Leslie “Bud” Hollenbeck: The bomb that nearly killed him at Pearl Harbor

1on1 with Jon Evans

Leslie ‘Bud’ Hollenbeck was just 19 years old when fate put him on the U.S.S. Pennsylvania on the morning of December 7, 1941. As the Navy Signalman raised a flag on the battleship just before 8:00am, he spotted a group of planes approaching the harbor. Seconds later, the world changed. Now at age 97, Hollenbeck tells the story of how he survived the attack, the destruction he witnessed, and the bomb that came within feet of taking out his entire ship.