Artifact Found in Move: ‘Dude, You Know What You Have Here?’
A long-lost logbook from the former Navy Yard at Pearl Harbor—documenting daily activity from 16 months before and after the infamous December 1941 attack—has finally made its way back to the National Archives. The discovery came unexpectedly when a California couple stumbled upon the historic artifact while unpacking during a move.
“Dude—you know what you have here?” Tracylyn Sharrit recalled telling her fiancé, Michael William Bonds, as she pulled the worn book from a box. The spine was clearly labeled “Government Registry” and “US Navy Yard and Naval Stations,” and the book appeared to be filled with hand-written entries from 1941 and 1942.
David Stupar of the National Archives called the logbook “a very big deal,” noting that it contains detailed notations on the weather, tides, and ship movements in the months surrounding the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that left more than 2,400 Americans dead.
Notably, entries dated December 6 and 7, 1941, include a chilling line:
“0755 Japanese aircraft and submarines attacked Pearl Harbor and other military and naval objectives.”
The pages are marked with brown stains—possibly coffee or another spilled liquid. “We like to think maybe someone was so agitated by the attack that he spilled his thermos,” said investigative archivist Mitchell Yockelson.
As for how the logbook ended up in Bonds’ hands, the trail is hazy. Bonds, now 65, said his mother, Oretta Kanady, was a civilian worker at Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino, which closed in the 1990s. She once found the logbook discarded in the trash and asked to take it home. She later gave it to her then-15-year-old son, who admits he barely glanced at it over the years.
How the log made its way from Pearl Harbor to a California military base remains a mystery. But when Bonds recently contacted a rare-book expert to inquire about its value, the expert alerted the National Archives. The federal agency swiftly reclaimed the logbook as a significant piece of American history.
Bonds, however, has mixed feelings. “All I got was a T-shirt,” he said, disappointed that his family’s role in saving the log hasn’t earned more recognition. Still, his mother’s curiosity—and a lucky rediscovery decades later—helped preserve a remarkable piece of World War II history.
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