S. Warships<\/strong><\/p>\n According to U.S. Navy records, the following servicemen of Croatian descent served on Navy vessels during World War II:<\/p>\n This is just a fragment of a vast historical drama and a testament to the brave and tragic destinies of people of Croatian descent whose lives became interwoven with the global conflicts of the 20th century\u2014whether on oceans, in harbors, or in distant fishing communities along the American coast.<\/p>\n Their medals have faded, the telegrams announcing their deaths have yellowed, but their memories live on in the hearts of their families\u2014even among those who never had the chance to meet them.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Author: Branka Bezi\u0107 Filipovi\u0107<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The fiftieth U.S. state, Hawaii, an overseas territory of the United States, is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Command. On the island of O\u02bbahu, in Pearl Harbor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-usa"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/virtualnimuzej.aspira.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/02-Pearl-Harbor-iz-aviona-1.jpg\")
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Peter Tomich<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/virtualnimuzej.aspira.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/014-ostaci-broda-UTAH.jpg\")
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