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He remembers a clear day with blue skies and calm waters, which he watched change dramatically in a period of about 20 minutes.

The captain and senior officers were ashore at the time of the attack, leaving several inexperienced ensigns in charge.

‘‘I think the most experienced guy had about six months in the Navy,” said Van Druff, who was 22. ‘‘They were just kids.”

It was about 7:45 a.m. and he had just got off his 4 to 8 a.m. gangway watch when he went down below to read the paper.

The alarm sounded, and he recalls thinking there had been an explosion on the nearby Battleship Utah.

‘‘Then we saw planes with the polka dots on the wings and realized they were Japanese planes,” he said. ‘‘I was not scared like I should have been. I was surprised and amazed but not scared; it happened too fast.”

‘‘The USS Monahan had full crew and could take care of anything that may have come up,” he said. ‘‘She supplied our power and when she cut loose, it left us without power.”

‘‘We had to heat the water to make the steam to make the ship move,” he said. ‘‘That took about an hour.”

Fortunately, a diesel-powered generator provided limited power, enabling the ship’s gun to fire.

Van Druff said the Japanese planes caused a great deal of trouble.

‘‘They actually sunk eight battleships in port,” he said. ‘‘A plane dropped a bomb on the Arizona and it went through the deck and magazine and blew up the ship. It was the only ship that was a complete loss, and still is. Today, it is a monument.”

As fire control director, Van Druff controlled five guns.

‘‘I was the pointer that morning, and could control all five guns with my fire key,” he said.

Several years ago, Van Druff visited the archives to research the battle.

‘‘There were 350 planes in the air that day, and 26 were shot down,” he said. ‘‘They gave our ship credit for shooting down one plane, but to tell you the truth, I am not sure if it was us that really shot it down or not.”

Once they were able to fire up the boilers to get moving, they left the harbor.

‘‘We weren’t there very long at all, maybe two hours,” he said.

Van Druff believes that Pearl Harbor was the most important event of World War II.

‘‘We lost that one — they beat the heck out of us, but it was still important,” he said. ‘‘When FDR ran for election, one of his platforms was that American boys would not fight in foreign wars. All that changed when he declared war the following day.

‘‘The country became united and stayed that way; you couldn’t tell the difference between Republicans and Democrats.... Nothing has united our country like that since then. On 9⁄11, the country was united for about 15 minutes.”

Van Druff joined the Navy in 1937.

After his mother died, he was living on his own in Colorado Springs. He quit school at the age of 16, and went to work as a driver for a doctor.

‘‘One day a friend and I went to the movies to see ‘Follow the Fleet,’ starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers,” he said. ‘‘In the movie, they were seamen in the Navy that would go ashore and dance a lot and date beautiful women. We thought that looked like fun, and left the movie early to go to the post office and sign up.”

He was 17 at the time and was told to come back when he was 18. He did.

Van Druff had a long and illustrious career, serving 21 years in the Navy.

After he retired from the Navy, Van Druff worked for the Vitro Corporation in Aspen Hill and moved his family to Brookeville.

He and his wife, Helen, have been married 65 years. They have two children, Larry Van Druff and Carmen Harding.

Van Druff remains active in the Maryland Chapter of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, currently serving as its treasurer.

He said that as the members of the association age, there are fewer people able to run the organization. Children of the survivors, such as his daughter, are taking more active roles.

Five years ago, the local chapter had about 250 members. Today, it has about 60.

‘‘It’s kind of sad,” he said. ‘‘Just this past week we lost another one. We’re running out of people able to do the jobs.”

In addition to the annual remembrance ceremony, the group meets about eight times a year.

A joint resolution of Congress urges all federal agencies, interested organizations, groups and individuals to fly the American Flag at half-staff Dec. 7 to honor the memory of the individuals that died at Pearl Harbor.

To go

Members of the Maryland Chapter of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association will gather for the annual Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day in Annapolis Friday.

The event, open to the public, will take place at the Governor Ritchie Overlook on Route 450, near the U.S. Naval Academy, beginning at noon.

Activities will be held rain or shine and will include a wreath-laying ceremony to honor the sailors, soldiers, Marines and civilians who died in the 1941 attack that marked the United States’ entry into World War II.

In addition, the names of local survivors who died this year will be read aloud.

Pearl Harbor survivor Robert Van Druff of Brookeville will serve as the master of ceremonies. Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) is the keynote speaker.