On December 7, 1941

Seventy years ago today, I was an 8-year-old living in Honolulu, Hawaii (then known as the Territory of Hawaii -- before it became a state).  My father was an Army doctor.  Four years later, I wrote an essay for my 7th grade class, at PS 104 in Brooklyn.  We then lived at Ft. Hamilton.  I like to think it was my first blog.  So here it is, as it was written in 1945:

A Day I Shall Remember

It started just like most Sunday mornings usually begin in our household.  Everyone was asleep but me.

We were living in Honolulu, as Daddy is in the Army, and had been ordered there.  In fact, we had been living in Honolulu since August of 1940.

But to return to the story, I was the only one awake, as I said before.  I heard the dull booming of guns, but paid no attention to them, as the army and navy practice firing frequently.

Finally Mother and Daddy woke up, (my brother was still sleeping soundly) and as Daddy always listens to the news, he turned on the radio for the 9:00 broadcast.  The first message that came to our ears was: “This is the real McCoy!  Pearl Harbor is under attack!  The Japanese have made a sneak attack on the Island of Oahu!”  We were naturally taken aghast.  Daddy announced that he was going to eat breakfast and go straight down to the hospital.  I didn’t feel like eating very much breakfast myself, I was so frightened.

We went out on our small back porch and gazed up at the sky.  There were puffs of black smoke here and there which showed that the anti-aircraft guns were busy too.  Fortunately, we were in little danger ourselves, because we were approximately 15 miles from Pearl Harbor.

It was a rather strange and frightening day, and one to be remembered, too.