There are examples in history where the future course of the world could have been altered had it not been for a split-second decision or just a few circumstances had realigned.

What if President John Kennedy decided to use the bubble top and not ride in an open car through the streets of Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963?

What if Pvt. Tandey of the Yorkshire Regiment decided to shoot at the German corporal he had in his sights on a French battlefield in World War I?

And what if the warning shots being fired at Russian ships during the Cuban missile crisis had struck one of the vessels or what if the Soviets had defied the blockade?

If Kennedy had not been in an open car, the bulletproof canopy could have stopped the assassin’s bullets, thus changing the future course of world events.

If Adolf Hitler had been shot on that WWI battlefield, millions of lives might have been spared during World War II.

And if even one of the warning shots had struck a Russian ship delivering nuclear components to Cuba, it could have led to a nuclear exchange … and possible doomsday for the planet.

While at the World War II show at the Reading airport a number of years ago I had the opportunity to meet and hear the fascinating story of Joseph Lockard, a World War II survivor of the Pearl Harbor attack. A 19-year-old from Williamsport, Pennsylvania, he was serving in the newly formed Signal Aircraft Warning Service stationed in Hawaii on Dec. 7, 1941.

Many Americans had never heard of the Naval installation at Pearl Harbor before the Japanese attack. Duty at the Pacific island was seen as a vacation by many soldiers. Just before the attack a monthly publication called “Paradise of the Pacific” had proclaimed Hawaii to be “a world of happiness in an ocean of peace.”

Radar technology was in its infancy. Little was known other than it could spot things farther out than anyone could see with binoculars or a telescope. Although no technicians were scheduled to be working at the Opana Radar Station in northeast Oahu that morning, Lockard and George Elliott were at their hilltop station, using one of six such trailer-mounted radar units.

The order of the day was to keep vandals and the curious away from the equipment and sit inside the monitoring van as the antenna scanned for planes.

Richard Schimmel of Allentown was also serving on Oahu with the Signal Aircraft Warning Service that morning and remembered that Lockard was teaching Elliott how to use the new equipment when, just a little after 7 a.m., Elliott noticed a strong wave pattern on the 5-inch-diameter oscilloscope.

He told Lockhart, who then relayed the information to the recently established air warning information center at Fort Shafter, near Honolulu. When no one picked up to answer, Lockard called his unit’s administrative office, where a lieutenant told him not to worry and that it was probably a flight of B-17 Flying Fortresses due in that morning from California.

At about 7:45 a.m., Lockard turned off the radar because the truck that was to take them back to their camp had arrived. About 10 minutes later, the first bombs were falling on the island.

Lockard later became a key witness in panels convened by the military and Congress investigating the attack at Pearl Harbor. He was later appointed to officer candidate school and earned the Distinguished Service Medal.

To mark the 80th anniversary of the attack at Pearl Harbor, Forever Young Veterans, a nonprofit in Collierville, Tennessee, is taking 15 World War II veterans, including Schimmel, now 99, back to Hawaii for this week’s events.

Unfortunately, Elliott and Lockard, the first two people to notice the busy activity on their radar screen that Sunday morning, have passed. Elliott, formerly of Long Branch, New Jersey, died in Port Charlotte, Florida, in 2003 at the age of 85 and Lockard died in his home in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, at the age of 90 in 2012.

Before his death, Lockard said he was not angry that his warning of the approaching enemy planes went unheeded. He believed that his part in the events of Dec. 7 belong in the “what-if” category. What if they had taken initial his initial warning seriously?

Schimmel felt that had there been more radar stations set up on the other islands, there might have been less confusion about why so many planes were showing up on the radar screen that morning - and who was flying them.

The Pearl Harbor “what-ifs?” are a haunting footnote to history but certainly not the last. Sixty years after that “date which will live in infamy” we experienced the second most deadly and devastating attack on American soil - the terrorist hijackings of Sept. 11, 2001.

By Jim Zbick | tneditor@tnonline.com

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.