Tag Archives: fighter pilot

Irony and cruelty: My father’s endless journey from Pearl Harbor

My father and Pearl Harbor have been inexorably linked through the irony of history, and the cruelty of coincidence. When America was attacked by Japan early on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, Flight Lt. Christos George Halkias was a 21-year old fighter pilot making his way to North Africa by land after escaping a German prisoner of […]

Dad and the last bus from Pearl Harbor

When I was 10, my father, a former World War II fighter pilot, took me to see the joint American-Japanese production of “Tora! Tora! Tora!” The 1970 film was a major spectacle, portraying the Pearl Harbor attack from both sides. Its Academy Award-winning special effects left me mesmerized. Death, destruction, and history-changing events didn’t make […]