Mono Monday. : : My Shadow.

I wish I could say that I am a mere shadow of my former self but, alas, that is not the case....Thanks to Carolinav for hosting this month.

I cannot let December 7th go by without repeating the family story. In 1941, my father was a naval officer stationed at Pearl Harbor having received his commission upon graduation from officers’ training at UC Berkeley.

On this particular Sunday morning my mother was driving through the guard post at the entrance to the base on her way to pick him up as he came off duty. The guard at the gate said that they were planning target practice over the bay and that my mother might want to pull over and see it. There have been many theories about that Roosevelt actually knew about the attack but Mom’s experience certainly seems to disprove that.

While my mother  watched, a squadron of planes flew over dropping  bombs. She didn't know it at the time, but what she thought was 'target practice' was the infamous kamikaze attack on the battleships at Pearl Harbor, the "date which will live in infamy" which precipitated the entry of the United States  into World War II. 

As my mother was wondering how they could make target practice look so realistic, a couple of enlisted men in a Jeep rounded a corner "on two wheels'" yelling as they went by, "Get out of here, lady. We're under attack!" My mother wasn't about to leave without my father, so she drove on into the base where all hell had broken loose. She found herself under the bucket of a steam shovel where she waited with another civilian until it was safe to come out. 

The attack killed 2,403 U.S. personnel, including 68 civilians and destroyed or damaged 19 U.S. Navy ships , including 8 battleships. 

My father commanded a net tender that deployed the submarine nets across the entrance to the harbor. My mother heard nothing from him for two days before they were reunited.I have put his picture in extras.

This was my mother's story. My father never spoke of it. As kids, my brother and I heard this story often and never even asked for my father's experience. My parents are both gone now, but one of my biggest regrets is that I never tried harder to hear my father's story 

Despite this country's shameful internment of Japanese citizens, the many Japanese who had lived in Hawaii for decades were never interned. Hawaii was a territory and not a state in 1941, and because the Islands are more or less equidistant between Asia and mainland U.S. people from both sides of the Pacific had always lived there peacefully. (As a matter of fact, it is the indigenous Hawiians who have suffered the most, but that is a story for another day.)