Monday, December 8, 1941
Dear Diary,
So we find our rooms and I slept like a log with all my clothes on until about 3 a.m. when the anti-air craft guns began their pounding at Pearl Harbor, it looks like a Fourth of July celebration, only not so thrilling. The planes are now soaring over, action starts, all up and watching no one saying much. All seem comparatively cool. The radio is silent, so we wait until about 6. I am coming out of my room, when bullets start going by the windows, some planes are coming near. What happened I never found out and guess it”™s none of my business. Another one of those well known “military secrets.” They say there was no sabotage here; well maybe, it

has a new name “could be”. This day brings more news of the horrors of war. We were called on to go out to Pearl Harbor; this was exciting and dreadful in a way — ships, wreckage and charred bodies. The Navy wives were swell they worked out there with us, all of us wondering, if the bodies and pieces were someone we knew. The Navy houses were pretty well riddled up, some people killed. One lieutenant a young boy, 23, was out on the field, he knew most well he wouldn”™t live and begged we take those with a chance in. He died a few minutes later, the lower half of his body being gone. But I honor him and shall never forget. Another strange thing, like the ole

saying goes, “what you don”™t know wont”™ hurt you.” A young wife of an aviator drove down early December 7 to pick up her husband who was coming in from work. Twice on her way to the field her car was machine-gunned. She finally arrived and she was really mad, so mad she went to the Captain and told him what she thought of the Army being so careless as to do such things to her car. Well the Captain told her things were OK and her husband wouldn”™t be in for awhile and for her not to wait, so she drove back thru a hail of fire and bombing only to find her home nicely splattered up. By this time she was really mad. When she turned on the car

radio and hears the shocking news, “Attention please, the island of Oahu is under attack. But things are now pretty much under control.” Then she passed out. The sights and things I saw were awful.