The images came back this week; haunting, vivid, details slowed to an instant inside Nick Gaynos's mind like never before, and then it was all real again, every moment in a series of chaotic moments, like the relentless sound of splintering wood and the smell of it searing as the bullets pierced the ceiling of the boarded barracks.

And the image of the Japanese pilot waving to Gaynos from the cockpit of the bomber is as still as a picture in a picture frame.

He can see every crack around the pilot's smile.

He was 23 then, on the ground at Hickam Field at Pearl Harbor, and the bomb the pilot had dropped exploded near the young Army radio chief when the low-flying attacker, surveying his targets on the antenna field, locked eyes with Gaynos, raised his gloved hand and grinned.

"I missed you this time," the grin said to Gaynos. "But I'll come back."

Seventy years have passed, and some of those memories had been buried, but they started stirring again this week.

"I can see his teeth," said Gaynos, now 94, from his Post Falls home. "It's the first time in 60 years I've dreamed like that."

Gaynos would go on to a 25-year military career after surviving 'The Day of Infamy,' including earning a colonel ranking and serving as a key communications corespondent for Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

But what wrestled free the images of the surprise attack was Gaynos's preparation in getting rid of them.

That's to say, he wants to hand them to someone to keep for the next generation. The World War II veteran is auctioning off four keepsakes he carried with him from the Dec. 7, 1941 raid to his time as chief correspondent for MacArthur.

"I think they should become common knowledge of what happened on Dec. 7," Gaynos said of his reasons for putting the impossible-to-duplicate items up for sale. "I'd like to see a wider exposure of these items and bring more awareness of what happened."

After Gaynos survived the attack, he wrote a letter to his father about the experience. He called it "My Baptism Under Fire."

Punched up in all capital letters on a military typewriter, the original draft is one of the items up for bid. It gives a first-hand account, impossible to fabricate.

"I peeked out from the brim of my helmet and watched the plane streaking for me," Gaynos wrote his dad. "His guns were spitting fire and I could see the dust in front of me kick up in little puffs as the pellets of lead hit it. As the puffs came close to me I put my arms over my head and tensed every muscle in my body awaiting the sting of a piercing bullet. As they roared over my head I would roll over on my back and fire my revolver at them. It was useless and I knew it but it seemed to give vent to my rage just to be able to shoot at them."

The second item is a jagged chunk of shrapnel that tore across the antenna field after the smiling pilot unloaded his bombs. Bullet wounds were fine, Gaynos said, it was the shrapnel that turned a solider "into hamburger meat." After things settled that day, Gaynos retrieved the metal scrap.

"It was still hot when I picked it up out of the sand," Gaynos said. "I thought, 'This will make a nice piece of memorabilia.' And I carried it with me my entire career. But now, I'm willing to let it go."

The other relics are the telegraph "speed" key Gaynos used to punch Morse code messages from MacArthur's post to Washington, D.C., during the war and after. Newspaper articles from 1940s newspapers about Gaynos's survival story round out the display.

They're a part of Advending Auctions auction scheduled for noon Saturday, Sept. 22 at Templin's Red Lion hotel in Post Falls. Advending Auctions was recently formed by Bob Pedersen and his son, Andy, and the inaugural auction should have around 700 antiques and collectibles up for sale.

Pedersen, with 15 years experience auctioning items for people, is a recognizable name in local politics, but said the auction, especially Gaynos's pieces, don't have anything to do with office.

"This is the first story like this we've run into in 15 years," Pedersen said. "This goes beyond selling something for someone."

Gaynos said his family supports the decision to put the pieces out there. They were collecting dust at his Post Falls home, he said, and the hope is a museum snaps them up.

It hasn't been decided if they'll be auctioned off individually or, more likely, as a package unit. A starting bid hasn't been established. Each item has a letter of authenticity and there's a written account as provided by Gaynos.

And it was last week, when Gaynos was documenting the items that the memories roared back. Not like a nightmare, he said, rather they rushed slowly, if that's possible, filling his mind frame by frame.

"It's re-energized my memory," he said.

Something he wants to pass it along.

"If it's in a museum it would have far greater exposure," he said. "The way you remember is with artifacts and documents."

Check 'em out

n Want to see the relics for yourself? Check them out at advendingauctions.com, under new items

INFO BOX:

Want to see the relics for yourself? Check them out at advendingauctions.com, under new items

Sharing keepsakes

from 'The Day of Infamy'

World War II vet auctioning off items from Dec. 7, 1941 attack

By TOM HASSLINGER

Staff writer

COEUR d'ALENE - The images came back this week; haunting, vivid, details slowed to an instant inside Nick Gaynos's mind like never before, and then it was all real again, every moment in a series of chaotic moments, like the relentless sound of splintering wood and the smell of it searing as the bullets pierced the ceiling of the boarded barracks.

And the image of the Japanese pilot waving to Gaynos from the cockpit of the bomber is as still as a picture in a picture frame.

He can see every crack around the pilot's smile.

He was 23 then, on the ground at Hickam Field at Pearl Harbor, and the bomb the pilot had dropped exploded near the young Army radio chief when the low-flying attacker, surveying his targets on the antenna field, locked eyes with Gaynos, raised his gloved hand and grinned.

"I missed you this time," the grin said to Gaynos. "But I'll come back."

Seventy years have passed, and some of those memories had been buried, but they started stirring again this week.

"I can see his teeth," said Gaynos, now 94, from his Post Falls home. "It's the first time in 60 years I've dreamed like that."

Gaynos would go on to a 25-year military career after surviving 'The Day of Infamy,' including earning a colonel ranking and serving as a key communications corespondent for Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

But what wrestled free the images of the surprise attack was Gaynos's preparation in getting rid of them.

That's to say, he wants to hand them to someone to keep for the next generation. The World War II veteran is auctioning off four keepsakes he carried with him from the Dec. 7, 1941 raid to his time as chief correspondent for MacArthur.

"I think they should become common knowledge of what happened on Dec. 7," Gaynos said of his reasons for putting the impossible-to-duplicate items up for sale. "I'd like to see a wider exposure of these items and bring more awareness of what happened."

After Gaynos survived the attack, he wrote a letter to his father about the experience. He called it "My Baptism Under Fire."

Punched up in all capital letters on a military typewriter, the original draft is one of the items up for bid. It gives a first-hand account, impossible to fabricate.

"I peeked out from the brim of my helmet and watched the plane streaking for me," Gaynos wrote his dad. "His guns were spitting fire and I could see the dust in front of me kick up in little puffs as the pellets of lead hit it. As the puffs came close to me I put my arms over my head and tensed every muscle in my body awaiting the sting of a piercing bullet. As they roared over my head I would roll over on my back and fire my revolver at them. It was useless and I knew it but it seemed to give vent to my rage just to be able to shoot at them."

The second item is a jagged chunk of shrapnel that tore across the antenna field after the smiling pilot unloaded his bombs. Bullet wounds were fine, Gaynos said, it was the shrapnel that turned a solider "into hamburger meat." After things settled that day, Gaynos retrieved the metal scrap.

"It was still hot when I picked it up out of the sand," Gaynos said. "I thought, 'This will make a nice piece of memorabilia.' And I carried it with me my entire career. But now, I'm willing to let it go."

The other relics are the telegraph "speed" key Gaynos used to punch Morse code messages from MacArthur's post to Washington, D.C., during the war and after. Newspaper articles from 1940s newspapers about Gaynos's survival story round out the display.

They're a part of Advending Auctions auction scheduled for noon Saturday, Sept. 22 at Templin's Red Lion hotel in Post Falls. Advending Auctions was recently formed by Bob Pedersen and his son, Andy, and the inaugural auction should have around 700 antiques and collectibles up for sale.

Pedersen, with 15 years experience auctioning items for people, is a recognizable name in local politics, but said the auction, especially Gaynos's pieces, don't have anything to do with office.

"This is the first story like this we've run into in 15 years," Pedersen said. "This goes beyond selling something for someone."

Gaynos said his family supports the decision to put the pieces out there. They were collecting dust at his Post Falls home, he said, and the hope is a museum snaps them up.

It hasn't been decided if they'll be auctioned off individually or, more likely, as a package unit. A starting bid hasn't been established. Each item has a letter of authenticity and there's a written account as provided by Gaynos.

And it was last week, when Gaynos was documenting the items that the memories roared back. Not like a nightmare, he said, rather they rushed slowly, if that's possible, filling his mind frame by frame.

"It's re-energized my memory," he said.

Something he wants to pass it along.

"If it's in a museum it would have far greater exposure," he said. "The way you remember is with artifacts and documents."

INFO BOX:

Want to see the relics for yourself? Check them out at advendingauctions.com, under new items

Sharing keepsakes

from 'The Day of Infamy'

World War II vet auctioning off items from Dec. 7, 1941 attack

By TOM HASSLINGER

Staff writer

COEUR d'ALENE - The images came back this week; haunting, vivid, details slowed to an instant inside Nick Gaynos's mind like never before, and then it was all real again, every moment in a series of chaotic moments, like the relentless sound of splintering wood and the smell of it searing as the bullets pierced the ceiling of the boarded barracks.

And the image of the Japanese pilot waving to Gaynos from the cockpit of the bomber is as still as a picture in a picture frame.

He can see every crack around the pilot's smile.

He was 23 then, on the ground at Hickam Field at Pearl Harbor, and the bomb the pilot had dropped exploded near the young Army radio chief when the low-flying attacker, surveying his targets on the antenna field, locked eyes with Gaynos, raised his gloved hand and grinned.

"I missed you this time," the grin said to Gaynos. "But I'll come back."

Seventy years have passed, and some of those memories had been buried, but they started stirring again this week.

"I can see his teeth," said Gaynos, now 94, from his Post Falls home. "It's the first time in 60 years I've dreamed like that."

Gaynos would go on to a 25-year military career after surviving 'The Day of Infamy,' including earning a colonel ranking and serving as a key communications corespondent for Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

But what wrestled free the images of the surprise attack was Gaynos's preparation in getting rid of them.

That's to say, he wants to hand them to someone to keep for the next generation. The World War II veteran is auctioning off four keepsakes he carried with him from the Dec. 7, 1941 raid to his time as chief correspondent for MacArthur.

"I think they should become common knowledge of what happened on Dec. 7," Gaynos said of his reasons for putting the impossible-to-duplicate items up for sale. "I'd like to see a wider exposure of these items and bring more awareness of what happened."

After Gaynos survived the attack, he wrote a letter to his father about the experience. He called it "My Baptism Under Fire."

Punched up in all capital letters on a military typewriter, the original draft is one of the items up for bid. It gives a first-hand account, impossible to fabricate.

"I peeked out from the brim of my helmet and watched the plane streaking for me," Gaynos wrote his dad. "His guns were spitting fire and I could see the dust in front of me kick up in little puffs as the pellets of lead hit it. As the puffs came close to me I put my arms over my head and tensed every muscle in my body awaiting the sting of a piercing bullet. As they roared over my head I would roll over on my back and fire my revolver at them. It was useless and I knew it but it seemed to give vent to my rage just to be able to shoot at them."

The second item is a jagged chunk of shrapnel that tore across the antenna field after the smiling pilot unloaded his bombs. Bullet wounds were fine, Gaynos said, it was the shrapnel that turned a solider "into hamburger meat." After things settled that day, Gaynos retrieved the metal scrap.

"It was still hot when I picked it up out of the sand," Gaynos said. "I thought, 'This will make a nice piece of memorabilia.' And I carried it with me my entire career. But now, I'm willing to let it go."

The other relics are the telegraph "speed" key Gaynos used to punch Morse code messages from MacArthur's post to Washington, D.C., during the war and after. Newspaper articles from 1940s newspapers about Gaynos's survival story round out the display.

They're a part of Advending Auctions auction scheduled for noon Saturday, Sept. 22 at Templin's Red Lion hotel in Post Falls. Advending Auctions was recently formed by Bob Pedersen and his son, Andy, and the inaugural auction should have around 700 antiques and collectibles up for sale.

Pedersen, with 15 years experience auctioning items for people, is a recognizable name in local politics, but said the auction, especially Gaynos's pieces, don't have anything to do with office.

"This is the first story like this we've run into in 15 years," Pedersen said. "This goes beyond selling something for someone."

Gaynos said his family supports the decision to put the pieces out there. They were collecting dust at his Post Falls home, he said, and the hope is a museum snaps them up.

It hasn't been decided if they'll be auctioned off individually or, more likely, as a package unit. A starting bid hasn't been established. Each item has a letter of authenticity and there's a written account as provided by Gaynos.

And it was last week, when Gaynos was documenting the items that the memories roared back. Not like a nightmare, he said, rather they rushed slowly, if that's possible, filling his mind frame by frame.

"It's re-energized my memory," he said.

Something he wants to pass it along.

"If it's in a museum it would have far greater exposure," he said. "The way you remember is with artifacts and documents."