“It was 18:30 in Honolulu, the end of another lazy afternoon, and the second weekend of low-level alert at the island’s army and naval bases found most service personnel off duty. Enlisted men were flocking as usual to the bars, dance halls, and pinball parlors of the waterfront. At the officers clubs and the verandahed dining rooms of the Waikiki hotels, tables were being taken for a leisurely evening.
…I was with a group of officers and their wives who gathered to dine and dance in the tropical splendor of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. Beyond the terrace, the lights of Waikiki’s palm-fringed crescent stretched away like a Hollywood set. The mood and music almost made me forget my preoccupation with the events on the far side of the Pacific that were rushing to shape our nation’s destiny.”
-Edwin Layton
I bought this three photo set for twenty bucks at the Freedom Resaler in Ossippee, New Hampshire.
No brainer. Money well spent.
My grandfather watched the Arizona go up from Building 661 at Makalapa. His stories were rich in sense memories that were seared on his soul. The belch of black smoke from Battleship Row. The “Meatball” on the wings overhead. The veil of Tracers barking upwards from the deck-mounted 20MM Oerlikons in the sub pens.
I can’t Fully comprehend and I never will. The events of December 7, 1941 continue to loom large in my family life. No one put it better than the newspaper in my grandfather’s native Steubenville, Ohio: Time Seems to Stand Still.
