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On July 10, 1947, I interviewed Dr. Frank Spencer concerning his experiences on December 7,1941.
Dr. Spencer stated that he first heard of the attack a few minutes after 8 o'clock when a friend called him to inform him of it. He said he was not surprised as he had anticipated things would come to a head. The child of a junior navy officer had stayed at their house that night and he took her to her home on Kahala Avenue where he picked up her father, whose car had run out of gasoline, and pushed him to a service station near Kuhio Beach. He could see the smoke rising from Pearl Harbor and the planes diving in, although he was not able to identify the planes at that distance said there were some ships off Waikiki which he thought were navy ships and that every once in a while a geyser of water would go up those ships. He drove home as he had been briefed to do and was called there between 9 and 9:30 and told to report to Ft. Shafter. He proceeded to Ft. Shafter and stated that he was surprised at how clear the streets were. He said that the "society cops" were on duty and doing a good job. He stated that Porter Dickenson was on duty School and Nuuanu directing traffic and was doing a very good job of it. In the Palama district people were congregated on the street corners but were keeping out of the streets proper. He said that the people of the community responded marvelously to the instructions to keep off the phone and out of the streets until after the military took over a few days later.
He reached Ft. Shafter about 10 A.M., reported to the officer of the day who told him that they were having a little trouble and that he was to give his name to a sergeant and then to stand by for one-half to one hour and if they needed him they would call him. Otherwise they appreciated his coming. So he followed instructions and found a group sitting around a sergeant. The group, he recalls, consisted largely of Orientals. After waiting about 15 minutes he and (he believes) Dr. Pang, walked to the admitting end of the hospital where the ambulances were discharging their cargoes. An army major inquired what he wanted and sent him to the barracks to help take care of the wounded. He stated that whoever was in charge of the evacuation of the Hickam area had done a masterful job; that every case had a dressing or a tourniquet and in case of fractures, a pillow splint had been applied and in some cases a board splint. The tourniquets were marked indicating the time for their release.
He worked with Dr. Culpepper and Dr. Pete Wilson, the dentist. They had nothing to work with, no scissors or adhesive and only rolls of unsterile gauze which they would fluff up and place on wounds. They made continuous rounds releasing the tourniquets as indicated and trying to evaluate the cases and send them to surgery in the order of their need. There was one death on the ward early in the day. He was served chicken and peas for lunch but had no appetite for them. After lunch he went to his office and got some instruments which he boiled in a large basin, placed the basin on a gurney and went around the ward closing superficial wounds after dusting them with sulfanilamide. Dressings meanwhile began to arrive, all of them of commercial makes. While he was dressing one soldier a plane zoomed down and Dr. Spencer looked up rather fearfully and the soldier said, "Don't worry, doc, it's a P-40."
By 3 o'clock all of the ward was completely taken care of and the patients were gradually being sent to surgery. One of Dr. Spencer's children had been on the other side of the Island Saturday night and he left Tripler about 3 P.M. and drove home prior to going to find her. She had just come in as he arrived home.
On the evening of December 7 he had to go to Queen's Hospital to attend a delivery. He had no headlights and was stopped in front of William's Mortuary where the caskets were piled high. At this point he was challenged by a sentry and produced his identification card and proceeded to the hospital. He remained in the hospital all night not wanting to run the risk of being shot. They were not allowed to have any lights in the hospital but a piece of blue cellophane was fastened over a spotlight and he proceeded to do a delivery and an episiotomy.
On December 8 he went to Tripler, going to the same barracks. He noticed a number of the beds were empty. An Army Major and Captain were making the rounds. The Captain asked him if he would like to do the dressings and he said that he would. The Captain explained that this would release him to do some other necessary task. The Major interfered and commanded the Captain to remain at his duty so that they could get the wounds classified, as civilians used a different terminology from the Army. With this Dr. Spencer concluded his contacts with the war.
"I have read the above report of my conversation, and it is true to the best of my knowledge andbelief."
Frank Spencer, M.D.
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On July 25 I interviewed Dr. Thomas Richert.
He stated that on the morning of December 7 he was living in Nuuanu Valley on the Old Pali Road. He said he slept late but had gotten up and was still going around in his pajamas and bathrobe when he and his wife noted that there was exceptionally heavy firing and instead of the windows rattling as they had when anti-aircraft and even heavy guns were being fired, it was the ground that was shaking. He said to his wife that there was something unusual about this. At this time Dr. Harold Johnson, who was living in Kalihi, called him and stated he had taken Dr. Homer Izumi to the early morning Maui plane and that the field had been strafed and the war was on. Immediately after this they heard the approach of planes and went out and lay down on the lawn where they could fully observe any activity. He counted 23 planes, painted a very light blue, flying at 10-12,000 feet. His impression was that they were American planes coming from Kaneohe or Bellows. However, as they approached Pearl Harbor they peeled off and went into steep dives, and heavy explosions followed which were felt but not heard. He then proceeded to shave and dress--and left for Queen's Hospital. Just as he was leaving home a dark brown plane came hedgehopping down Nuuanu Valley at about telephone pole height. This proceeded out over the harbor where it strafed some vessels in that neighborhood. About the time he had reached the Nuuanu Cemetery another Japanese plane of the same type came over, which was flying at a slightly greater height.
He reached Queen's Hospital just in time to see an ambulance bring in a group of people who had been injured when a car in which they were riding was struck either by bomb fragments or an anti-aircraft shell. Without seeing his patients at Queen's he left at once for Tripler General Hospital where he was supposed to report.
He reached Tripler about 8:50. He said there were no crowds in the street and he was not challenged at Tripler. He reported to the officer of the day and was assigned to one of the new wards and was instructed to set it up to receive casualties. He went to his ward and there were 30-32 beds set up without mattresses or pillows or any other equipment. Two enlisted men and a nurse were assigned to him to break out equipment. They searched for equipment but were unable to find any. About 9:30 a.m. some trucks began to arrive with supplies. These were dumped in front the barracks--one would contain all mattresses, and another nothing but sheets, so they had to go from point to point and pick up such material as they needed and carry it to the wards.
One nurse was also assigned to a ward, whose duty it was to set up trays. However, there was nothing to put on the trays.
About 9:30 or 10:00 trucks began to arrive carrying casualties to the wards. These were mostly of a minor nature and had evidently been well screened before arrival. He received one compound fracture of both bones of the leg. This was in a Thomas splint. Most of the casualties came from Hickam. Another casualty was the co-pilot of a plane which was flying in on the morning of December 7. As they came over the Islands they remarked about its looking as if them were having extensive maneuvers as a welcome. At that time a Japanese plane shot by them. Another came up under the belly of the ship and machine-gunned it. The only armament they had aboard was the two .45 revolvers carried by the pilot and co-pilot. The patient had caught one of the machine-gun bullets in the region of his elbow and it travelled subcutaneously down into the palm of the hand, at which point it was removed by Dr. Richert.
He finally took his corpsmen and a cardboard carton and went to the supply depot where there were large stores of equipment of all kinds. He was told these could only be obtained by filling out the proper orders; however, he went to the storeroom, taking out of the equipment such objects as he felt were useful. The corpsmen came back with other things, but were most happy to have a 32 oz. bottle of whiskey, which they proceeded to kill during the day. The nurse also came back with a 32 oz. bottle of whiskey.
Two of the patients had been playing tennis at the time of attack and one of them heard the swish of an approaching bomb and squatted down holding the tennis racket over his head. The bomb exploded on the court and he was peppered with black-top and was quite surprised when he pulled the racket down and found there was the handle and throat in his hand, the head having completely disappeared.
About 3 in the afternoon he went into surgery where he began working to work until 2-3 o'clock in the morning. They were told not to go out of the wards unless dressed in white and they were told to sing or whistle as they went as the guards had been ordered to shoot anyone on sight. When he arrived in surgery all of the sterile supplies had been used up, so they used the same gown and changed wet gloves between operations. A nurse was stationed at a long table on which the instruments, which were sterilized, were dumped, and when a man needed some tool he would go to the table and point out the instrument he wanted and receive it from the nurse. Half the time he was operating on a gurney with a corpsman giving drop-ether although some sodium pentothal was used. There were no casualties in the operating room on the cases on which he was working.
The army officers were not in the operating room but were screening the cases, sending the most severely injured into the surgery. Sometime during the day he was given some sandwiches and this happened again about 3 a.m. He tried to sleep but was unable to do so as the hospital was machine-gunned, and there was too frequent rifle fire on the grounds. However, he thinks there was a flight of our own planes which took off from Hickam Field about dawn of December 8 and our own batteries opened up on them. He continued to work on the morning of the 8th both in surgery and on the ward. He picked up two of his office nurses to take out to Tripler to help with dressings. Late on the afternoon of the 8th he went home to bed and returned to Tripler on the 9th. The ward which he had was never filled and there were only a few ambulatory cases left in the ward.
I have read the attached report of my conversation and it is true to the best of my knowledge and belief."
Thomas Richert, M.D.
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On August 22, 1947, I interviewed Dr. R. K. Uyeno, who lived near the corner of Nuuanu and Vineyard. He went to the Mabel Smyth Building where the lecture of Dr. Moorhead was scheduled to start at 9 o'clock. For perhaps close to an hour before Dr. Moorhead's lecture on December 7, 1941 Dr. Uyeno had noticed black and white puffs of anti-aircraft fire all through the sky but thought little of it and proceeded. He arrived sometime before 8:45 at about the same time as Dr. Hodgins came up saying, "The Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor."
This seemed an impossibility to Dr. Uyeno. Shortly Dr. Marie Faus arrived confirming the report. The group stood outside the lecture hall watching the shell bursts. A little after nine about one-half of the group went into the lecture hall (the lecture was about 20 minutes late in starting) but there were no service personnel in the audience. Less than 10 minutes after the lecture started a call came for all service personnel to report to Tripler. However, none walked out. This call was repeated several times and about 9:45 there was a heavy explosion nearby which shook the whole building. A few moments later there was a call for all surgical teams to report to Tripler.
Dr. Uyeno drove ewa on Beretania Street and then mauka on Fort. He saw a very excited crowd on Kukui Street, between Fort and Nuuanu. He saw another excited crowd on Fort just above Vineyard. A third crowd was gathered in the neighborhood of his office. There he found the front lanai had been hit by an anti-aircraft shell and the wall of his reception room damaged. All doors were open and the place was a shambles. He completely forgot about going to Tripler as he rushed to find out how his family had fared. He found that his wife and family had, a few minutes before, gone from the lanai back to the fourth room from the front of the building, on the advice of a telephone call from his sister. just after they reached the fourth room there was a heavy explosion at the corner of the house. Fragments of the shell had penetrated through the reception room through three double walls and out of the ceiling in the third room back. No member of his family was hurt. His drugs were all scattered over the floor. He found one fragment (about l-1/2 "long by 3/4" wide) of the shell which had gone into the third room. The point of entrance was about the size of the fragment but on the other side of the wall there was an opening about 8-10" in diameter and the lumber was shredded. Souvenir hunters were everywhere.
At this point his sister called again 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.
In one ward most of the patients were in shock and were receiving serum but in their ward only one individual received serum and he died while it was being given. When examining one of his patients he picked a piece of bone about 1/2" long out of the man's ear. The man did not know it was there. He asked the patient how he had been hurt and he replied that he had been on an antiaircraft battery which had been hit and that one of his buddies had been blown up and he supposed that was one of his bones!
By about 2:30 they had the ward pretty well cleaned up and he returned home. He continued to return to Tripler for several days and a few days later Dr. Benyas called him and asked him if he would help in surgery. He gave intravenous anesthetics and scrubbed with Dr. Gordon and Dr. Benz. On one of the days that he was helping, the sirens blew and word came that enemy planes were coming in. The orders coming over the loud speaker system were for everyone to take cover. They were operating at the time and he didn't know just what to do but Dr. Benz was very calm and said, "Well we a job to do here and we might as well do it." A few minutes later the all-clear sounded. He said the loud speaker system was very disconcerting when they were working in surgery as all orders were being given over it. So far as he could judge all of the work on the wards was being taken care of by civilian doctors and arrny orderlies. He worked at Tripler about a week but it was probably the second week before he began holding office hours.
He said that apparently one anti-aircraft gun fired a burst of contact shells, one of which exploded on Vineyard Street just ewa of Nuuanu, the next one got his office and the third one struck on Fort Street above Vineyard. A fourth shell fell on Kukui between Fort and Vineyard. The first shell caused one death and amputated the arms of a child. The third one caused a man to be eviscerated, while a fourth one killed a father and three children and blew off both legs of a boxer.
"I have read the above report of my conversation and it is true to the best of my knowledge and belief."
R. K. Uyeno, M.E
Medicine in Hawaii: The World War II Experience
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