This story was told to me by William Raff, one of my dinner table companions, in the company of others one evening in April 2014 in the Commodore Lounge on Queen Elizabeth during its world cruise and to the best of my knowledge this account accurately reflects the story related to us that night in William’s own words.

September 11th 2001 started like any other day there was nothing unusual about it whatsoever, why should there be? As I remember the only difference was, that it was a day for primary elections of certain New York City government officials, as well as the first day of the school year for many children; hence some of their parents were taking their children to school. The weather was as perfect a September day as you could wish for: a deep blue sky and pleasant crisp temperature.

I arrived at my office on the 82nd floor of the World Trade Center, south tower no. 2 at my usual time around 8:00 a.m., with my usual cinnamon raisin bagel and poured a cup of coffee, to enjoy while beginning my day, that included emailing and dealing with other routine work for the day. My employer was The Fuji Bank, Ltd., a major Japanese bank, which was at that time engaged in a process of consolidation with The Daichi-Kango Bank (“DKB”) and The Industrial Bank of Japan (“IBJ”). Construction of a brand new trading room for the newly merged enterprise on the 49th floor of the north tower no. 1, where DKB was located, had just been completed one week or so earlier. IBJ had offices in Rockefeller Center. Consolidation of the three banks was a very busy time for us. I looked forward to the merger, as I had enjoyed working for the bank for the past seven years in the World Trade Center since October 1994. Our offices were convenient located, as I had been living in Greenwich Village. In fact, I had a view of the twin towers from my living room window, which was just about two miles away.

At 8:46 a.m., I hadn’t heard or felt anything, but I became aware of some kind of disturbance over on the far side of the floor, from which tower no. 1 could be seen. As my office faced south, people were going to the windows to look out and see if anything was happening. What could be seen from my south-looking window was a whisp of smoke curling round the corner of the building , and what appeared to be confetti; I was to realise later that this ‘confetti’ was in fact thousands of sheets of foolscap paper, blown out of the floor by the force of the impact. it was being lifted by the wind upward. I became aware from the exclamations from staff on the other side of our office, that faced west and had a view of the north tower no. 1, that that there was fire in the north tower. Initially I thought that the building may have been accidentally struck by one of the many light aircraft or helicopters that frequently passed by below us, or perhaps some air conditioning equipment had exploded.

Someone then said we had better get out and as people started to vacate the floor. I believe, but will never know for sure, that I heard over our bank’s loudspeakers, someone give the order ‘evacuate the building’. I asked others later, but couldn’t find anyone else who had heard this. The facilities manager, likely the person who would have made such an announcement disappeared on that day. We had been trained not use the lifts in an evacuation so we started down the concrete stairs. I don’t know how many floors we had descended when we heard an almost routine-sounding the announcement that “Tower number 1 had been struck by an aircraft; that the incident was under investigation, and that emergency help was on the way”. Then came the announcement that I believe cost many people their lives that day. “Tower number 2 is secure, and all should return to their respective workstations!” In fact this announcement had been made with the best intentions, as at that time they did not want hundreds of extra people pouring out of south tower 2, milling around in danger of being hit by falling debris and getting in the way of rescue services who were by now arriving on site. I decided to continue on down to where I could better evaluate the situation and then make an informed decision.

I was in the first wave of those people descending in a procession walking down the inner staircase quietly and without panic. All these thoughts were passing through my mind as we descended floor after floor. I don’t know what floor I had reached by this time maybe 67 or so but I saw a freight elevator packed with people about to descend and on the spur of the moment I darted over and not being very big managed to squeeze myself in and contrary to all sensible advice rode it down to its limit on floor 44 where there was a large sky lobby. The towers were configured so that express lifts brought people from the ground lobby to “lobbies in the sky” on floors 44 and 78, from which there were local lifts that brought staff to their respective offices in between the lobbies.

I entered the sky-lobby and all around the floor were TV monitors with CNN displaying tower number 1 on fire. There was an official with a bullhorn (loudhailer) still instructing people “do not go down” and “return to your workstations”. As I stood there taking all this in and trying to make sense of the situation, the second plane hit the building at 9:03 a.m. I found later that it entered between approximately 79th and 84th floors, and my office was located on the 82nd!

I felt the impact, the building rocked, things flew across the sky lobby; the building swayed. In my heart I knew now that this was not an accident. This was deliberate and we were under attack. By what or by whom I didn’t know, but that instant, confirmed to me that this was a terrorist attack. The realization came to me that if I wasn’t killed by what had already occurred, when would the third airplane strike us and kill me? Well, there was a third, and a fourth airplane, but one struck the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and the other was brought down in Pennsylvania after passengers overcame the terrorists; all passengers on all four airplanes lost their lives.

We all made for the exits and by now anxiety had increased several fold and I would say that about 15% were close to or in the first stages of panic. I was still ahead of the main crowd descending as fast as I could, and though I knew I needed to be fast I didn’t want to go so quickly that I would be in danger of falling and injuring myself, (break my leg or sprain my ankle) to the extent I would not be able to continue. I finally reached the main concourse by approximately 9:15 a.m., and noticed that all the stores which would normally be open at this time, were closed. All lighting was turned off. Emergency services were nowhere to be seen, as they were all still heading for tower one. The subway adjoining the street-level concourse had been shut down, but entrances to the subway platforms were open, and I continued walking along the platforms that became below ground for about two blocks and then made my way to the surface. One of the first things I saw was two towers on fire. I realized that I was witnessing history, but then, that I had to get as far away as possible because at that moment I had no idea if, when or where numbers three, four, five or more planes would hit. It was about two miles to where I lived in Greenwich Village, so I just needed to walk there; in fact I thought that the walk may be somewhat calming. Then, just by where I was standing, a young woman with a child was getting into a taxi so I jumped in as well. The driver remonstrated with me that he could not take two clients at the same time, but I told him this is an emergency and we set off the short distance to the area near where I lived, dropping me somewhere close by.

The first plane hit tower one at 08:46 a.m.; the second plane hit tower two at 09:03 by 09:25 I was in my apartment watching the scene from my window. I tried to call one or two people but lines were either down or they were not available. So I called a friend of mine in Australia, as he had apparently been watching TV, knew that there had been an attack, and telephoned a mutual friend in New York who was able to get through to me. I called our Australian friend; we chatted about who could be responsible and what impact this would have all, all of the time while I was staring out of my window watching the terrible sight of the buildings on fire. As we talked, I focussed, refocused and said, “Geoff I see blue.” I’m was seeing blue sky where south tower had been, even as I saw it collapse! Although the south tower was the second to be hit, it was the first to collapse. Geoff said William we are going to hang up now and you are going to continue to try and contact your family. Even though I knew what I had just seen, my brain could not process what had happened; it was inconceivable.

The first person I managed to contact was my sister. Upon hearing my voice, there was a shriek; I will never forget this loud sound of sheer relief and joy; she hadn’t known, but now did, that her loving brother was alive. I finally managed to call my father who had been through many challenges in his own life, having fought through France and Germany during WWII, so he knows a thing or two about the effect something like this can have on someone, he quietly asked are you OK? I stated that physically I was not hurt, but that mentally I’m not yet and replied; I’m still not sure. I guess that the importance of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder has only more recently been realized, as I believe that during WWII it was simply referred to as “shell shock”.

The aftermath was very heavy, burdensome and stressful. All New Yorkers; in fact the whole world was in a kind of silent shock. People were kind to each other as the healing process began and took perhaps ten years. But now, more that twelve years later, this experience has become part of who I am, and I am very glad that I was there that day and survived. The end result is that I became aware as to how fragile life is, how tomorrow cannot be taken for granted, and how precious each day is. Some are better than others, but each day is a gift for us to appreciated, live our lives, value the important people and activities of our lives, and go on with more awareness and appreciation than ever before.