[ COMMEMORATIVE EDITION ]

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"I was at home - Palama - getting ready to go to church. I heard a rat-a-tat-tat. I went out of the house and saw two planes, one with a red circle. I looked towards Pearl Harbor and saw a lot of red and black smoke. ... I can never forget - all those ships, men, the damage. God Bless America."

Dorothy Freitas,
Manoa resident, exerpt from her remembrance

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STAR-BULLETIN / 1946
Iuemon Kiyama tearfully embraces his son, Sgt. Howard Kiyama
of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, upon the soldier's return
from Europe. The famed photo by Star-Bulletin photographer
Robert Ebert was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

Japanese pilot’s
helmet returned
to his family

A Kailua man's wishes are
carried out half a century after
World War II attack

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Elfrieda Tsukayama,
Kailua

MY GRANDPARENTS Akuni and Annie Ahau had a poi factory in Kailua adjacent to the Ulupo heiau. We lived on the Ahau estate, which overlooked the Kawainui Marsh, and had a perfect view of the Kaneohe Naval Air Station.

We were up early that Sunday morning, cleaning taro to make an order of poi for a luau, when all of a sudden we hear the boom of bombs and see thick black smoke, and bullets were zinging through my grandparent's banana patch on that fateful morning of Dec. 7, 1941.

We ran into the house and turned the radio on and heard the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor and all defense workers were supposed to report to the nearest military base.

My dad gets on his beat-up truck and goes to the Kaneohe base, and upon entering the base he sees this plane going down.

He follows the direction of the plane, which had crashed in a hangar. He got out, pulled the Japanese pilot out and retrieved his helmet to return it to the boy's family.

My dad passed away, and my mom did not know what to do with it and gave it to me.

Years went by. I got married, had five sons, so was too busy to pursue it any further.

In the summer of 1997, I asked my son, who was visiting from California, to take me to the Japanese Consulate. Didn't get any help there. Then, in December 1998 a schedule of events for Dec. 7 was published in the paper, and one was to be held at the memorial site for the downed pilot, Lt. Fusata Iida. I contacted that reporter, and through him things started to gel.

To make a long story short, the director of the Kamakage Pilots Association contacted me from Japan, and I finally met with Mrs. Kikuyo Iida at the memorial service on the Marine base and handed over the helmet to her. Mrs. Iida is the wife of the pilot's cousin. I was told the helmet will be placed in a memorial museum in the Yamaguchi prefecture built by Mrs. Iida's husband.

Glad that's over with.

Pearl Harbor was the beginning of our having to carry gas masks, tar paper windows, gasoline rationing and 8 p.m. curfews. They were hectic years but we lived through it. Thank God.

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[ READERS REMEMBER ]

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Pearl Harbor attack

U.S.NAVY
Smoke rises above the USS West Virginia and the USS Tennessee
during the Dec. 7. 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. Also, smoke billows
in at left from the battleships Maryland, Oklahoma and Arizona.
The early-morning attack was a "date that will live in infamy"
for all Americans.

Wartime brings quick
lessons in fear to bewildered
young playmates

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Ted Nishijo,
Salt Lake

It was early Sunday morning when a bunch of barefooted Young Street and Kemole Lane kids were playing marbles in Wimpy's back yard.

In the background, I recall hearing dull thuds (I can still hear the same sounds after 59 years) that sounded like thunder at a distance. Ignoring what sounded too far away, we children continued to innocently shoot marbles. Within a few minutes, panicked mothers hurriedly came to get their children and broke up our fun.

I can remember my mom coming to get me and my older brother Paul and kid brother Rowland. I could hear the terror in her voice as she yelled out: "War! War! Everybody go home NOW!"

Trying to keep up with my mom -- her grip firm on my wrist and on Rowland -- this bewildered 6-year-old asked, "What is war?"

That fateful night of Dec. 7, 1941, we learned that war made big people cry in fear. In the total blackout eight children huddled together with ears glued to the radio, which was blaring, "This is the real McCoy." War taught children a whole new vocabulary.

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Concern for friends’
safety uppermost

News of the bombing unleashes
memories of happier times

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Lillian B. Adams,
Honolulu

ON DEC. 7, 1941, I was attending the 7 o'clock Mass -- in, ironically enough, the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace -- on Fort Street in downtown Honolulu. During the Mass several persons from the Red Cross hurried throughout the church as they whispered to the people in each pew that Pearl Harbor was being attacked by the Japanese.

I immediately left through a side exit. Amazingly, most of the congregation, perhaps in disbelief, remained in the church. As for me, I proceeded to Fort Street, in front of the cathedral, where I stood for a while in awe while I gazed up at the sky. I could see the enemy planes, which appeared to be very high up, in the clear atmosphere of that morning.

There were two inebriated men nearby, the only other humanity in sight. Each one was trying desperately to hold the other up, and as I was trying to apprise them of the situation, one of the men kept saying, "Cool head, main 'ting!"

Too fully cognizant of the situation, I quickly went to my car and headed for home, in Makiki. I went as fast as I could along King Street -- while many fire engines were already madly racing in the opposite direction (on King Street) toward Pearl Harbor.

So many things were suddenly racing through my mind. I thought of the exciting game between the University of Hawaii and Willamette University of Oregon at the old stadium on King Street the afternoon before. I remember exactly where I sat and what I was wearing that day! I thought of the happy evening spent at the dinner-dance at the Officers' Club at the Kaneohe Naval Air Station (for many years, now the Marine Corps Station). I recalled the Saturday evening two weeks before Dec. 7 at the B.O.Q. (Bachelors' Officers' Quarters) at Pearl Harbor -- spent dining and dancing to the tunes of the day, among which was "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire" (I just want to start a flame in your heart) -- a bit of irony to be sure!

And now I was seized with overwhelming thoughts about the safety of my young men friends. Were they OK? Indeed, were they now even still alive?