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Civilians suffered after Pearl Harbor
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| Contributor | The Sunset Provision |
| Last Edited | The Sunset Provision Dec 06, 2007 10:35pm |
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| Category | News |
| Media | Website - Yahoo News |
| News Date | Friday, December 7, 2007 04:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Children carried gas masks to the playground. Military officers commanded civilian courts under martial law. Residents feared enemy troops would parachute into the mountains and then swarm the beaches.
This year's 66th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor offers reminders of how the assault upended the lives of Hawaii's civilians, in addition to the severe damage inflicted on the military.
"It was scary," said Joan Martin Rodby, who had to carry a gas mask everywhere as a 10-year-old — even as she sat for her fifth-grade class portrait in 1942. "It was more or less living in constant fear they were always going to come back."
Annual remembrances of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack often evoke images of burning ships in Pearl Harbor and exploding planes at Hickam Field. This year's observance will be no different. But the plight of civilians who survived the attack has attracted more attention because of deepening interest in the home front during World War II.
"Maybe the unsung heroes that we should remember and look at are the civilians that endured the attack on Pearl Harbor and the years after it," said Daniel Martinez, chief historian at the USS Arizona Memorial.
Civilian survivors who recall the attack include Hawaii's two U.S. senators, who both were 17-year-old boys at the time.
Sen. Daniel Inouye, now 83, said he served as a first-aid volunteer, helping treat civilians who were wounded in his Honolulu neighborhood. In 1943, he joined a celebrated all-Japanese-American unit and was highly decorated for combat valor.
Japanese planes did not bomb residential neighborhoods, but misfired U.S. anti-aircraft shells fell on homes and businesses.
"One shell fell into the dining room and this old Japanese lady was having her breakfast. When I got there she was slumped over in her food," Inouye said in an interview. "Shrapnel went through her head and killed her. She didn't know what hit her."
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