The above photo is of one of the sugar cane fields on Oahu about 1940. If you go to that area now, you'll see community after community of housing developments. It looks more like Los Angeles County than any sugar cane field.
Schofield Barracks was and still is in the middle of the island, near those old fields. There was an "evacuation shelter" built for military dependents in case of an emergency. Some wives thought the shelter was just a rumor, until December 7, 1941 when 400 women and children were evacuated to a cave.
Ruth Dunlop, and her mother, Lucy Ord Mason were among them. (Mrs. Mason was 81-years-old; her husband had killed at the Battle of Wounded Knee in 1891.) Before Mrs. Mason left the house, she put out four-days of feed for her 12canaries.
The cave was less ready than expected. At first there was no potable water, no toilet facilities. Ruth Dunlop and the other women evacuees cleaned the cave, improvised sanitary facilities, making due with only one water spigot, no tables or chairs.
Most families who were evacuated were taken to Red Cross evacuation centers across Oahu. The evacuation centers were set up, but there was no communication system. (Remember, this is before cell phones, and the land line system was to be used only in for emergencies. Besides, most husbands were in the midst of the attack, or in the recovery of it.)
The Red Cross maintained a nursery school for children of evacuees at the Castle Memorial Nursery and Preschool. Diapers were delivered to centers by the Womens Ambulance Corps.
The Red Cross made a master list of evacuation centers and printed it in the newspapers. But, not all centers submitted complete list of names. Mrs. Malcolm MacIntyre and Mrs. S. Harrington Littlell attempted to compile an all inclusive list, but it was an impossible goal.
For a week after the attack, the newspapers ran personal ads for family members looking for each other. The ads were all similar: “Mrs. Norma Mack and five week old baby from Hickam, please contact your husband. Sgt. Parnes of Hickam is trying to locate his wife and baby. Please contact him.”(Honolulu Star Bulletin, December 9, 1941)
Women in World War II Hawaii
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