1942

After a couple of days back at work, she knew that her decision had been the right one. It felt good to be active, particularly with the children, who were so innocent and so very much alive.

The one-room school had only forty students, all of whom were at least partially native Hawaiian, in grades one through eight. After eighth grade, the children, most of whom came from very poor families, either dropped out or continued at McKinley High School. McKinley was so racially mixed that it was often disparagingly referred to as Tokyo High. Although most of the students at Father Monroe’s school were poor, there were a few whose families did have some money and whose children might go on to the University of Hawaii.

Alexa’s favorite student, Kami Ogawa, was one of those who did not seem to have money problems. She was helping Kami with an English essay when the sirens went off, shocking them. For an instant, Alexa froze as the memories of December 7 came flooding back. Then she shook herself free from the past and stood up. “Everybody outside,” she commanded, and her young charges obeyed. Father Monroe followed hastily, a stunned look on his face. In single file, everyone trooped out to the freshly dug trenches behind the bare dirt playground. They weren’t much in the way of an air-raid shelter, but they would have to do.

Alexa and the children squatted in the dirt and kept their heads down while guns barked in the distance. After a while, she peeked over the lip of the trench. As on December 7, the sky above Pearl Harbor was filled with planes and the dirty black dots of antiaircraft shells exploding. Although farther from the naval base, the school was higher in the hills, which gave her a better view than she’d had at her home.

From behind, she heard the sound of planes and started to cower back in the dirt. “Ours,” said Father Monroe. “Go get ‘em,” he yelled in a most unpriestly manner.

Above them flew several dozen fighters headed out to meet the Japs. “P-40s and P-36s,” one of the male students happily informed her. These were followed by six large bombers, which they all knew were B-17s, the superbombers, the Flying Fortresses that were supposed to knock the Japs silly.

“That’s the way,” Father Monroe exulted. “This’ll teach the Japs to take on the U.S. of A.”

Alexa felt good about the counterassault. For once America was striking back instead of allowing itself to be punched out. She quickly realized the incongruity of her current emotions and her deep feelings of pacifism. What had Jake Novacek said about being a pacifist himself when the war was over? She was certain Novacek had been joking, but there was more than an element of truth in his statement. Just as her life with Tim had been permanently disrupted, so too were her cherished beliefs about the evils of war. War might be evil, all right, but January 1942 was not the time to be against all wars. In particular not when someone was making a concerted effort to destroy the country she held dear. Pacifism was a luxury she could not afford at this time.

Alexa considered that her school was not likely to be the focal point of the Japanese attack, so she climbed out of the trench to get a better look at the planes. The rest of her flock and Father Monroe followed with varying degrees of difficulty as they ruefully discovered that it was much easier to get into a five-foot-deep trench than it was to get out. Alexa had worn a dress and moved carefully; she was determined not to give the male students a free show.

By now the line of American planes from Oahu’s interior had flown past and were rapidly disappearing in the distance. In growing dismay, she recalled the swarms of Japanese who’d attacked the fleet and compared it with the smaller number of American planes that had just flown overhead. The American numbers were so few. Even with the supposedly invincible B-17s, the U.S. force was pitifully small. Perhaps, she thought hopefully, those planes would be joined by others from Hickam and Ewa, and the other fields.

It also occurred to her that she would not be leaving the Hawaiian Islands anytime soon. Perhaps she would never leave, she realized with a shock.

Toyoza Kaga put down the phone and walked to the window of his office. The attack on the harbor and military installations was over. It had begun quickly and ended just as quickly. It was as if the Japanese navy wasn’t all that interested in damaging Pearl Harbor again, and he felt that he knew why. They were taunting the Americans and waiting for a reaction.