Club members witnessed Pearl Harbor, Pacific campaign firsthand

A future member of the National Press Club watched in stunned horror 75 years ago today as aircraft from the Japanese Imperial Navy fired bullets into his house on a Pearl Harbor hillside, sank or damaged much of the U.S. Navy's 7th Fleet, and killed thousands of Americans.

John Harllee, who was an associate member of the Club until his death in 2005 at the age of 91, helped avenge the toll of 2,403 killed and 1,178 wounded in the Sunday morning attack that launched U.S. participation in World War II by becoming a decorated combat veteran of PT boat forces.

Harllee was a lieutenant and Naval Academy graduate on Dec., 7, 1941. He went on to serve as chief staff officer of a group of 200 torpedo patrol boats with 10,000 officers and men, including a future president, Lt. John F. Kennedy. The Washington, D.C., native earned the Silver Star and Legion of Merit by war's end.

President Kennedy appointed Harllee to the new Federal Maritime Commission in 1961, two years after he retired as a rear admiral, and named him chairman in 1963. Harllee retired from the commission in 1969 and traveled the world as a maritime consultant and author of three books and numerous articles for professional journals.

While Harllee witnessed the start of World War II, two Club members witnessed Japan's formal surrender aboard the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay on Sept. 2, 1945: New Orleans Times-Picayune reporter Edgar Alan Poe and Reuters correspondent and future Pentagon and Treasury Department spokesman Joe Laitin.

Also in the harbor that day was a young seaman and future Hollywood star, Tony Curtis. Curtis recalled the experience at the Club on Oct. 4, 2010, during a recreation of the Club's World War II canteen for ceremonies marking the opening of the World War II Memorial on the Mall.

Many other Club members joined Harllee in uniform or in covering the Pacific campaign, including future Club Presidents Frank Holeman (Army), John Cosgrove (Navy), Don Larrabee (Army) and Warren Rogers (Marines), plus Austin Kiplinger (Navy), Ed Prina (Navy) and Shirley Povich (Washington Post correspondent).

All were head table guests at a Club luncheon Sept., 22, 1995, featuring Gen. Paul Tibbets, pilot of the B-29 Superfortress that dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan and helped hasten Japan's surrender. C-SPAN coverage of that luncheon can be seen online.