James M. Mason US Navy US Navy Hospital |
Information provided by James Mason. |
Honolulu before Pearl Harbor had lots of uncluttered beaches to go to and swim, surf and sail. Fishing was great also. I used to take groups of sailors around the island sightseeing for $5.00 each. There were several little markets and eating places that we would stop and have pineapple and all kinds of tropical fruits as well as beer. Downtown had lots of Chinese restaurants and lots of bars. On Waikiki Beach there were only two big resort hotels the Royal Hawaiian and the Waikiki Hotel. Life in the Hospital where I was stationed as a Hospital Corpsman was fairly easy when I got there in May, 1940. Breakfast consisted of anything you wanted to eat with all kinds of fruits. You could have all you wanted, but had to ear everything you had on your tray since there was a cook at the garbage bin to see that you did! The week-end of the 7th, I had gone over to stay with a civilian friend to buy a car. I was always trading and buying cars. This one was a real beauty. A 1940 Ford Convertible! Any sailor's dream. The morning of the 7th, we heard air planes early and thought they were only practicing until we heard on the radio that we were being attacked and for all military personnel to get to their stations with all possible speed. I hurriedly jumped in my car and went to the US Naval Hospital but couldn't take my new car on base and had to leave it out at the gate to my dismay. I knew I had to get to the hospital as soon as I could and started to run, when I saw an enemy plane coming in and the fellow in front of me a little ways fell down. Then I knew we were being strafed as he was dead when I got to him. Another plane was coming in low and I could see a big long deep ditch that had been dug for a sewer line. I ran and jumped into the ditch as the plane came over me. The plane clipped the corner of one of the buildings and crashed. As I finally got out of the ditch, I went over to the crash and saw that the pilot was dead. I did pick up a little gear from the crash and started running again. When I got to the commanding officer's desk, I realized that I wasn't even out breath yet I had ran over two miles. I didn't' really have much time to think about being scared, but I'm sure that I was at times. I was given the ambulance duty in a big ole Packard ambulance. I was to go down to the docks and pick up survivors that had swum through oil and flames to get away from their sinking ships. Most of them were badly burned and covered with black oil. It was very difficult to tell where they were wounded. I could take only two persons at a time to the hospital, so I threw out the stretcher then I could get in two more me. This lasted for hours and hours without rest. In fact it was days before anyone got any sleep. We had patients all over the place and even used the lanais or porches around the hospital. We did capture one Japanese prisoner. He had some ashore in a one-man sub and was wounded. We kept him in the hospital until he recovered. That afternoon we began to hear all kinds of rumors about the Japs were planning on night landings on the beaches. Some planes were coming in from the states and we actually shot some of them down thinking they were the enemy. The first attack was at 0740. It consisted of 42 Zero Fighters, 50 Dive Bombers, 40 Torpedo Bombers and 228 Horizontal Bombers. Believe you me that was some force! The second attack came at 0850 with Dive Bombers every where. There were 360 aircraft involved in all. Where the Japanese failed, they did not destroy our repair facilities. We were the able to put our forces into the war within days. They did not destroy the submarine base or any of our submarines. One of their biggest mistakes was, they did not destroy the highly visible oil storage tanks near the sub base from which we had a huge supply of fuel. It was rough going for months for me but some relief came in August, 1942. I was assigned to a hospital ship that brought burn patients back to the states for treatment and I was granted a delay in orders and I came back home to Post, Texas for a 10 day leave which I enjoyed very much. |
