Henry Norman Watkins was born in Koloa, Kaua‘i in 1926 and was raised in Kalaheo where his father, John G. Watkins, managed Kaua‘i Pineapple Co. He attended Lihu‘e Grammar School and Kaua‘i High School before transferring to Punahou for his
Henry Norman Watkins was born in Koloa, Kaua‘i in 1926 and was raised in Kalaheo where his father, John G. Watkins, managed Kaua‘i Pineapple Co.
He attended Lihu‘e Grammar School and Kaua‘i High School before transferring to Punahou for his final three years of high school.
While at Punahou on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, Watkins stood on the hill behind the school and from that vantage point witnessed a sky full of bursting anti-aircraft shells, sheets of flame at Hickam Field and black clouds of smoke rising from bombed warships at Pearl Harbor during Japan’s infamous attack.
Upon graduation from Punahou in June, 1944, Watkins volunteered for induction into the Army, rather than attending Harvard, where he’d been accepted.
The Army enlisted him in September, and following infantry training he was assigned to the 104th “Timberwolves” Infantry Division in Germany as a rifleman.
After several weeks of fighting the Germans, he found himself with his infantry company on the banks of the Elbe River near Dessau, shaking hands with allied Russian soldiers — rugged-looking individuals with shaved heads, carrying submachine guns.
“We had orders to allow no one to cross the river. But as respects women coming from the Soviet side, we ignored the order. Soviet soldiers were raping every woman they could get their hands on,” Watkins recently recalled.
He also remembered “an elderly woman thought she was going to be killed, so in order to stop her crying and shaking, I told her American soldiers don’t shoot civilians like that.”
Watkins finally graduated from Harvard, Class of 1950, and served in the Army during the Korean War as a 2nd Lieutenant platoon leader.
He entered the insurance business in Los Angeles, married, raised three children, retired, and currently resides in La Jolla, Calif.
