[ PEARL HARBOR / FADING VOICES ]

RICHARD WALKER / RWALKER@STARBULLETIN.COM Richard Fiske survived the Dec. 7 attack along with his father and brother. He credits his wife, Carmen, for helping him overcome the trauma of war.

Wartime heroes included
those who waited and
worked back home

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By Christine Donnelly
cdonnelly@starbulletin.com

For Richard Irwin Fiske, there are many unsung heroes of World War II, but chief among them are the women who watched their husbands, sweethearts, sons and brothers go off to war and then could only wait and hope for their return.

Fiske, his father and brother were all serving in the military on Oahu when the Japanese attacked on Dec. 7, 1941. Richard Fiske was aboard the USS West Virginia; his father, Francis Eugene Fiske, was stationed on the USS Tangier; and his brother, Frank William Fiske, was stationed at Schofield Barracks.

"The first word that my mother received that any of us was alive was March 28, 1942. You can imagine what she was going through. We wrote, but the censor was tearing up our letters," Fiske, 79, recalled. She finally got a letter "all cut up (by the censor). It was my dad's. All she could read was: 'Dearest Virginia, I saw Richard and Frank. Your loving husband, Francis.' But that was enough. She was overjoyed."

All three Fiske men survived the war, serving in a total of 11 major battles in the Pacific. But "don't call us heroes," Fiske said.

To him, the heroes are the women who held the households together back home, got outside jobs, many for the first time, and kept hope alive that they would be reunited with the men they loved.

Whether mothers, sisters, sweethearts or wives, "they kept that little spark between us and home, that feeling that we really belonged to someone," recalled Fiske. "That's so important when you're out in the field. You'd be surprised how important it is."

Fiske, who has lived in Honolulu since retiring here in 1969, credits Carmen, his wife of 55 years, for helping him through the war's aftermath, when he had a bad temper and suffered nightmares, flashbacks and serious ulcers.

"It's not enough to survive. You've got to come home and build a normal life, and it wasn't always easy," said Fiske. "Boy, I tell you, I bless my wife. She was with me all that time."

Special thanks The National Park Service's Submerged Resources Center and the USS Arizona Memorial Association graciously provided the underwater images and artifacts, respectively, that appear throughout this special section. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin is grateful for their assistance.