Dec. 7, 1941.

Fire rained down in the early morning at the Pearl Harbor base in Hawaii.

It came out of nowhere. One minute a sailor could be yawning at 7:47 a.m. — at 7:48, the battleship a fiery blaze sinking to the bottom of the ocean.

Imperial Japanese Navy pilots wreaked havoc on the U.S. Navy battleships, aircraft and base infrastructure. Even more stunning was the profound loss of life that day. More than 2,400 Americans were killed, with close to 1,200 more wounded.

As a torpedo struck the USS West Virginia, a young Fireman 1^st Class stood ready on the bottom deck to fight the blaze. Twenty-year-old Beaufort County native Howard David Hodges never had a chance. With no way to escape, he and his fellow sailors likely died soon after impact, but died heroes no less.

On the 75^th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, Helen Martikke and Lindy Hodges keep the memory of their brother close.

Howard Hodges was born July 14, 1921, the fifth child out of 15 of Phate and Annie Hodges. Martikke and Lindy Hodges were 4 and 2 years old, respectively, when Howard was killed at Pearl Harbor. Although neither remembers much about their older brother, they know he was kind and thoughtful, and were aware of the sadness that followed his death.

“She (their mother) was sad a lot and would talk about him,” Martikke recalled. “From what I understand, (father) signed for him to go into service, and he wouldn’t sign for any of the others.”

“It was very hard on the both of them,” Martikke added.

Howard would never return home, but the gifts he sent to his family before his tragic death did make it back to Beaufort County. A beautiful necklace for his sister Helen, now lost to time, and a toddler outfit for brother Lindy all the way from Hawaii.

According to Martikke, the gifts were kept in a cedar chest for years, a painful reminder of the son never to return. In recent years, however, Lindy Hodges had his little outfit mounted and framed, along with invaluable photos of Howard and his parents from decades ago.

Having the gift from the brother he never knew is special for Lindy Hodges. It serves as a testament to the man Howard was and honors his inescapable fate as the first man in the county to be killed in World War II. He was awarded the Purple Heart posthumously.

“We always talked about him a lot,” Martikke said. “We tried to keep his memory alive all these years.”

Several of the Hodges siblings ended up serving during World War II.

The sunken USS West Virginia was recovered from the bottom of the ocean, and both Martikke and Hodges are hopeful their brother’s bones can be identified with DNA technology.

Government officials told the siblings about an ongoing effort to recover remains from Pearl Harbor and return them to the families. Sometimes, it seems as if time is running out to bring Howard home, according to Lindy Hodges, with only four of the 15 siblings still living. But the possibility offers a glimmer of hope.

Decades have passed since fire rained down on the unsuspecting Navy sailors, and while Howard Hodges never made it home from the war, he is still very much alive in the stories and the memories of the Hodges siblings. He’s still alive in the outfit for little Lindy.

Seventy-five years later, his sacrifice is not forgotten.