Once again, good shelter was at a premium. Private Bert Shipley joined four men in a manhole who were firing at the planes with rifles. They knew they wouldn’t hit anything, but it made them feel better. Some cooks in the bombed-out mess hall holed up in the freezer. More bombs hit the building, and they were all killed by concussion. Private John Wilson dived under the edge of a one-story frame building. He was glad to find the shelter, but it was even better to be there with his buddy Stan Koenig. He kept thinking if he was going to be killed, he wanted some friend to know about it.
Hickam couldn’t do much about the high-level attack, but when the dive-bombers returned around 9:15, the men fought bitterly with what was left. One airman manned a .30-caliber machine gun in the nose of a damaged B-18 and kept firing until the plane burned out from under him.
As fast as men fell at the machine guns on the open parade ground, others rushed out to take their place, and then they too would fall. Old-timers, like Sergeant Stanley MeLeod … young recruits, like Corporal Billy Anderson of Virginia, lay there side by side. A few men somehow survived. Staff Sergeant Chuck Middaugh, a burly 235-pound roughneck always in trouble, grabbed a .30-caliber machine gun in his hands and fired away until he got a plane.
On the ball diamond two men set up a machine gun on a tripod between home plate and some trees along the edge of the field. It looked like a pretty safe spot with a good field of fire. Suddenly a wave of planes roared out of the sky, saturating the field with bombs … scoring a direct hit on the gun … killing both men instantly. They had no way of knowing that the Japanese were sure the ball diamond was clever camouflage for Hickam’s underground gasoline system.
Other bombs did put the system briefly out of action. They hit a water main near its real location, and since it worked by water, it could no longer operate. The damage was serious, but Staff Sergeant Guido Mambretti, the Petroleum Section’s maintenance man, bet Major Robbins a bottle of cognac he could get the thing working again. He did too, but he still hasn’t collected.
While Mambretti toiled away, volunteers rushed up and moved several loaded tank trucks out of the storage area. Other volunteers turned up who had no connection at all with Hickam. Major Henry Sachs, an ordnance specialist passing through on his way to the Middle East, dashed to the Hickam cargo pier and took on the job of unloading the SS Haleakala, a munitions ship full of dynamite and hand grenades. A Hawaiian motorcycle club appeared, on the hunch they might be useful. One of the members, a huge, fat native, attached himself to Captain Gordon Blake, who was trying to disperse the B-17s. They made quite a pair bouncing along the runway — the Hawaiian resplendent in aloha shirt and rhinestone-studded cyclist belt; Blake seated behind, hanging on for dear life.
In between motorcycle trips, Blake tried to guide the B-17s still in the air to someplace where they could land. One put down on Kahuku Golf Course; another suddenly turned up at Wheeler. As the pilot climbed out, Colonel William Flood, Wheeler base commander, told him dead-pan to get back up and find the Japanese fleet. The pilot looked depressed: “You know, Colonel, we just came over from California.”
“I know, but, son, there’s a war on.”
“Okay,” the pilot sighed, “if I can just get a cup of coffee, we’re off.”
Flood couldn’t bear to keep the joke going any longer, told the pilot to get some sleep and he’d use him tomorrow.
It’s hard to say how many planes really did get up from Wheeler. General Howard Davidson, commanding all the fighters, thought about 14. Air Force records indicate no P-40s and only a handful of worthless P-36s. Perhaps the general was counting in Welch and Taylor, who landed three different times for ammunition and then took off again.
These two were having a busy morning. After reaching Haleiwa, they had rushed straight for their planes. No briefing or checking out — Major Austin, the squadron commander, was off deer hunting, and they didn’t bother with Lieutenant Rogers, the acting CO. They just took off.
First they flew down to Barbers Point, where the Japanese were said to be rendezvousing. Nobody there. Just as well — there hadn’t been time to belt up enough ammunition. So they dropped by Wheeler to get some more. By nine o’clock they were almost ready to take off again when seven Japanese planes swept in from Hickam for one last strafing run. Welch and Taylor gunned their P-40s and flew straight at them. Both men were up and away before the Japanese could give chase. Instead, the P-40s managed to get into the Japanese flight pattern and shot two down — one was the plane that grazed the eucalyptus tree behind Mr. Young’s laundry.
Then Welch and Taylor headed for Ewa, where they had seen some dive-bombers at work. It was a picnic. Between them, they got four more before Taylor had to land with a wounded arm. Welch stayed on and picked off another.
They had plenty of cooperation from the ground. Ewa, like the other airfields, was bounding back. Sergeant Emil Peters and Private William Turner manned a machine gun in one of the disabled planes; Sergeant William Turrage manned another; Sergeant Carlo Micheletto was firing too, until a low-flying strafer cut him down.
A piece of shrapnel nicked Lieutenant Colonel Larkin, the base commander, and Captain Leonard Ashwell became another casualty when he sped off on a bicycle to check some sentries. He forgot about a barbed-wire fence, careened into it, and arose somewhat the worse for wear. As Pharmacist’s Mate Orin Smith treated the wounded, he himself was hit in the leg. He patched it up and rejoined his ambulance, which eventually accumulated 52 bullet holes.
On the windward side of the island, Bellows tried to fight back too, but a group of Japanese fighters gave the men little chance. Lieutenant George Whitman took up the first P-40 about nine o’clock, and six Zeroes got him right away. Next they pounced on Lieutenant Hans Christianson before he could even get off the ground. Then they caught Lieutenant Sam Bishop just after he took off. He managed to crash-land into the ocean and swim to safety. The attack was over before anybody else tried his luck.
None of the planes could even fly at nearby Kaneohe. The horizontal bombers took care of everything the strafers missed. Then there was a lull, and the bull horn bellowed for all hands to fight the hangar fires. Aviation Ordnanceman Henry Popko joined a wave of men who surged forward to answer the call. Halfway there, the strafers met them, and the men had to scatter. Seaman “Squash” Marshall raced for cover with the bullets snapping at his heels. It was another of those classic dashes that seemed to catch everyone’s fancy. He actually outran a Zero for 100 yards, according to one man, then zagged to one side as the bullets plowed straight on. The men who watched set up a huge cheer — just as if someone had hit a home run at a ball game.
By 9:30 the dive-bombers were back, but now everybody seemed to have some kind of gun. Ensign Hubert Reese and his friend Joe Hill sat in their clump of weeds, popping away with rifles. Others had mounted machine guns on water pipes, on tail-wheel assemblies, on anything. Big, friendly Aviation Machinist’s Mate Ralph Watson cradled a .30-caliber weapon in his arms, kept it going long after he was hit.
Suddenly all guns began to concentrate on one fighter. Everyone had the same idea at once — it seemed like telepathy. Smoke began pouring from the plane. It kept on diving, motor wide open. Ensign Reese wondered if the pilot was crazy — it was hard to believe they were actually shooting one down. But it was true. The pilot never pulled up. As he hit the hillside, there was a cloud of dirt, a burst of fire in the air, and the plane completely disintegrated.
It wasn’t the gunfire or bombing; it was the door that swung to and fro from the concussion that bothered Lieutenant Commander McCrimmon as he operated on his third patient at the Kaneohe dispensary. The man had a bad stomach wound, and Commander McCrimmon just couldn’t concentrate. Finally he had a sailor hold the door steady so he could finish the operation.
He was scrubbing up for the next patient, when he suddenly realized what he had done. The door had distracted him so much he had sewed the wrong parts of the stomach together. Before the man came out o
f ether, McCrimmon had him back on the table, reopened the wound, corrected the error, and sewed him back up.
Three miles away, Mrs. McCrimmon stood in the yard beside the house, watching the planes dive on Kaneohe. The McCrimmons lived on the beach, and pretty soon 27 Japanese planes came flying down the coast, so low overhead she could see the white scarves worn by some of the pilots. Her two little boys waved and waved, but none of the pilots took any notice.
The Navy families on Ford Island had no time to watch and wave. The war surged all around them. Some huddled in the strong, concrete Bachelor Officers’ Quarters. Others brought Cokes and cigarettes for the men swimming ashore. Chief Albert Molter turned his home into a first-aid station. He had about 40 there — all soaking wet, all covered with oil, most suffering from shock, some burned very badly. He borrowed a first-aid kit from the big crate the Boy Scouts used as a clubhouse. He broke open the canned fruit and juice he was keeping in case of emergency. He raided the linen closet for sheets, towels, blankets. He gave away all his civilian clothes — he didn’t expect to wear them soon again anyhow.
At the senior officers’ housing quarters on Makalapa, Mrs. Mayfield and her maid Fumiyo went next door, to sit out the raid with Mrs. Earle. They were soon joined by Mrs. Daubin, the only other wife on the hill. In the Fades’ living room the women built a makeshift shelter by turning over two big bamboo sofas and piling all the cushions on top. In the course of this construction work Fumiyo whispered: “Mrs. Mayfield, is it —is it the Japanese who are attacking us?”
Mrs. Mayfield told her yes, as kindly as she could.
The shelters and defensive measures varied from house to house. Mrs. Mary Buethe, a young Navy wife, grabbed her children and hid in a clothes closet every time she heard a plane. At the Hickam NCO quarters, Mrs. Walter Blakey preferred her bathtub. Mrs. A. M. Townsend filled her tub with water and some pails with sand at her house in the “Punchbowl” section of town. Mrs. Claire Fonderhide, whose husband was at sea in a submarine, sat with a .45 automatic and waited. Mrs. Joseph Cote’s little boy Richard used his gun too — he filled a water pistol with green paint and fired it all over the place.
Mrs. Carl Eifler, wife of an infantry captain, couldn’t find her little boy. He had completely disappeared, the way little boys will. She busied herself, packing a suitcase, filling jugs with water, emptying the medicine cabinet, all the time wondering where her child could be. He finally sauntered home, but things looked so black by now, her thoughts were following a new channel: “Do I allow myself and my boy to be taken or do I use this pistol?” While she tried to make up her mind, she washed the bathroom woodwork.
Mechanically, other wives also went about their daily chores. Mrs. William Campbell, whose husband was in the Navy, carefully washed his whites and was hanging them on the line when an amazed Marine sentry saw her and chased her to cover.
Mrs. Melbourne West, married to an Army captain, did her ironing. She had this incessant feeling that her husband would need a lot of clean shirts if there was going to be a war.
As the service families numbly adjusted to war, much of Honolulu carried on as usual. The people in close touch with the Army and Navy knew all too well by now; but for the thousands with little contact — or perhaps out of touch for the weekend — the world was still at peace.
Mrs. Garnett King called her local garage: could they wash the family car? They said they were pretty busy right now, but could take it in the afternoon. While explosions boomed in the distance, civilian Arthur Land helped transfer 20 gallons of salad from a caterer’s truck to his own car — this was the day of the Odd Fellows Picnic. As the noise gradually subsided later in the morning, Mr. Hubert Coryell remarked to another civilian friend, “Well, that was quite a show.” Then he went off to archery practice.
People somehow ignored the most blatant hints. Second Lieutenant Earl Patron, off duty for the day, was out with friends in a chartered fishing boat when a plane plunged into the sea nearby. Assuming it was an accident, they headed for the spot to help the pilot. Then another plane swooped by, strafing them with machine guns. One of the party was even nicked, but Parton charitably assumed the second plane was just attracting their attention to the first.
Walking home from church, Mrs. Patrick Gillis saw the side of a house blown in … figured someone’s hot-water heater had exploded. Mrs. Cecilia Bradley, a Hawaiian housewife, was in the yard feeding her chickens when she was wounded by a piece of flying shrapnel. She thought it was somebody deer hunting in the hill behind her house. Mrs. Barry Fox, living on Kaneohe Bay, awoke to the sound of explosions, looked out, and saw strange-looking planes circling the base, flames boiling up, a wall of smoke. She decided it was a smoke-screen test. She didn’t become really alarmed until she turned on the radio at 9:30 and didn’t hear the news. That was the time she always listened to the latest bulletins, and this morning there was only music.
One by one they gradually learned. Stephen Moon, a Chinese 12-year-old, was at early mass on Alewa Heights — he planned to go on to the school club picnic at Kailua. Near the end of the service his mind began to wander, and his eyes strayed out the window. Right above Alewa Heights two planes were in a dogfight. But that was common, and he thought nothing of it. He glanced a little to the left and saw black puffs of smoke in the sky. That was strange — he knew the practice ammunition always left white smoke. As his attention drifted back to church, he became aware of a completely changed atmosphere. Right in the middle of the service, parents were slipping in and hurriedly taking their children out. He knew there was something wrong now, for the grownups were whispering and acting very mysteriously. The mass ended, and instead of the regular hymn, everyone stood and sang “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
But it was all too deep for Stephen. Still thinking about the picnic, he strolled off toward a friend’s house. Then a plane roared down from the sky and shot at a car driving toward Pearl. He spun around and ran home as hard as he could. His mother was glad to see him too; she had been looking for him everywhere.
Captain Walter Bahr, one of Honolulu’s crack harbor pilots, also noticed the black puffs of smoke as he went out to meet the Dutch liner Jagersfontein, inbound from the West Coast. The pier watchman explained it was probably the Navy practicing. But he had a curious sense of urgency when he boarded the ship at 9:00 A.M. No one told him anything, but he sensed danger in all that noise and smoke. He brought her in fast. They were about at the harbor entrance when bombs began to fall, and columns of water shot up around them. Since Holland was already at war, the Jagersfontein was armed and the Dutch crew knew exactly what to do. They peeled the canvas covers from their guns and began firing back — the first Allies to join the fight.
A scrappy young flyweight boxer named Toy Tamanaha listened to the gunfire as he walked down Fort Street to the Pacific Café for breakfast around 9:30. He didn’t think much of it — there was always shooting going on. Somebody in the café said it was war, but Toy remained unconvinced. Then somebody said all carpenters had been called to their jobs. Toy’s close friend Johnny Kawakami was a carpenter, so Toy advised him to get going, and sauntered off himself to the Cherry Blossom Sweet Shop on Kukui Street for a popsicle. He was just inside when it happened — a blinding blast hurled him right out into the street. Vaguely he heard yells of help. He noticed his left leg was missing. He thought, “Maybe I only lost one leg.” He was wrong — the other was gone too — but just before he blacked out, it was nice to hear someone come up and say, “Toy, you’ll be all right.”
There were explosions all over Honolulu — the Lewers and Cooke Building in the heart of town … the Schuman Carriage Company on Beretania Street … Kuhio Avenue near Waikiki Beach … a Japanese community out McCully Street. Four Navy Yard workers were blown to pieces in their green ’37 Packard at the corner of Judd and Iholena. The same blast killed a 13-year-old Samoan girl sitting on her front porch watching the gunfire.
Many of the people in Honolulu later believed the exp
losions were bombs. (Some of them still do: in the words of one witness, “As the years pass, the bombs keep dropping closer.”) But careful investigation by ordnance experts revealed that antiaircraft shells caused every one of the 40 explosions in Honolulu, except for one blast near the Hawaiian Electrical Company’s powerhouse.
In their excitement, gunners on the Tennessee, Farragut, and probably other ships forgot to crank in fuses. Other ships like the Phoenix had trouble with bad fuses. Others like the Nevada fired some shells that exploded only on contact. As one Nevada gunner explained, if the shell missed, it still had to come down somewhere.
But even the shells didn’t do a complete job of waking up Honolulu. At Police Headquarters, Sergeant Jimmy Wong’s blotter reflected a good deal of consternation about the explosions — the first was a complaint phoned in at 8:05 by Thomas Fujimoto, 610 E Road, Damon Tract, that a bomb had interrupted his breakfast. But there were also more familiar entries, indicating normalcy far into the morning: “10:50 A.M. A man reported to be drunk and raising trouble at Beretania and Alapai.”
As the uproar increased, Editor Riley Allen of the Star-Bulletin gallantly struggled to get out an extra. He was a fast, if unorthodox, typist. This morning he was at his best—one hand punching madly, the other rooting out the keys that piled up in a hopeless snarl. The papers were on the street by nine-thirty; the headline: WAR! OAHU BOMBARDED BY JAPANESE PLANES.
At her home on Alewa Drive, Mrs. Paul Spangler heard the newsboys shouting “Extra!” She had no ready change and debated whether to raid the money she set aside for church collection. She finally did.
Back at the Star-Bulletin office, Editor Allen got a call from an exasperated policeman. Would he recall his newsboys —they might get hurt. They had gone to Pearl Harbor to sell their papers.