My father was post signal officer of Schofield Barracks on December 7th. I was a 17 year old High School student. My oldest sister,Ethyle, also lived with us, she worked at Wheeler Field. On Sunday mornings, she and I would go horseback riding. That was our plan on December 7th, so at 8 a.m. we were on our back lanai eating our breakfast. We were only about a football field distance from Wheeler Field. We heard the planes, the bombs and the machine guns, but we were not frightened because we were used to the "mock war games" which happened often on Schofield. We saw planes dive bombing and black smoke. Very soon my father came running downstairs, yelling that he knew nothing about any maneuvers and left to go up to headquarters.
He returned shortly and said," This is not manuevers, we are being bombed, but we don't know who". We were told to stay inside, but before the second raid, we were told to go to the barracks headquarters. The barracks were constructed of cement, much more sturdy. When the second attack came, we were told to get down on the floor under the cots.
About lunchtime,we were told we could return to our quarters. Rumors flew all over and we were not sure if the Japanese had landed or what was going on. Later in the afternoon a soldier came around and told us to report to headquarters at 5:00 p.m. We were each told to bring a suitcase and a blanket, and were told we might not come back to our quarters again, before we were evacuated to the mainland.
It was starting to get dark and all the women and children were loaded into trucks. The trucks traveled with no light, since they had not been equipped with blackout lights. Since there was no moon, it was very dark so every once in a while, they would flash on their lights to see if we were still on the road. As we drove along, we could see downed burning planes in the fields. When we drove by Pearl Harbor, it was ablaze with many burning bombed ships. We drove on into Honolulu and headed up into the hills to a public school called Kalihee Valley School.
It was 11:00 p.m. when we arrived at the school. In complete darkness we were taken into the school and told to use our blanket and sleep on the floor. There were a lot of crying children and complaining women. Needless to say,nobody slept well. In the morning, we were served bread, coffee and water. We were then told to contact anyone we knew in Honolulu so we could stay with them. My sister knew a Marine Officer's wife and we stayed four days with her.
My father came to get us when we were allowed to go back to Schofield Barracks. When we got there, we found a trench had been dug in the front yard and we were all issued a gas mask and we were to have this with us at all times. We had periodic air raid drills when we were to put on your gas mask and get into the trench, until all clear was sounded. School never started again, the beaches were strung with barbwire and all the horses were used for hauling military equipment.
At night we lived in a blackout, no lights at all, not even a flashlight. In a few days some G.I's came around and with black paint,they painted the windows in one bedroom and one bathroom. Now we could read, sew, knit or listen to the radio. We didn't have air conditining, so after a couple of hours, we would turn off the lights, and cool off to the room. We had curfew from sundown to sunup and sentries walked the front and alley all night. If you were caught out, you could be taken to the Guard House.
However as teenagers, we would wait for the sentry to go by, then we would sneak out and go to a friend's house, put a stack of records on the record player, throw a blanket over it so no lights would show, then dance and talk. We then had to sneak home and not get caught.
We were in very strict rationing of gas and food, since everything came from the mainlland. Some of the boys joined the Army, my boyfriend became an ambulance driver.
In late February we received orders to report to Pearl Harbor to be evacuated. We were put aboard the U.S.Garfield. It was a former luxury liner which carried 90 passangers, but we had about 140 or 150. We stayed aboard docked in Pearl Harbor for two days. We sailed on February 22nd at sundown. We had a convoy of six ships, two destroyers and one cruiser, for an escort, plus two other liners carrying evacuees. We traveled on a submarine alert which meant that we changed our course every 15 minuted. In this zigzag way, at times it meant that you could be caught off guard and possibly fall.
A few days out we hit a terrible storm, all the cots in the lounge collapsed and the ship's doctor was kept busy with all th pregnant women. The next morning, my sister and I were the only two who showed up for breakfast. Each roll would break more dishes in the galley. Nearly everyone was seasick. We were told that since we were the smallest ship,we got the worst, we rolled to a 39 degree angle.
We docked in San Francisco on March 1, 1942. Since we had been in a black out for so long, it was good to see all the lights in the city. We stayed in the Hostess House at the Predidio for a couple of days then we were put on trains to wherever you wanted to go. We went to Madison, Wi. I had gone to West High School before we were transferred to Hawaii, so I re-entered and started doing over three months of classes of make up work. I graduated with my class in June and shortly after I received an honorary diploma from Roosevelt High School in Honolulu.
