Mary Lepine of Kahala just found a letter she hadn't seen in years. She had written about what it was like to live in Ho-nolulu in the days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, a detailed essay about living with a curfew, blackouts and the anger and determination that followed the attack. It was a letter she sent to her niece in California, who was working on a project for school.

Lepine, now 88, was in her 20s at the time of the attack, and her name was Mary Gioia. She came to Hawai'i with her best friend Rosemary, and the two young women rented a studio apartment in Waikiki. Many of their neighbors were Army and Navy officers. It was an exciting, romantic time of dancing under the stars at the Moana Hotel and dates at the Officers' Club.

"We were awakened about 8 a.m. by an explosion nearby that nearly threw us out of bed," Lepine wrote in the letter, which is dated May 1968. "All around us, service officers were leaving in cars for Pearl Harbor, etc. We thought that the Army was finally on maneuvers — they had put it off a couple of times before. We could hear heavy gunfire — but the Coast Artillery was forever practicing, shooting at targets pulled by a plane. Planes overhead were no novelty."

But when Lepine and Rosemary tried to go to Saint Augustine's church for Sunday Mass, they were turned back by a policeman.

"We phoned our parish priest (we worried about not being able to get to Mass) and he told us that there would be no Masses that day. ... Later, we discovered that the explosion which had so rudely awakened us was an anti-aircraft shell (from our own batteries at Fort DeRussy) which had landed 2 blocks from us and ripped a huge hole in the street. There were shrapnel holes in the buildings on all 4 corners; and a man in one apartment was badly injured when some shrapnel entered his arm."

She was dating the man she would eventually marry. Melvin Lepine, her husband of 65 years, was a second lieutenant in the Army engineers. He went off to work and she didn't see him for days after the attack.

"Immediately there went into effect a system of neighborhood Air Raid Wardens. These were men who patrolled certain blocks in their areas from sundown to sunup (they worked in shifts, all volunteer work). No lights WHATSOEVER after 6 p.m.

"That meant: not even the glow from an electric stove or a radio, not even a light through a keyhole. When it came time for blackout, one person would stay in the house with a light on (and all windows well covered with heavy black cloth or some other material), and another person would check outside to see if any light could be seen. Of course, all lights had to be doused whenever anyone went through the door. Outdoor cigarette smoking was especially tabu.

"Effective also on December 7, 1941 was a complete curfew for all persons (unless authorized by special pass) from 6 p.m. until 5 a.m. the following morning. Well, that cut down on our social life considerably. In fact, for about a week Rosemary and I went to bed at 6 p.m. as we were tired, and there wasn't anything else to do, anyway.

"Now, that curfew meant we couldn't even sit outside on our own doorstep. One couldn't be outside during those hours, even on his own property. From then on, whenever anyone had friends for dinner, all guests had to stay all night — even sleeping on the floors, chairs, etc."

Lepine recalls talk of judges sentencing those caught breaking curfew with a "pint of blood" to be donated to the emergency medical efforts. She also wrote about the massive call to action, how everyone felt they had a role to play in winning the war.

"I don't remember anyone being scared — everybody was mad, I know that — and also everyone was busy working or helping where they could."

"One of the young men in my office (I worked in the personnel office for a large construction firm that did nothing but huge jobs for the Navy) came to work one day, about half-dead. He had volunteered, and been put to work digging graves all night for the men who were killed in the attack."

At the end of the letter, Lepine added a postscript: "Write and tell me we got a good report."

That niece is now a great-grandmother, but Lepine remembers clearly, "She did get a good grade on that project."

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.

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