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on today, 64 years ago...
Dec. 7th, 2005 05:09 pm...my mom's sisters (ages 7 and 10, mom having not been born yet) were in sunday school in honolulu. They at first assumed it was an earthquake or volcano eruption -- they heard and felt it but were enough in the woods that they didn't see anything. A basic duck-and-cover drill and everybody was fine, if shaken up. Many tears would flow, if for nothing else than the knowledge that many of them would have to leave.
...my grandmother (mom's mom) also experienced what she thought was an earthquake, if long and rather more violent than any she'd experienced. She was in her kitchen, terrifyingly watching her upper cabinets drop like a stone onto her ceramic countertop, taking out all of the wedding china in one fell swoop. (50 years later, the chips and dinks were still in the countertop when they visited the house). She would spend most of the war with her daughters in various places across the country serving as a nurse, including at Rockingham County hospital in Harrisonburg, VA, a mere 1 block away from then Madison College, now James Madison University, my alma mater.
In the TV mini-series, "Pearl", there is a scene from the night before, in a bar, where a bartender is wiping the counter and serving a drink to a late-night drunk. The noise of an off-screen party can be heard in the distance, men and women laughing and toasting drink.
That party was real: it was my grandmother's 36th birthday.
...my grandfather (mom's dad), recovering from that party, watched in horror as the barracks of his men at Hickham Air Force Base were bombed to hell, including watching one drop on the well-inhabited mess hall. 'Til an officer of the day could be reached, he directed what ground defense he could. For his service, he was given a battlefield officer's commision, served in Europe (Italian campaign), helped managed the Marshall Plan of dropping supplies and food to Berlin (he was one of the archtects of the plan to drop Hershey's chocolate bars for the trapped German kids), and retired a full-bird colonel.
...my grandfather (dad's dad) fought his way from the deck of a destroyer as best he could, helped with the cleanup of the battleships and bodies, and served in the pacific campaign. He was barely 18, having lied about his age to join the Navy 2 years earlier as there weren't any jobs for him at home. He was on a destroyer that went down (I *think* at Leyte Gulf, but I need to confirm), but survived to tell about it. Retiring after the war, he reinlisted in '49 because married with a newborn son (my father) and a wife with no diploma, there simply weren't enough jobs in Pennsacola, FL to go around. He served in the Navy in Korea. He has steadfastly refused to talk about what he saw there. It was nothing like anything he'd experienced in any way. And now, he can't talk at all...
My life and those of my parents changed permanently as a result of 64 years ago, even as none of us had been born.
I won't forget.
...my grandmother (mom's mom) also experienced what she thought was an earthquake, if long and rather more violent than any she'd experienced. She was in her kitchen, terrifyingly watching her upper cabinets drop like a stone onto her ceramic countertop, taking out all of the wedding china in one fell swoop. (50 years later, the chips and dinks were still in the countertop when they visited the house). She would spend most of the war with her daughters in various places across the country serving as a nurse, including at Rockingham County hospital in Harrisonburg, VA, a mere 1 block away from then Madison College, now James Madison University, my alma mater.
In the TV mini-series, "Pearl", there is a scene from the night before, in a bar, where a bartender is wiping the counter and serving a drink to a late-night drunk. The noise of an off-screen party can be heard in the distance, men and women laughing and toasting drink.
That party was real: it was my grandmother's 36th birthday.
...my grandfather (mom's dad), recovering from that party, watched in horror as the barracks of his men at Hickham Air Force Base were bombed to hell, including watching one drop on the well-inhabited mess hall. 'Til an officer of the day could be reached, he directed what ground defense he could. For his service, he was given a battlefield officer's commision, served in Europe (Italian campaign), helped managed the Marshall Plan of dropping supplies and food to Berlin (he was one of the archtects of the plan to drop Hershey's chocolate bars for the trapped German kids), and retired a full-bird colonel.
...my grandfather (dad's dad) fought his way from the deck of a destroyer as best he could, helped with the cleanup of the battleships and bodies, and served in the pacific campaign. He was barely 18, having lied about his age to join the Navy 2 years earlier as there weren't any jobs for him at home. He was on a destroyer that went down (I *think* at Leyte Gulf, but I need to confirm), but survived to tell about it. Retiring after the war, he reinlisted in '49 because married with a newborn son (my father) and a wife with no diploma, there simply weren't enough jobs in Pennsacola, FL to go around. He served in the Navy in Korea. He has steadfastly refused to talk about what he saw there. It was nothing like anything he'd experienced in any way. And now, he can't talk at all...
My life and those of my parents changed permanently as a result of 64 years ago, even as none of us had been born.
I won't forget.
