Excerpt File It was a moment in history, a dastardly act of the Emperor of Japan. It was pure unadulterated confusion, disbelief, turmoil, and any other noun one could conjure up. To us two kids, it began like this... Sunday morning December 7, 1941 was different. I was in bed with MaryJo after a night out at Kapiolani Park listening to dance-band music. There had been a light rain and the morning was bright and balmy. A lot of explosions like big guns going off jarred us out of deep sleep. We assumed it was the Army conducting its usual maneuvers. We did startle full awake however, when a loud knock sounded on our door. I jumped out of bed and opened the door a crack to see my Chinese landlord standing there. Immediately, clad in my navy nainsooks (regulation shorts), I asked Mary for the rent money for the landlord. The landlord quietly took the money and then in a normal voice said, “The Japs are attacking Pearl Harbor”… He said this as nonchalantly as he might have said, “by the way, it rained last night.” He then left, leaving me standing there in my underwear trying to compute. A quick look outside the door that served as the common entrance for all the rooms convinced me that something sure as hell was going on in Pearl Harbor, just twelve miles down the hill. Remember, back then, no visual obstructions kept someone from seeing from one side of the island to the other. A tremendous explosion went off just then, sending fire and smoke hundreds of feet into the air somewhere in the Naval Shipyard. It was later concluded that it was the USS Shaw exploding in the floating dry dock adjacent to the Navy Hospital. All this took place in about the same time as it takes to read this. I immediately yelled for Mary to get my uniform and turn on the radio. “Frenchy,” a submarine sailor and occupant of the room directly across from ours, stuck his head out and asked, “What the hell is happening?” Delighted to be a bearer of good tidings, I replied, “The Japs are bombing Pearl Harbor.” While Mary was getting my uniform, I looked southward to sea and saw one or two naval destroyers running “with a bone in their teeth” back and forth about one or two miles offshore. At the same time I saw plumes of water going up adjacent to them which I interpreted as the near misses of dropping bombs. Both Frenchy and Mary joined me on the little porch outside the “lobby” and observed two or three planes wheeling in large circles above our house and Diamond Head. The aircraft sported the well-known “flaming asshole” painted on their wings. In the meantime, the radio repeatedly blared out, “This is not a drill. This is not a drill. Pearl Harbor is being bombed by Japanese aircraft. All military personnel are ordered to return to their commands immediately.” Now Frenchy and I, all charged up with excitement and in uniform white jumper and trousers, cover (hat), and neckerchiefs kissed our respective wives and started to run. Where? We didn’t know. We just ran down the street and hill until we spotted a Japanese man driving a pickup truck. We immediately commandeered his truck and told him to drive us to the Army-Navy YMCA in downtown Honolulu, about six miles from the Kilauea residence. It was also the gathering spot for taxicabs to Pearl Harbor and Hickam Field bases. Taxi drivers usually charged twenty-five cents per person; the cabs carried six passengers. On arrival at that spot, all hell was breaking loose as the cabbies stood by their cars and held open the doors while yelling “Get aboard!” for Pearl. No charge. Instead of six persons, they loaded eight. Away they went at top speed, careening through the narrow streets of old downtown Honolulu and heading out the highway for Pearl. The cabs hung a U-turn right in front of the main gate at Pearl and men bailed out on the run. I remember seeing a dead Jap lying alongside the entrance of the gate; I wondered what he was doing there.
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