7A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2016
Children: ‘It was a scary time’
Continued from Page 1A
Rooftop perch
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Spurgeon D. Keeth, a survivor of Pearl Harbor from U.S.
Army Company B, 35th Infantry, 25th Division Schof-
ield Barracks, prepares to lay a remembrance wreath
on the Necanicum River during a Pearl Harbor Remem-
brance Day ceremony today in Seaside.
Seaside: ‘I was a child
when this happened,
but I do remember it’
Continued from Page 1A
read the city proclamation of
Pearl Harbor Day of Remem-
brance that honored the mil-
itary’s “courage, sacrifice
and selfless dedication.”
The master of ceremonies
was Luke Thomas, Clatsop
County Veterans’ Services
Officer.
Guest speaker Steve Gib-
son, a retired U.S. Navy cap-
tain, read President Frank-
lin D. Roosevelt’s words of
the attack, “a date which will
live in infamy,” as well as a
quote attributed to Japanese
Marshal Admiral Isoroku
Yamamoto, “I fear all we
have done is awaken a sleep-
ing giant.”
The military strike by
Japanese aircraft against the
United States naval base at
Pearl Harbor killed more
than 2,400 military personnel
and wounded nearly 1,200.
The attack led to 68 civil-
ians killed and 103 wounded.
All eight of the U.S. Navy’s
battleships were damaged or
sunk and 188 U.S. aircraft
were destroyed.
More than 152,000 Ore-
gonians served in World War
II, but fewer than 13,000
of these men and women
remain today, according to
the state Department of Vet-
erans’ Affairs.
Gibson thanked the mili-
tary for their service.
“For those survivors, you
epitomize the strength and
resolve of this great country,”
he said. “As we move into
the future, remember that this
day remains in infamy.”
“Fundamentally, our les-
son learned is that as the
leader of the free world, the
United States must have
a strong military to deter
potential invasions,” Gibson
said. “Rather than encour-
aging war, we were trying to
deter war.”
Seaside resident Jenny
Ulbricht attended the cere-
mony because she has grand-
sons in the army.
“I was a child when this
happened, but I do remem-
ber it,” Ulbricht said. “I hope
it’s not something that young
people will forget. It’s part of
their history.”
Clatsop Post 12 American
Legion in Astoria planned to
hold a Pearl Harbor memorial
and program this afternoon.
WORLD IN BRIEF
Associated Press
Frantic rescue underway in
Indonesia as quake kills scores
MEUREUDU, Indonesia — A strong earthquake rocked
Indonesia’s Aceh province early today, killing nearly 100 peo-
ple and sparking a frantic rescue effort in the rubble of dozens
of collapsed and damaged buildings.
Maj. Gen. Tatang Sulaiman, chief of the army in Aceh prov-
ince, said at least 97 died while four people were pulled from
the rubble alive. Another four or five are known to be buried,
but he didn’t say if they are dead or alive.
“Hopefully we would be able to finish the evacuation from
the rubble before sunset,” said Sulaiman.
Oregon standoff defendant files
motion to dismiss indictment
PORTLAND — One of seven Oregon refuge standoff
defendants awaiting trial is asking the court to dismiss his
indictment, arguing that statements by federal officials express-
ing disappointment after the acquittal of Ammon Bundy will
taint his right to a fair trial.
The Oregonian reports Jason Patrick, who is representing
himself, filed the motion Tuesday to have the charge against
him dismissed.
Patrick is accused of conspiring to prevent federal employ-
ees from carrying out their work during the 41-day takeover of
the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge earlier this year.
On the morning of Dec.
7, a Sunday, Japanese bomb-
ers flew across Oahu and
began their assault. Some chil-
dren climbed onto the roofs of
homes to see what was happen-
ing. The planes were so close to
the ground in some cases that
they could make out the Rising
Sun insignia.
Soon, smoke rose over the
water, about 10 miles from
Veary’s home near Waikiki.
Veary, then 11, climbed atop
a neighbor’s house. Back then,
Waikiki didn’t have any high-
rise hotels and condominiums
to block the view, so she could
see all the way to the naval
base. Her parents yelled at her
to get down as soon as they
heard about the attack.
Seto, who lived a few blocks
away near homes belonging
to Navy families, remembered
a neighbor rushing out of her
home, screaming about how the
Japanese, using an epithet com-
mon at the time, had attacked
Pearl Harbor.
The young Seto ran home,
and, using the same word, told
her parents, both immigrants
from Japan.
“That didn’t go over too
well,” she said.
The attack killed more than
2,300 people, nearly half of
them on the battleship USS
Arizona. More than 1,100 were
injured. After the attack, Pres-
ident Franklin D. Roosevelt
delivered a speech before Con-
gress, calling Dec. 7 a “date
which will live in infamy.”
The U.S. declared war against
Japan.
Veary, Seto and Rodby sud-
denly found themselves living
in a war zone, as an ever-pres-
ent worry about a Japanese
invasion permeated life in their
island home.
Gas masks
About a month or two after
the attack, Rodby and her class-
mates were issued gas masks.
Rodby, who was 10 at the time,
remembers being tested on
how quickly she could don the
mask. If an air raid siren went
off, they had to be able to put
the masks on in seconds.
The children put their gas
masks around the backs of their
chairs while in class. When
playing outside, they kept them
in a set spot so they could grab
them right away.
“It was like an extra arm
we had to have all the time,”
Rodby said.
At home, her father, who
worked at Honolulu Iron
Works, built an air raid shelter
in their yard. They didn’t know
how long the war would last or
how long they would need it,
so they stocked it with pillows,
blankets, dishes and a kerosene
lamp to make it comfortable.
“We would have food down
there and artificial lighting and
the more we needed the air raid
shelters, the fancier they got
inside. I mean, people would
have beds and they put flooring
in,” she said.
Her school had air raid
trenches dug by parents and
volunteers. They were cov-
ered with grass, tin or wood so
any airplanes flying overhead
wouldn’t be able to spot them.
Many of Rodby’s war mem-
ories are happy ones, though.
AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus
Florence Seto holds a 1942 photo of her fifth-grade class in
Honolulu, Hawaii shortly after the Dec. 7, 1941, bombing of
Pearl Harbor, during an interview in Medford. Seto witnessed
the bombing from afar as a school girl and recalls being re-
quired to carry a gas mask at all times in the months after
the attack in case of further bombing. The photo shows Seto,
seated third from right in front row, and the rest of the class
posing in rows with gas masks around their necks.
The families who called the
police were good friends of the
Setos. Their children played
with Seto and her siblings.
“They were just afraid. It was a
scary time,” she said.
Government
authorities
detained 1,330 Japanese-Amer-
icans and Japanese nation-
als from Hawaii, particularly
community leaders like Shinto
priests and teachers. Seto said
her father was investigated,
but she believes he was spared
because a business associate
vouched for his trustworthiness.
But a family friend, a restau-
rant owner, was deported. “We
didn’t know any details except
my mother and father would
talk about it and then hush up
when we would come close
by,” she said.
Many of Seto’s other mem-
ories were happy ones. She had
the most fun helping out in the
pineapple fields to fill in for
men who left to serve in the
military.
“Everyone did their part,”
she said.
Block the light
AP Photo/Rick Bowmer
Joan Martin Rodby, left, and Emma Veary look at their
fifth-grade class photo during a reunion in Makawao, Ha-
waii. Rodby remembered the carefree walks to school,
and her family building an air raid shelter in their yard.
Veary reminisced about her days singing, and when her
family covered the windows at night so Japanese pilots
couldn’t use the light of homes to guide them.
She recalls walking and skip-
ping the four blocks or so from
her home to the school, meeting
friends along the way. They’d
be a big group by the time they
reached campus.
Fixed bayonets
Seto said the only scary part
of the entire war was when mil-
itary police, carrying guns with
fixed bayonets, showed up at
her house looking for her father.
Her neighbors, who served
in the Navy, suspected he was
hoarding food and reported him
after he used his painting busi-
ness truck to load up on Vienna
sausage, Spam and rice for
friends.
Seto’s immigrant par-
ents had trouble communicat-
ing with the police. Her broth-
ers explained what their father
was doing and gave the police
the names of families they were
helping. The military police
apologized and left, she said.
Soon after the attack began,
Veary’s father got a call to go
to Pearl Harbor to help rescue
sailors. He was a tug boat cap-
tain for a local shipping com-
pany. He didn’t come back for
more than a day.
Life under the threat of fur-
ther Japanese attacks meant her
family had to cover their win-
dows to block any light from
escaping at night. Wardens
would patrol neighborhoods
to make sure no light was visi-
ble through the windows. They
would knock on the door of
offending houses.
But there were plenty of
light-hearted moments, too. She
practiced her singing, including
in front of audiences — a tal-
ent that would later become
her profession. During the hol-
idays, Veary’s brother and sis-
ter would bring servicemen
they met on the bus home to eat
food cooked by their mother
and their neighbors.
“We weren’t a well-to-do
family, but whatever we had
we liked to share,” Veary said.
Veary would occasionally
hear from some of them, until
a few years ago.
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