Remembrances of December 7, 1941
by Queen's Physicians

During the two years prior to America's entrance into World War II, the city of Honolulu took steps to insure the city's medical community was prepared for the possibility of coming under enemy fire during an attack. The Honolulu County Medical Society responded to the likelihood of this danger by establishing a Medical Preparedness Committee. The Committee divided the city into zones that consisted of general circles of about a half-mile radius around seventeen schools or other buildings that were suitable for the purpose of aid station locations. Aid stations composed of two physicians and a larger number of nurses, nurses aids, litter bearers, cooks, utility men, etc. were installed in these buildings. ("Medical Preparedness Activity in Hawaii," Hawaii Medical Journal 1 (September 1941): 43.)

During the early days of December 1941, visiting lecturer Dr. Moorehead addressed local physicians in the auditorium of the Mabel Smyth Memorial Building on the treatment of battle wounds. During one such lecture, on the morning of December 7, as bombs were falling on Pearl Harbor and other military bases isalnd-wide, calls for surgeons to report to Tripler (Army) Hospital came at eight o'clock in the morning. Within minutes, the doctors attending the lecture scattered, with some going to Tripler Hospital, some to Queen's Hospital, and others to the first aid stations to which they had been assigned by the Preparedness Committee.

On December 7, 1941, even though the paper did not typically have a Sunday edition, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin got the scoop on the coverage of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. This was due to the presses of Honolulu's other paper, the Honolulu Advertiser (which typically had the Sunday edition), being in repair. The image on the left is the Honolulu Star-Bulletin front page from that day.

Click on image for larger view.

The following exhibit is based on the reminiscences of six physicians who reported to hospitals and first aid stations on that fateful day. These physicians were chosen for the exhibit because of their connection with Queen's Hospital, although only one of them treated the wounded at Queen's that day - the others were at Tripler Army Hospital, the first aid stations in West Oahu, and the Navy's Dispensary at Ford Island, Pearl Harbor. At right, an aerial view of Queen's Hospital in 1945 shows the red crosses on the roof of two of the hospital's wings, Bishop and Liholiho.

This exhibit gives a partial account of the experiences of these men on December 7, 1941. For the complete reminiscences of all of the physicians in this exhibit except Dr. West, click on the name of the physician. Dr. West's reminiscences are available only through his oral history, which is available for listening in the Mamiya Center. For the reminiscences of other Hawaii physicians, and for further information on Hawaii during the years of the war, please visit our exhibit Medicine in Hawaii: The World War II Experience.

R.K. Uyeno

Dr. Uyeno's sister called him at home, saying he was being called over the radio to report to Tripler. He left his family in the care of his sister and proceeded to Tripler where he reported to the desk and was sent to a general admission ward along with Drs. Gordon, Howarth and Fred Lam, and about ten others. He said he felt utterly helpless as he went into the ward and saw the ghastly wounds of war, as he had had no experience that would have prepared him for handling these casualties. One patient had what he thought were a number of tiny scratches, but Dr. Gordon, a veteran of the first war, recognized them as machine-gun wounds. On this ward there were two bottles of iodine and two pairs of scissors. Bandages were exceedingly scarce and the group of them spent half their time hunting dressings … By about 2:30 they had the ward pretty well cleaned up and he returned home.

Arthur G. Hodgins

Dr. Hodgins and Dr. R. O. Brown were directed to the Maternity floor by some Major. Dr. Halford and some of the others did most of the major surgery. When they went to get ready for surgery and had their clothes off, there were no operating suits, and he worked most of the day in his B.V.D.'s. Later in the day someone found some pajamas for them to wear. They wore the same gown nearly all day and simply washed off their gloves between cases except when they got an occasional change of gloves. There was very little equipment. They had about three sterile towels for each patient, and their instruments were extremely limited. They each had two or three hemostats, and there was perhaps one operating saw in the house. There was plenty of sulfa drugs on hand but they had a great deal of trouble getting anesthetists, there being only two or three at the hospital, and consequently they did most of their surgery under local anesthesia. They were short of suture material and dressings. The Maternity department was very ill equipped to do the major surgery, so that they did not handle anything except shrapnel wounds and amputations.

Rodney T. West

Upon reaching Ford Island, Dr. West rushed into the dispensary to help the wounded. In the middle of the quadrangle of the dispensary, there was a huge crater in the ground, which was caused by a bomb meant for the USS California. Had the bomb been a few feet more off-target, it would have gone right through the dispensary and killed or injured even more. He stayed on Ford Island from December 7th to the 11th, working at the dispensary. Most of the wounded were sailors from the sinking and listing battleships, who had to swim through the burning oil in the waters of Pearl Harbor. Most of the injuries were flash burns, since most of the sailors had been wearing shorts and t-shirts, and the burned areas were those that were exposed. After Dr. West gave them preliminary care, the wounded were sent to the US Naval Hospital at Hospital Point for further attention.

Dr. West's book, Honolulu Prepares for Japan's Attack was written "to tell the now almost-forgotten and sketchy story of how, before the attack, many of Honolulu's civilians willingly and unstintingly cooperated and supported each other in the act of preparing the community for the 'worst that could happen...' In writing this, I wanted to record the unfurling events in Hawaii and elsewhere during the unique and tedious pre-war emergency preparations ... I have tried ... to the best of my ability to relate an almost day-by-day account of this tragic scenario that unfolded between 1940 and 1941 on all fronts ...  (Rodney T. West, Honolulu Prepares for Japan's Attack, pp. 1, 2)

The [Queen's Hospital] elevators went out of commission and the casualties had to be carried up three flights of stairs. Everything worked smoothly at Queen's Hospital, where there were adequate surgical supplies. The nurses kept their heads and did splendid work. The casualties were all cleaned up by early evening. [Dr. Judd] stated that the casualties remained under the care of the surgeons who had done the work, and were not returned to the care of their family physicians. He does not know how their hospital bills were paid, and so far as he knows no bills were presented by the physicians or surgeons. He stated further that most of the things which he learned that day were a rehearsal of the things which he had learned in the World War--namely, never to operate in shock, to do a thorough debridement, etc.--and that the new things which he learned at that time were the value of the sulfa drugs, and of fresh blood transfusions.

J.E. Strode

"It immediately became evident that we were attempting to do blitz surgery in a location and in a manner that was entirely inadequate. First, the operating rooms were on the second floor and they had one common entrance, and the passageway and connecting halls quickly became cluttered with the seriously injured, and there was no place to put them except on the floor. There was no place to segregate the patients who needed surgery immediately from those who first needed treatment for shock, there were not enough instruments, and suture material, and sterile supplies were soon exhausted. Patients were brought directly to surgery without having their clothing removed and without having any preliminary cleaning up of their wounds. Thus it became necessary for surgical teams to waste much of their valuable time doing the work that should have been done by orderlies and nurses. Much of the transporting of patients from where they had been deposited on the floor on stretchers to the operating table had to be done by the surgeons, and this was a large factor in contributing to their near exhaustion by the time evening arrived."

Harold Johnson

When he realized that Pearl Harbor was under attack, Dr. Johnson proceeded to his regular station, which was supervisor of the first aid stations in the west portion of Honolulu. It was necessary for him to go from one first aid station to another, but his quarters were in Palama where Joe Lam was the medical director. Dr. Johnson saw the people who were brought in from a car in which a child had been killed and the others injured by exploding shrapnel. He covered the headlights of his car with blue cellophane and spent the night of December 7 making the rounds of his stations. Once during the day he drove home to see that the family were in good shape, and returned home for breakfast on the morning of December 8.