May 21, 1944 - Pearl Harbor, again?

We had only been at EWA a short time, having arrived early May. During that time there was little to do because we deduced that EWA was a short time stop; many people gave us this impression. Anyway, on this particular day, May 21st we were mostly all outside our tents, talking, when all of a sudden there was a tremendous explosion! It took us a few seconds to finally locate the plume of smoke and then all hell broke loose! As we looked almost due North we were not thrilled to see that the explosions could be coming from the Lochs in Pearl Harbor! Were we under attack, I wondered, but, looking around I could see no return fire from the area that housed the battleships, so what was happening - we all wondered? We stood in wonder as explosion after explosion occurred. These explosions were from five to 10 miles away we thought. We still did not hear any sirens, nor see any planes. Pretty soon I said that I thought I could see figures that looked like bodies, but there was disagreement on this, until someone else said he agreed; then, we watched in awe as huge objects were tossed high in the air like tennis balls. I don't know how long we watched these explosions, but it was a long time before the explosions started tapering off. Long after the explosions stopped we finally hit the sack. In the morning we asked the first officer we saw what had happened? He said he heard that two ammunition ships had blown up and he thought there were about 10 or 11 casualties. We took this at face value, but I put this question mark in the far recesses of my memory.