RICHARD WALKER / RWALKER@STARBULLETIN.COM From left, Dorinda Nicholson, Pat Thompson and Lenore Rickert shared a laugh yesterday at the end of a discussion at the Hilton Hawaiian Village on the attack on Pearl Harbor from a feminine perspective.

Jitterbug champions
relish memories
of Dec. 6 dance

A sailor reunites with
his 10-year-old partner
nearly 60 years later

---

By Rosemarie Bernardo
rbernardo@starbulletin.com

On the night of Dec. 6, 1941, 10-year-old Pat Thompson sat in front of the band at Bloch Arena listening to swing music. The band announcer asked, "Who wants to dance with this little girl? She can dance."

A 17-year-old sailor from the USS Tennessee came down from the bleachers to dance with Thompson in the Pacific Fleet's "Battle of Music" competition. They danced the jitterbug and walked away with the winning trophy without learning each other's name.

The next morning, Thompson was awakened by the drone of Japanese planes flying over her Pearl Harbor home. She witnessed the bombing of Battleship Row and Hickam Field. "I couldn't believe what I was seeing," said Thompson, now 70. "I'll never forget it."

For years, Thompson wondered what happened to her dance partner and whether he survived. Nearly 60 years later, she would discover her dance partner lived only minutes away from her San Diego home.

COURTESY PHOTO Jack Evans reunited with Pat Thompson in August 2000, and later learned he had been living 15 miles away from her for 40 years.

Thompson was one of three panelists who shared her memories of the attack on Pearl Harbor at a seminar called "The Women of Pearl Harbor: A Feminine Perspective." Nearly 200 people attended the event held yesterday in the Tapa Ballroom at the Hilton Hawaiian Village.

For years, Thompson had written stories about her jitterbug dance partner which ran in the Pearl Harbor Gram and San Diego Union. She hoped someone would remember the sailor.

"It was a haunting thing. Every time I looked at the trophy, I wondered, 'Where is this guy?'" she said.

Thompson later received a letter from John Rutledge, a piano player who performed in the band during the dance competition.

Rutledge published the story in a military newsletter called the ScuttleButt. After reading the article, veteran Jack Evans notified his friend Rutledge he was the sailor who danced with Thompson.

Evans said he received leg injuries while aboard the main deck of the USS Tennessee after pieces of flying shrapnel "peppered both my legs" on Dec. 7.

"When I think about Dec. 7, I remembered the little girl I was dancing with. I wondered what happened to her," Evans said.

COURTESY PHOTO Pat Thompson wrote stories about her jitterbug dance partner for years in hopes of reuniting with him.

Soon after, he left a message on Thompson's answering machine saying, "If this is Pat Thompson, I'm the sailor you're looking for."

"I nearly died," said Thompson.

In August 2000, Thompson and Evans were reunited at a Scottish Rite Center in San Diego and discovered they lived 15 miles from each other for 40 years.

"I never dreamed I would see that little girl again," Evans said.

A month later, Rutledge invited Thompson to the Silver Eagles National Convention in California, where they danced for the first time since the Pearl Harbor bombing.

In February, Thompson decided to donate her winning trophy to the Arizona Memorial to share her story with others.

JOHN RUTLEDGE / COURTESY PHOTO Pat Thompson and Jack Evans danced together in September 2000 at the Silver Eagles National Convention in California for the first time since 1941.

Evans, who came because he thinks this will be the last big Pearl Harbor event he can go to, said, "It kind of closes a chapter in a book of our lives, one where we wondered about each other, how the world treated us and what we remembered about that night."

"There were so many things that were so sad about Pearl Harbor. ... The dance is a happy moment," he added.

Evans and Thompson plan to re-create the jitterbug dance contest tomorrow night at the Pearl Harbor 60th Anniversary Gala Banquet at the Hilton Hawaiian Village.

On the panel, part of commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, Dorinda Nicholson, author of "Pearl Harbor Child," recalled seeing Japanese planes fly over their home on the Pearl City peninsula.

"From our house we could hear the explosions," said Nicholson, who was 6 years old when the attack occurred.

Nicholson showed slides of black smoke billowing in the air from Battleship Row. Images of Nicholson and her brother wearing gas masks and soldiers armed with bayonets were also shown.

"They were terrifying things to a young girl," said Nicholson about the bayonets.