Monday, December 8th
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| FDR addressing Congress on December 8th 1941 |
When I
woke, cramped and stiff, and crawled out from under the workbench it was still
raining lightly in the first light of dawn.
Dick had covered his beloved machine gun with tarpaper from the
gardener’s shed. Both he and Glover,
wrapped in soggy blankets, were asleep sitting in two or three inches of red
mud against the back wall. I stood up
and saw no one moving on the hillside.
The invasion had not come.
Dick and
Glover came to life. Glover threw off
the wet blanket and shivered. “I don’t
know about you two,” he said, “but I am one certified medical emergency. Break out the commander’s Old Crow!”
Dick
demurred, “Hey, you know what he said!”
“Bull
hockey, brother, you think he gonna hand out Old Crow and not expect the seal
to be broken after a day like we put in yesterday?!” He reached under the bench for the bottle and
broke the seal. We passed it around and
a pull at it made our muddy, wet, miserable conditions more bearable for the
moment.
Just at
dawn, the exec cam by again. I felt a
bit guilty about the bottle of booze, but he never mentioned it. He just told us that the island was quiet and
that, hopefuly, the Japanese were not coming back right away. The carrier ENTERPRISE and all available
ships and planes were out combing the seas around Hawaii and had found no sign
of the attackers. He also said that
breakfast could be had from a field kitchen that had been set up down behind
the Ad building. (I do not know why the
main galley at the mess hall was not in use.)
We could stand down, clean our guns, and get something to eat.
The rain
was slackening to mist. We carried the
big 50-cal to the shed where Dick could field strip, dry, and lubricate it out
of the rain. Glover would help him and
I, as the junior member of the crew, was elected to go get us some chow.
It would
have appeared to an observer that I was an infantryman, not a sailor, as I
walked down across the base. My uniform
was solid red mud and coffee stain. I
was wearing the doughboy tin hat cocked at a jaunty angle and had a bandolier
of ammunition across my chest. The
Springfield was slung by its strap from my shoulder.
The
cooks had a good chow line set up and were offering a full breakfast of
scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and coffee.
I explained that we had three men in an outpost gun pit at the
hill. They provided me stacked containers
of everything—enough to feed four or five men—and I trudged back to the
shed. We had another shot of Old Crow
apiece then filled our empty bellies.
Before
noon, the word was passed that the island was secure and there appeared to be
minimum danger that the Japanese would be back in the near future. We were in stand down, turn in our guns, and
assemble with all station personnel in the quadrangle before going to our
barracks to clean up.
We
probably looked more like a rag tag mob than a military organization when we
formed up in the quadrangle. The base
commander, Commander H.H. “Beauty” Martin, addressed us and gave us a concise
report of the effects of the attack. He
complimented us on the manner in which we had responded with initiative and
courage to the sudden sneak attack. He
stated that President Roosevelt had already addressed a joint session of
Congress and asked for a declaration of war against the Empire of Japan. (It was the speech that labeled December 7th,
1941 “The Day of Infamy” and would give rise to the war cry “Remember Pearl
Harbor”.) Congress had already approved
the declaration and we were now officially and formally at war. Glover nudged me and muttered, “Don’t’ know
about him, but I have been officially and formally at war since yesterday
morning!”
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| Burial of the Kaneohe dead following the December 7th attack |
The
commander went on to recap our losses at Kaneohe and the fact that we had been
effectively destroyed as an operating military command. (Kaneohe was to go down in history as the
most thoroughly destroyed military installation on the island.) We had lost a total of nineteen killed at
Kaneohe (including one Army private and one contractor’s employee) and more
than 75 had been wounded, some very seriously.
Our one operational hangar was totally destroyed and we had lost all but
three of our thirty-six airplanes (VP-11, VP-12, and VP-14) and those three had
been transferred temporarily to Ford Island where facilities were still
operation and more airplanes had survived because the attacrs were
concentrating on battleships.
Martin
then stated that Ford Island was short of qualified combat crew members and
volunteers would be accepted. Almost
half of the people present stepped forward and raised a hand literally in
union. He smiled and said that we could
sign up at the Ad building after we were dismissed. There was dead silence over the base while
Martin closed by reading the names, rates, service and squadron of the nineteen
people that had been killed.
I was
far enough up in line to sign up and be accepted for the Ford Island relief
flight crews. Dick and Glover were too
far back (Glover shrugged later and said, “Hell—shouldn’t never volunteer for
anything anyway!”) and would stay at Kaneohe to assist with cleaning up the
wreckage and getting the squadron once more operational while we waited for
replacement airplane to come in.
That
evening Dick, Glover, and I sat in the ships’ service beer garden with cold
bottles of Acme beer, a local brand, Dick looked at me and said accusingly, “Hey,
nipplenoggin, how come you went and got yourself on those relief flight
crews? There may be Japs out there
anywhere—be just like you to get your butt shot off!”
“I
noticed the two of you didn’t hesitate to step forward and raise your hands!”
“Well,”
Dick said, “you don’t know what kind of shot-up airplanes you’ll be flying in
or who you will be flying with either.
You think I’m going to like writing to the folks if you get out there
and get yourself shot down?”
“Speaking
of the folks,” I answered, “we ought to send them a telegram that we are all
right. This shindig must have made
headlines and you know how they will be worrying.”
“Post office
on the base wasn’t open today,” Glover stated, “I checked. They said they would take telegrams tomorrow.”
“Well,”
I said to Dick, “I’ll be on the way to Pearl in the morning. You be sure to get one off and I’ll write
them first chance I get. Don’t let him
forget, Glover. Mother will be worried
sick.”
We were
all angry at the “slanteyes” and thirsting for revenge for the unprovoked sneak
attack that had killed our friends and destroyed our equipment. The Pacific fleet ahd been badly damaged and
we barely constituted a “thin blue line” in the Pacific, but we turned our
attention to waging war against the Empire of Japan in the Pacific with what
little we had. It had now officially
become World War II and the war cry rang across the United States—“Remember Pearl
Harbor!”
(Brother Dick can
be a man of few words. Recently after
the death of our mother, I found his wire among her effects. It said simply and tersely, ERNEST FRIEZE,
EIGHTEENTH AND ESTHER, VANCOUVER, WA—BOTH SAFE MERRY CHRISTMAS—RICHARD FRIEZE. He sure had not wasted much money on that
wire!
We did
not know until much later that our mother was visiting our grandparents in the
Ozarks on that fateful Sunday. They had
retired from the Bona store and moved to Greenfield. She caught the next train home and did not
know about Dick’s telegram util she arrived several days later. Meanwhile, our grandparents wept for us
during that time because of a rumor in Missouri that we had both been killed in
the attack. Mercifully for mother, the
rumor did not start before she caught the train. Amon her effects was a clipping from the
little newspaper in Greenfield, Missouri, “The Vedette” published late in
December. It is headlined “Beware of
Rumors” and reads as follows:
“War is productive
of many rumors, and the government warning to disregard all rumors is
wise. Mrs. Ernest Frieze of Vancouver,
Wash., who had been visiting her parents, Mr. and Mrs. C.B. Stanley of this
city, left hurriedly for home on receiving news of the bombing of Hawaii, as
her two sons, Richard and Conrad, are in the naval aviation service in the
islands. Shortly after her departure a
rumor swept over the city that both boys had been killed, and although their
names did not appear on the casualty lists and Mr. and Mrs. Stanley had had no
word, the rumor persisted until a letter was received form Mrs. Frieze on her
arrival at home, that a message had been received the boys, who were uninjured in
the bombardment.”)
