Thoughts on the Anniversary of the Bombing of Pearl Harbor

I already posted my Mental Health MON 12/7 post earlier today, & I didn't want to add yet another label to my ever-growing list, so I decided to post another Mental Health Monday post & consider it a Mental Health MON 12/7, Part II, because I got an urge to blog about my mother's experience on December 7, 1941.

My mother, Janet Handel, was living in Lodi, California, where she, her parents, & her two younger brothers grew up. She was born in December, 1928, if I recollect correctly, so if I calculate correctly, she would have been going on 13-years-old when Pearl Harbor was attacked.

She kept a diary, which I've been privileged to read, although it's been many years since I've seen it. I think my sister Carolyn has it in her possession. I've read & remember some of the details she wrote on Dec. 7, 1941, plus the days & weeks that followed. I also remember having some conversations with her, & this is what I remember from those conversations. [My brother & sister undoubtedly had similar conversations & may be able to revise some of my memories.]

• Everybody was pretty shook up & understandably so. It was a fairly common supposition that the Japanese navy & air force, having decimated our Pacific fleet, were now on their way to hit the West Coast.
• Even though Lodi was in the inland valley, there was no reason to think that the Japanese military couldn't reach it.
• A curfew was quickly put into place, including a black-out. Special black-out curtains & shades had to be installed to make sure no light could escape from the windows after daylight hours. It goes without saying that porch lights, garage lights, any outside lights had to be removed.
• Patrols circulated the neighborhoods throughout the evening hours, checking to make sure that blackout rules were being followed. The rumor was that these civil patrols had orders to shoot out lights that were visible, although Mom couldn't remember whether there were any actually incidents or not.
• I think the following anecdote is the saddest. One of her best friends was from a Japanese-American family--"Nisei," I believe they were labeled. I do not remember if they were American citizens or not, but it wasn't long before word began to spread about internment camps. One night her friend & her family appeared to be at home. The next day their house was empty. She never saw or heard anything about her friend again & never learned her fate.

Her father didn't serve in WW II, & I never learned why. Could have been poor health. He died in the late 1940s while she was away at college. Her two brothers were too young to serve, although her youngest brother, my Uncle Harold, later served in the U.S. Army, along with my father's younger brother, my Uncle Royce, in the early post-war years in Germany. 

Two special memories of our time living in Hawaii: [We lived on Hawaii, the last few years in Aiea, which is adjacent to Pearl Harbor. We had a chance to visit the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial, which includes a boat trip out to the memorial, built over the sunken ship, which is easily visible in the water. You can still see remains of an oil slick, because the tanks were full when the sink was sunk. It's still leaking. [At least it was when we lived there from 1993-97.]  All the victims' names are inscribed on a wall of the memorial, & it is a very sobering, somber moment when you realize that you are standing over the tomb of so many men who perished in those moments of infamy that marked our entry into WW II.

We also visited the military cemetery at Punchbowl, which is located in an extinct crater up a mountain-side from Honolulu. There are thousands of graves, many containing the remains of soldiers who died defending our country in the war against Japan, across the theaters of the War in the Pacific. Even more sadly, there are still many, many remains that have never been identified. More recently, new efforts are underway to identify those remains, thanks to DNA sampling techniques that have only become available in recent years. 

There was just an article in today's (12/7) Omaha World Herald about a family in Omaha who lost two brothers when the U.S.S. Oklahoma was sunk, also in the attack on Pearl Harbor. The ship sunk so fast that many sailors went down with the ship, survived, but couldn't be rescued & slowly died over the next days & weeks. Their remains eventually were recovered, but it was too late to identify the remains. 

The story told to this family is that one of the twins went down with the ship; the other twin went back to rescue him. Neither was ever seen again. Their remains have never been identified. Now there is a chance that they will be.