<Begin Segment 14>

TI: Okay, so why don't we go to December 7, 1941. Do you remember that day?

HH: Oh, yes.

TI: So tell me, tell me about that day.

HH: That day, I think she said they were preparing for a bazaar at the church, at the Japanese school, and we heard it over the radio, that it, there was a war and that Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor. When it got to my father he couldn't believe it, so he went to his office to try to confirm that the war was on, but he couldn't get through. None of the calls were going through. So then, when you think there's a war and you got eight kids, you got to look, figure out how you're gonna feed them. And usually, if that happens in Hawaii, you know, our bulk things come by ship, so you have to kind of hoard the big items like rice. So what he did was he went to his friend where he buys wholesale. We used to, we used to buy hundred bag of rice to feed the family. I think it lasted six months or so. Anyway, that's what he went to order, and then he went to talk to some of the other friends 'cause you got to plan and prepare with a large family. Then, of course, on December 8th he was picked up.

TI: And before we go there, what about you? When you found out, what were your thoughts?

HH: Wow. I... nothing. I mean, gee, you think, you can't think 'cause you... it's something that never happened.

TI: And how about the people around you, your friends, the family? Do you remember...

HH: They all stuck home. They all clustered at their own home and didn't go out, you don't go out.

TI: How about the feeling? I mean, so people are in their homes, kind of clustered, what's the feeling?

HH: The feeling is "Wow, Japan hit us." That's kind of, you can't think beyond that.

TI: Did anyone talk about, "Wow, I wonder what's gonna happen, or if anything's gonna happen to us?" Or your parents or anything like that?

HH: No, no, no. It's something that never happened, so you don't know. You can't think.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.