Mrs. M.E. McKenney and Glass Bottles for Blood

Many of the movies about Pearl Harbor make note of the fact that the bottles used for the collection of blood were glass and the hospitals ran out of bottles and Coca-Cola bottles were used.

Yup, it's true.

Within six hours of attack, the total supply of blood was exhausted and there was a call for volunteer donors. By 11 a.m. that day, hundred of volunteers were in line. Men and women. Soldiers. Mothers asked strangers to hold small children and took their turns on the donor tables.

There were 4,000 donors, about 200 a day, during the three weeks after the attack. By the end of the month, there were 5,000 recorded donations--and on December 7, 1941 no one was counting too well in military hospitals where ambulatory patients were giving blood to fellow servicemen, sometimes in the operating room itself.

So, yes, there were more donors than glass bottles. In checking on the story about using Coca-Cola bottles, I ran across the story of Mrs. M.E. McKenney. And in a way, she is what this blog is about; she is the Quiet Hero. She didn't do anything dramatic--that's the point.

Mrs. M.E. McKenney was a hair dresser. She was the owner and manager of a large beauty parlor (I couldn't find the name of it, even in the 1941 telephone book.) and business was good. Mrs. McKenney (She is never referred to by her first name in the Honolulu Advertiser article.) was also a volunteer at an emergency hospital and knew about the bottle shortage. And, she knew every beauty shop owner had a stock of old glass bottles piled up somehwere in her shop. So, she temporarily gave up her business and took it upon herself to organize an island-wide bottle collection from fellow beauty shop owners and operators. (Honolulu Advertiser, 12/14/41)

She was a Quiet Hero.


PHOTO: On mainland America, the word "Japanese" could bring heat to the blood. Japanese were pictured as small, half-blind, amoral killers. In Hawaii, there were the "Japanese Japanese" (from Japan) and the local Japanese. Almost one-third of the population of Oahu was Japanese. These people were shop owners, laborers, professionals and your neighbors. In Hawaii, the word "Jap" usually meant the Japanese enemy.

Here is a photo of Eugene Ichinose giving blood. (Honolulu Advertiser, October 22, 1941)Part of the caption reads, "Among the first to respond to a call for blood donors issued by the Oahu citizens committee for home defense was Eugene Ichinose, shown here about to make his contribution. Anybody who needs plasma urgently may draw from Honolulu's civilian bank, replace it later by sending in friends and relatives. The bank is sponsored by the American Red Cross and the Honolulu Chamber of Commerce, service organizations are contributing the names of volunteer donors."

Perhaps on the mainland, this photo may have ignited editorials regarding Americans of Japanese Ancestry (AJAs). But in Hawaii, it was just Eugene Ichinose giving blood.

Women of World War II Hawaii