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When I was stationed on Hawaii, we were rebuilding training areas that had been neglected during Vietnam. We stood in a gun emplacement looking towards Kolekole Pass where the Japanese planes came through on their way to Pearl Harbor.
To this day, whenever I tell the story, the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and it gets chilly.
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Living here, all long-time families have a Pearl Harbor story, I’ve found.
CINCHOUSE’s last living Nisei told me her memory of the attack as follows: “I was babysitting for some ha’ole family in Nu’uanu. Then I heard explosions. Later I found out it was one big attack.”
The attack would lead to her grandfather volunteering to enlist as a translator, but he had the recruiter write a letter asking his wife for permission to enlist her husband, because, apparently, she would never have otherwise let him volunteer! His brother would enlist in the 100th Separate Battalion / 442nd Regimental Combat Team and fall in southern France. Both rest in Maui.
I had the pleasure of talking to another Nisei, who immediately manned his post as guardsmen after the attack, went through the humiliating experience of having his loyaly tested, and ended up fighting his way through Germany. He proudly showed me a picture of him shaking a Russian soldier’s hand somewhere in Germany. Later, in Finland, he met the man’s daughter on a train by shear happenstance. She apparently had the Russian copy of the same photo!
All the survivors are treated like royalty here. There are very few left with us, and their cars always get standing ovations in local parades. Meanwhile, the work to identify the fallen continues.
Eric
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