<Begin Segment 6>

TI: Moving to December 7, 1941. Describe what you did that day, or how you heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor.

FM: Well, that night, a bunch of us, every weekends like that we play cards and stuff like that, see. But we were playing cards, and then in the morning we went, we decided, on the way home, we were sitting around, talking story. And then we heard over the radio that somebody, that war was declared. And they announced to people on Molokai, say, "All able-bodied young men report to the armory." So we reported to the armory, and they gave us rifles. They said, "So you two gonna guard the telephone installation there, you gonna guard the school out here, and you gonna guard the electrical facilities there." So we went out, you know, guard the places at night. But nothing happened.

TI: How long did you, were you a guard? Did you go back the next day and do it again?

FM: Oh, yeah. They give you couple days off and then you go back on duty again, for four or five hours at a time, yeah.

TI: And so how long did this go on?

FM: And they also give you ticket for meal, meal ticket. So we get meal ticket, go to the restaurant, have a good meal.

BK: That sounds good. [Laughs]

FM: No pay, of course. Just a free meal ticket.

TI: And this was in, and you continued building barracks and doing that work, too, or did you stop doing that?

FM: Same thing. We still worked for the government, building barracks and stuff like that. And some GIs started to come in. More GIs started to come in already, yeah.

TI: And then how long did you work as a guard, that they gave you a gun and you...

FM: Oh, no, no. Not very long. About, oh, maybe a month or so. And then they dissolved that portion of security. They said there's no chance of getting invaded by the Japanese, so we stopped doing that.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.