Dec. 7 • Sept. 11
Amid the fear of those times was a special satisfaction

By Gladys Ainoa Brandt
Retired educator, University of Hawai'i regent and OHA trustee

It was a peaceful Sunday morning in Honolulu like so many others before it. The sun was rising and a soft breeze was sweeping through the city. The streets were quiet and empty, with only an occasional passing car or truck marring the silence.

My mother and I had gone to the bakery early to pick up a birthday cake. On the way home, we decided to stop at Fort Street to do some window shopping. As we walked the deserted streets, I heard the sound of distant rumbles, and I wondered what they could be. Within moments the rumbles were accompanied by sirens. I wondered if there was an explosion or fire, or whether the military was practicing maneuvers.

A motorcycle rider drove down the street, and I waved him down and asked him if he knew what was happening. He said breathlessly, "Big fire at Pearl Harbor; big fire at Pearl Harbor!" And then he drove off quickly, leaving me still unaware of the momentous events that had begun. The rumblings and sirens continued as my mother and I drove to our home in Kalihi. There were airplanes in the sky. As I turned down our street, people were gathering on the sidewalks. We opened our car doors and began walking toward some of our neighbors when a low-flying airplane suddenly dove toward us.

All of us stood in silence, looking up at the plane as it came closer to us, transfixed by the sight. The plane stopped its dive perhaps fifty yards above our heads and flew toward the ocean, but not before we were able to see the rising sun painted on its white body. I thought to myself that the Navy must really be trying for realism during its maneuvers.

My ignorance of what was happening ended as people on our street began yelling, "Pearl Harbor's been bombed; Pearl Harbor's been bombed. It's on the radio; it's on the radio."

My mother and I ran toward our house into the arms of my young daughter who stood waiting on the porch, a look of bewilderment on her face. We turned on the radio and heard the announcer's voice, "Pearl Harbor has been bombed. This is the real McCoy! Repeat! Pearl Harbor has been bombed. This is the real McCoy! Pearl Harbor has been bombed!"

I tried to grasp what was happening. War had come to Hawai'i! And that Sunday morning, Dec. 7, 1941, a day that had begun like so many others in Honolulu, would forever be remembered as the day that changed our lives.

All of us who are here, and all of us who were alive at that time, can remember clearly where we were and what we were doing that day. And this is as it should be, for few other days in the 20th century have etched the human mind and spirit so profoundly.

For each of us, the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the war that followed had a different implication. But the effects were equally profound.

For those who had been born and reared in Hawai'i, we sensed that the beauty of our land and the idyllic way of life we had known would be forever changed.

We sensed that events over which we had no control would soon determine our lives.

We sensed the passing of the old and the coming of the new, and it happened so quickly, so unexpectedly.

The comfort and security of our daily routines in Hawai'i soon yielded to a dizzy change of pace. Martial law was imposed; familiar sites like Punahou School were turned over to the military; rationing increased; volunteering became a way of life. We all learned to live with less, and we did so willingly because it was our contribution to the victory that we knew would come.

There was a recklessness, a willingness to live faster and more intensely. Perhaps it was the uncertainty. Or perhaps the sudden exposure to ways of life we had never known.

We hid our fears beneath new dances, new clothes, new ideas and a new willingness to test the limits of our times. We listened to the radio; we read the newspapers; we shared the victories and defeats of our troops as if we were with them in battle: cheering and crying, ecstatic and fatigued. We came together as a community — strangers and natives, haole and kama'aina, civilian and military.

I remember those days so clearly. Even amid the uncertainty, there was a special satisfaction to them. I cannot remember anyone saying so, but I think that we all knew that Pearl Harbor would mark our lives as the end of one era and the beginning of another.

I write 60 years later, a witness to those times of desperation and joy, of sadness and hope, of fear and courage.

Fate gave me the privilege and the honor of witnessing and experiencing that tragedy that soon became our nation's finest hour. That's how I remember Pearl Harbor. Nothing in my long life has been comparable.