The Sorority Sister and the Pilot, Part 2

PHOTO: During the war the Aloha Tower was painted in camouflage.

To continue with Ruth and Bill's love story:
When the day came, Ruth and Bill were waiting for us at a window-side table. Ruth was in a pink and green calico mu’u mu’u; she wore a white silk hibiscus over her left ear, a cloud of rouge on her cheeks and gleam of frosted pink lipstick. “Bad Billy” stood when my husband and I approached the table. The men both retired military officers, both pilots, settled in for a non-stop conversation about aviation. My husband, in his fifties, and Bill, approaching ninety, reminisced about their first planes, first squadrons and glided their hands in the air as they simulated a few of their particular flights.

Ruth looked out the window and pointed to the Aloha Tower. From our vantage point from the Lurline only the peak of the tower was visible at the end of the Aloha Tower Marketplace. “The first time I sailed into Honolulu the tower was the tallest building on the island. It was the only thing you could see from the ship, except for the Royal Hawaiian and the Moana Hotels.”


PHOTO: A band scene on the Lurline in the late 1930's.

These days neither the Royal nor the Moana are visible from one block away and the view of them from a ship is dwarfed by high-rise hotels and sleek extensions to historic buildings.
PHOTO: State room of the Lurline, pre-World War II.

Ruth continued, “I remember looking at the clock on the Aloha Tower, but I forget what time it was when we docked. I think it was early afternoon; it was August of 1941…I can’t remember the date. I remember seeing the big A-L-O-H-A letters and the American flag flying. I had the same feeling I had when I saw the Statue of Liberty when I sailed home from Europe.

“We stood at the rail of the Lurline and threw paper streamers and colored confetti to the crowds on the dock. They still had boys who dove for coins then. It was just like in the movies. There were hula dancers on the pier wearing ti leaf skirts and the Royal Hawaiian Band played for us.” Ruth remembers walking down the gangway. “The perfume of the flowers hit you as soon as you walked off on to the dock and so did the women selling the flowers. They were a quite aggressive lot.”

(When I talk about the lei sellers during the war, I mention that the police often had to break up fights among lei sellers at the pier.)

During the summer of 1941, Ruth, along with five of her Alpha Delta Pi sorority sisters, came to Hawaii for a whirlwind month-long vacation of golf, swimming and parties with fellow “Cal” (University of California, Berkeley) friends. Ruth was 25 years old, unattached, and had no intention of settling down.

Her first night in Honolulu, Ruth went to a party thrown for her and her sorority sisters by “Cal” friends. It was at that party that she met Bill.

PHOTO: Bill and Ruth's apartment on base at Hickam was on Signer Boulevard, across the street from the Officers' Club. This is a photo of that housing in 2006.