74 TORREYA 



docked tail can reach it ; a trembling that had been forgotten since those 

 early childhood nightmares when the visionary, painted Indian, with toma- 

 hawk raised aloft, was sneaking up nearer and nearer and ever yet nearer 

 to one's once curly golden locks. Philosophical thoughts gradually reduced 

 the frequency and intensity of the fitful trembling until from fifteen miles 

 away, from the direction of Schofield Barracks, came a dull booming fol- 

 lowed almost immediately by a crackling crunching crash. This booming and 

 crash was thrice repeated. Stillness, only broken by the familiar swishing 

 of the searchlight-brightened surf, followed. Renewed paroxysms of trem- 

 bling came even though the speaker had not learned that the explosions and 

 the immediate falling of crumbling masonry had heralded the return of 

 enemy bombers to Schofield and signified the cruel mangling of hundreds 

 of weary soldiers in the burning, twisted wreckage. Finally came the deep 

 sleep of a fatigued soul and of an exhausted body bathed in cold sweat. 



In the bright sunshine friendly but grim soldiers hailing from all regions 

 of the Continental United States stood guard along the beach, dug trenches, 

 erected barbed-wire entanglements, etc. One could tell their places of origin 

 by their dialect : brawny hill-billies with Southern drawls ; pale counting 

 house clerks with broad "Hairvard" and "Airnold Airboretum" A's ; cloth- 

 iers with Bronx cheers ; taxi drivers with Irish brogue ; bow-legged Texans, 

 with lady-like feet, conspicuously laconic ; sun-tanned Calif ornian orchard- 

 ists jealously loquacious about Hawaii's "liquid sunshine" — Americans all. 



We kamaainas or old timers in Hawaii of all possible racial backgrounds, 

 felt closely knit together, with our homes and interests in immediate 

 jeopardy. Special aloha was shown by many toward their nisei friends, nisei 

 acquaintances and the nisei strangers within our islands. Conversely, these 

 deeply dejected Americans of Japanese ancestry were particularly eager to 

 show their unfailing loyalty to America and to show their unutterable shock 

 at the dastardly acts of the war lords of their parent's fatherland. It was no 

 surprise to people long resident in Hawaii and familiar with the nisei, when 

 the military authorities recently proclaimed that not one act of sabotage had 

 been committed by an Hawaiian nisei since Pearl Harbor. Moreover, many 

 had fought valiantly and had died for their country on the battlefields of 

 Europe and elsewhere. 



The colonel coming to the house frankly stated that if the Japanese fleet, 

 now not far distant, should loom over the horizon, his tanks would run 

 parallel with the beach to butt and run down each and every house in the com- 

 munity. Occupants would be granted one hour to evacute their belongings. 

 This destruction was necessary so that enemy gunners stationed on nip- 

 ponese warships could not so easily sight over a certain house, as a con- 

 spicuous landmark, to the flash of our defending guns concealed in the 



