HAYDEN - Carolyn Brooks Wood is especially proud of the Stars and Stripes that fly outside her home.

Because that flag fluttering in the wind belonged to her father.

And she is even more proud of him.

"There's dad," she says, pointing to a black and white picture that depicts a motor launch headed out toward the USS West Virginia engulfed in black smoke. The men on the small boat are about to pull a survivor out of the water.

Her father, she says, is the man on the far left, wearing what appears to be a white T-shirt.

"You can hardly open a history book and not find this photo," Brooks Wood says. "It's one of the most reproduced photos of World War II."

The date was Dec. 7, 1941. The picture was taken at Pearl Harbor. Edmund Raymond Brooks, "Eddie" to friends, would survive the attack.

"I saw the Japs dropping their eggs," he would say later. "I looked up, all I knew I was mad, and I wanted to fight."

Eddie Brooks would go on to fight another day. And another. And another.

No surprise.

Eddie Brooks was born a fighter. He always was a fighter. Right up to his dying breath, at the age of 87, on May 13, 2006, he was still tossing punches.

His only daughter wants to be sure others know his story.

At her home, Brooks Wood has photos, books, documents, certificates displayed in the living room. They are about World War II, Pearl Harbor, and her father.

She's in Pearl Harbor this week, with 14-year-old grandson, Brodie, to attend the 70th anniversary ceremonies. She takes pride in noting she received an invitation.

"I'm really honored," she says.

Brooks Wood isn't there just to watch. She plans to listen, take pictures, and notes, too. She wants to document as many stories of Pearl's survivors as she can, and perhaps pen a book. Their numbers are few.

"It's not just my dad's story," she says.

"Someone has to carry the torch and tell the story. It's up to the sons and daughters of Pearl Harbor survivors to do that, to tell the stories to the next generation."

Remembering dad

"That's me when I was 6 years old," Brooks Wood says, holding up a black and white photo of a muscled young man holding a young girl and boy.

She quickly scans through more pictures and comes to several colored ones of an older man, her father. Even at 86, Brooks was still showing boxing moves, giving instructions, working out.

His first street fight was at age 8. Even then, just a kid, he was good, and he landed in the ring in San Pedro, Calif. As he grew bigger, stronger, he fought in the welterweight division, winning often. He was undefeated in the Navy, which he joined in 1939.

His daughter recalled a time she was a young girl when two sailors made a passing remark her father heard. He confronted the men, and ended up knocking one out.

He was, his daughter said, a person you wanted on your side.

"Eddie Brooks will never start a fight," friends said of him, "but he knows how to finish one."

Dec. 7

The night of Dec. 6, her father left his ship, the USS Argonne, and went to the USS Arizona to work out with other boxers, have dinner, then watch a movie.

About midnight, the 23-year-old took the motor launch back across the harbor to the Argonne. At 7:55 a.m. the next morning, he would say later, "all hell broke loose."

"Close the ports," Brooks was told. "We are under attack by the Japanese."

In the first few minutes, the Arizona was destroyed, the West Virginia badly damaged.

Brooks joined others in volunteering to board a motor launch and pull survivors from the water.

"By 8:15 he was aboard one of the first, if not the first, rescue motor launches to hit the waters," his daughter said. "The reason I know that, I've heard so many stories about it."

Three quarters across the bay, a pair of Japanese planes dove on the launch with machine guns roaring. Brooks turned and raged at them.

"Dad looked up and saw the whites of their eyes. He started cussing, shaking his fist at them, saying the Lord's prayer," she said.

They reached the West Virginia, taking cover under the ship's gun turrets. The captain was killed when a bomb hit.

Eddie Brooks started pulling injured men from below deck. They were unconscious, covered with oil, Some would not survive. Brooks gave his chambray shirt to one man as they filled the motor launch with wounded.

He reached for one man in the burning water, but missed him.

"I can still hear that poor guy scream," Brooks would say later. "It was my fault."

Back on land, Brooks eventually found a .30-06 Springfield he loaded with armor piercing rounds, and start firing at the last planes.

A few hours later, the attack ended.

Brooks was alive.

He didn't feel lucky.

"That morning," he said later, "many of my friends were killed."

Moving on

When the war ended, Eddie Brooks would leave the military. He fished and became a longshoreman. He would become a husband and father of a son and daughter.

Brooks Wood described her father as loving, loyal, someone who looked after the weak and the poor. Her father once rescued a boy from a cliff, she said, and was calm under fire.

"He was always doing something for somebody," she said.

He had his faults, she said, just like everyone.

"He was not an angel, he was not a saint, but he provided for the family."

When she thinks of her father, she smiles. Her eyes glisten. Because what she remembers about Edmund Raymond Brooks, is this:

"He finally made it to heaven."

He doesn't need to fight anymore.