By Dec. 7, 1941, much of the world was already at war.

Japan had been fighting China since 1937.

Nazi Germany had invaded Poland in 1939, thrusting Europe into war.

The United States had begun a massive mobilization. Its focus: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Early that Sunday morning, a violent strike by the Japanese came before we were ready, nearly wiping out the United States’ naval strength and killing more than 2,000 Americans.

To those who still remember, this was truly a day that lives in infamy.

Maurice Wright, 89, was 14 on Dec. 7, 1941

I was standing by the stove very early in the morning ready to go to school. I heard about it on the radio. To me, it didn’t have much feeling other than we were in war, but all the rest of them were really upset and worried about it.

My dad had just died and (my mother and I) moved in with Grandma and Grandpa. My mother, she said, “Oh, I’m so happy that you’re not going to be able to go; you’re too young to go.” I was a freshman at Alexandria High School, that’s north of Anderson.

I was always wondering about the people who were getting drafted. Then we of course was always reading what was close and what was happening. But I think I started missing people, adults. I always had two or three jobs I could do because the adults were gone.

I enlisted in 1945. The war was just about over. I was 18. I served all along the coast of Maine. I worked on lighthouses. I served in the Coast Guard. I was in there for two years. Then, just as soon as the war was over, they let me out.

Floyd Crouse, 84, was 10 on Dec. 7, 1941

I was on a carpet in the front room of the family home (in Monticello) listening to President Roosevelt talk about declaring war. My brothers and sister and dad and mother (were all there).

I don’t remember anything specific, but later on, this was a common practice, one of the guys in Monticello ended up in the Air Force. I don’t know if he was a pilot of a B-17, but he came over the house. He flew over Monticello. He was so low that you could see the tread of the tires and the glow of the exhaust. That made quite an impact on me. It was much later (after the attack).

A cousin was lost. He was a co-pilot on a B-25. He went on a mission and his plane never returned.

My two brothers served in World War II with the U.S. Army. Bob was the younger of the two. He served in the 775th Field Artillery. My brother Jim got a Bronze Star for coming up with a way to set up or take down the radar equipment. They both returned home from the war. They went in on the sixth day after the invasion started.

I served March of ‘51 to March of ‘54. I was struck in the eye with a pitchfork (as a child) and so I knew I wouldn’t pass the eye check test, so I just kept moving forward. There was an upright (partition), it looked like it was the size of a ping-pong table really, and on the other side I heard him say “D-E-F-P-O-T-E-C.” It sounded like he passed, so I went in and I passed.

I was shipped to Schofield Barracks in Hawaii. If you can imagine, that’s where I took my basic training. We were told when we first got there, “There’s a chance you’ll go to Korea before you go back to the states.” I ended up in the Combat Engineers. I moved up to where I was in the Army’s 185th Engineer Combat Battalion.

The truth is that this (photo of himself from his time in service), I’m rather proud of this picture because it shows five stripes.

You don’t get five stripes for being a goof-off.

John Macleod, 91, was 16 on Dec. 7, 1941

At the moment, it didn’t affect me.

My aunts had come down to our house for dinner that afternoon. We needed a centerpiece for the table, and my dad and I went out looking for a florist that was open on Sunday morning.

And when we came back, we heard that it had happened.

They weren’t gathered around the radio, but they were all talking about it, of course. It was mostly dead silence. We had to figure out where Pearl Harbor was — about 90 percent of America had to figure out where it was. My dad didn’t know. I certainly didn’t know. The Hawaiian islands? That didn’t mean anything to me at the time.

It’s not like people think. It was more a stunning thing. I was stunned, I know that. We didn’t sit around and talk about it.

My dad went about six months later into the Merchant Marine. He was in the British Navy in World War I. He was never an American citizen.

I went into the Navy when I turned 17. I’d already been torpedoed, the first day of the war, Sept. 3, 1939. We were coming back to America from Scotland, on the liner Athenia, and it became the first ship torpedoed by Nazi submarines in World War II. All of us survived.

I just loved the sea, and — I didn’t want to get drafted into the Army. A lot of people knew then that they would be going into the service.

I was in the Pacific for four years on a destroyer. I was on what they call a “ship of the line.” Before I got on the ship, it had been part of the escort for the first bombing of Tokyo, but I didn’t even know about that. Nobody on the ship ever spoke of it.

I was a signalman, on the bridge. Well, we bombarded a heck of a lot of people on little islands.

I don’t like to be reminded of all of it.

Normajean Macleod, 87, was 12 on Dec. 7, 1941

We were in church, my mother and dad and my grandparents. And we came out of church on Sunday morning, and somebody told somebody, and the word spread. And then I know, right away, the word went out, we were all to go back to church that night for a special prayer service.

I was so involved in my church that I was probably more interested in what we were going to do that night and how it was going to be done.

I think the biggest thing of the war I remember was listening on the radio to Roosevelt’s speech when he declared war, “The Day of Infamy.” That stayed with me more than anything else.

The closest that I got to feeling anything about the war, is there were Japanese planes — we’ve learned now — that did come along the coast of California. And I think they even think they shot down one there.

So, we had air raids and things like that. We often had night raids, and you could hear planes going over, but more than likely they were our planes.

Yeah, it was kind of scary. Especially for a younger person.

Bob Vollmer, 99, was 24 on Dec. 7, 1941

When Japan went into Manchuria and slaughtered the Chinese (1931), then we knew. We said, “Hey boys, well there’s going to be a war. We’re going to be in it.”

So, we thought, “Well, let’s get ready.” So we would go down to Petersburg, around the strip mine area and practice swimming.

I started working for ADT. I went to Detroit and they made a service man out of me — a troubleshooter. I even uncovered some sabotage up there at the Oldsmobile plant in Lansing. They was going to disrupt the fire alarm system and burn the buildings down, because they was starting to make tanks for our buddies over there.

That’s where I was when Pearl Harbor came. I was in a rooming house, and I was laying on the floor, reading a book on batteries. I heard it over the radio. I’d already enlisted in this British outfit, and I was studying all I could.

Before I enlisted in the American outfits, I figured, I’m going to get in something. At that time, a lot of the American boys were joining the British or the French or whatever. They had recruiters over here.

I’d never even heard of Pearl Harbor — had no idea where it was. But I knew from the tone, that they would interrupt the program about every 15 minutes — you knew it had to be bad.

On the following day, the 8th, I was supposed to go to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and ship over and help the British out. But then I got a telegram that same day — it was on the 7th — that said, “Stay where you are, letter to follow.” And the letter released me (from the British military) because we were at war then.

I wasn’t going to wait for the draft, get in something I wanted. That’s what everybody did. You figured it was your duty. You didn’t want to be a slacker. With the sabotage, I could have stayed out of the draft doing burglar alarm stuff, but when the war was over, how would I feel facing my buddies?

My dad always told my brother and I, “We don’t want war. We don’t like it. But, if we’re going to have to have war, you boys be the first ones over the top.”

Reporter Suzannah Couch contributed to this story.