HONOLULU — Children carried gas masks to the playground. Military officers commanded civilian courts under martial law. Residents feared enemy troops would parachute into the mountains and then swarm the beaches.
This year’s 66th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor offers reminders of how the assault upended the lives of Hawaii’s civilians, in addition to the severe damage inflicted on the military.
“It was scary,” said Joan Martin Rodby, who had to carry a gas mask everywhere as a 10-year-old. “It was more or less living in constant fear they were always going to come back.”
Annual remembrances of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack often evoke images of burning ships in Pearl Harbor and exploding planes at Hickam Field. This year’s observance will be no different. But the plight of civilians who survived the attack has attracted new attention.
“Maybe the unsung heroes that we should remember and look at are the civilians that endured the attack on Pearl Harbor and the years after it,” said Daniel Martinez, chief historian at the USS Arizona Memorial.
Civilian survivors who recall the attack include Hawaii’s two U.S. senators, who both were 17-year-old boys at the time.
Sen. Daniel Inouye, now 83, said he served as a first-aid volunteer, helping treat civilians who were wounded in his Honolulu neighborhood. In 1943, he joined a celebrated all-Japanese-American unit and was highly decorated for combat valor.
Japanese planes did not bomb residential neighborhoods, but misfired U.S. anti-aircraft shells fell on homes and businesses.
“One shell fell into the dining room, and this old Japanese lady was having her breakfast. When I got there, she was slumped over in her food,” Inouye said in an interview. “Shrapnel went through her head and killed her.”
The National Park Service, which runs the USS Arizona Memorial, lists 48 civilians who died from the attack. Three firefighters and four federal employees died. Military casualties far outnumbered civilians, with more than 2,300 dead and 1,100 wounded.
