The War Journal of Juanita Vitousek

The War Journal of Juanita Vitousek

On Sunday morning December 7, 1941, Juanita Vitousek’s husband Roy and their son Martin were flying their private plane near John Rogers Airport (now Honolulu International Airport) when a flight of Japanese fighter planes swooped beneath them. The two quickly recognized what was happening and headed for the field. When they landed they discovered “one man dead.” [It was Robert Tyce.Photo: Tyce]

Roy immediately called his wife. Juanita recalls, “The telephone rang. Dad [Roy] said, ‘The island is under attack by Japanese planes. . . Get out of the house. We're too near Fort Ruger. Go to Tantalus. . . All hell's broken loose.’”

Juanita Vitousek wrote in her diary, "I hung up the phone, packed extra clothing for us all, carried all the food I could get together into the car, took my camera, films and jewelry. . .
When I got to the rise of Round Top the dream became a nightmare reality. Over the edge of town, at about an eye level, a long, sharp-nosed, dull-black bombing plane flew low and slow. Booming explosions followed him. . . It was Japanese.

"Roy came home about 2 o'clock in the morning, driving without lights and full of excitement, almost in high spirits. He loves a fight and he loves a crisis. ...Tuesday morning we decided to go back to Kahala. I was anxious to get into active work."

For the next few months, Juanita Vioutsek kept a journal. Communication between Hawaii and the Mainland, where some of her children lived, was restricted. She wrote, "We can't phone, cable or even write you. I want you to know all about us, so I will write a daily account of what has happened. Some day you will see it."

The following excerpts are taken from that diary. Her remarks are an honest observation of the sentiment of the time.



December 14, 1941 I am taking time to write this because full censorship is only a step away and I want you someday to know what we are thinking and doing. . . I talked with many people. Rumors were thick. That we had lost five out of six battleships in these waters. That we had lost seven. That two had been sunk by Japanese submarines which had penetrated into Pearl Harbor Saturday by cutting the wire netting guarding the entrance. That the netting had been left open. That one battleship had turned over and one had been run aground away from the attack by a quick-witted quartermaster, the highest officer aboard.
I went down early to Queen's Hospital to see if my blood could be used and found a long line of people waiting for the same thing. People of every sort. There was a group of husky young Japanese Americans from the wrestling association, the C.Y.O. [Catholic Youth Organization] There were clerks, stenographers and telephone girls. Hawaiian, Portuguese and white. I stood next [to] a telephone girl whose husband was stationed at Guam. She hadn't seen him for two years and she was sure he had been killed in the Monday attack on Guam.
They just lay you on a bloody table and take your pint. It didn't hurt much and I didn't feel dizzy when I walked out of the room. But I sat down and keeled over completely. . .

There isn't strict rationing but only small quantities of canned goods are allowed per person. One can of coffee, one can of fruit or fish, one of condensed milk, etc. There are long lines at all the stores.

December 15, 1941 I listened to a broadcast from Japan in English last night. The Japanese claimed five American battleships sunk, four more damaged, three cruisers and a gunboat. . . On the same day, [Navy Secretary] Knox's report was published. I'm afraid the Japanese figures are much nearer right than his.

Knox says the Fifth Column activity was the worst since Norway, but I can't think it was Fifth Column. . . Roy says the police have not found a single authentic case of sabotage. That doesn't look like a very big fifth column.

We would be fools to suppose that there hasn't been active sabotage. But our own population has behaved magnificently. During the first air raid, some young Japanese, who were on defense jobs at Pearl Harbor, threw down their tools, took up guns and joining the soldiers in a machine gun nest blazed away at the enemy. The Army, and especially the Navy, has always said that if we had an attack here, the Japanese would rise in a body and murder us all.
December 17, 1941 I haven't mentioned Wake, Guam and Midway. Guam was captured after two or three days of fighting, but Wake and Midway still hold out. A handful of Marines and defense workers have repelled furious and repeated attacks. When the Marines were asked by radio what they wanted sent to them, they radioed back, 'Send us more Japs.'
The paper today carries an Army chaplain's story of mass burial of the victims of Sunday's raid. Two thousand, five hundred men have been buried in 13 long trenches in Nuuanu Cemetery — more at Red Hill. . . At sunset a quiet group of Marines and a priest held a simple ceremony over the long trenches. The Marines raised their rifles and fired three volleys. The buglers sounded taps. The priest blessed the ground. Sunday morning the Garden Club stripped their gardens of flowers and decorated the long graves.

December 18, 1941 Everything seems to be frozen, but why one can buy only one lipstick is more than I can see. What, I wonder, does the Army need of them?

December 19, 1941 No Christmas trees! (See Notes) I'm going to get a strawberry guava bush from Tantalus and plant it in a tub. (Photo of backyard Norfolk pine cut down to use as a Christmas tree.)

Cooking note: if you have never tried to get a large, hearty breakfast in the pitch dark, try it. Fry bacon and eggs with a dim blue flashlight in one hand!

While I was listening to the CBS Round the World broadcast it was interrupted twice, by censorship, evidently. Once the British were cut off when the reporter started to speak of Sir Samuel Hoare in Spain in connection with the prospect of Germany forcing Spain and Portugal into the war. And [the broadcast was cut off again] when the Washington reporter spoke of establishing a Bureau of Censorship in Washington.

December 21, 1941 The first week of the war the food situation looked acute. Homeowners were urged to make gardens, but the military government froze the seeds. So a Japanese truck gardener in Palolo Valley offered several thousand lettuce plants, two weeks ago, to anyone who wanted them, free. We got three dozen.
December 22, 1941 It is quite a game I play, to ask people where they were when the bombing started. The postman brought me two special delivery letters from you children and I asked him my usual question. He said he and a number of other clerks were working in the Post Office building and heard the terrible noise of anti-aircraft guns. One of the clerks had been in the first World War and he was holding forth to the other clerks on the extravagance of our government — to allow the firing of such costly shells just for practice. He didn't know it was war until he went out at 3:30 p.m.
December 24, 1941 There is a general feeling of uneasiness about tomorrow. Everyone who can catch a glimpse of what true peace is should hold fast to their vision. 'Good will toward men' must mean more than good will toward those who are like us.
Dad [Roy Vitousek] is not home though it is Christmas Eve. The first time in our lives. I can't help a terrible feeling of foreboding tonight.
December 25, 1941 Commander and Mrs. T. called this morning bringing flowers and candy and wild rumors. They say the Army believes there is a completely equipped Japanese Army concealed in our population just awaiting the signal to arise and take over the island. I asked why they didn't do it on December 7, when it would have been easy. They said they didn't expect the bombing attack so soon! That a Japanese general in full uniform was taken and shot. That the Army expects to lose the Philippines and talk about when the Japanese take the Hawaiian islands!
Evening again and an entirely peaceful Christmas. Lovely and sunny but not warm —no bombs, no disturbance at all.
December 27, 1941 I was much annoyed today to learn that Navy wives are getting 40 gallons of gas if their husbands are in and 20 if they are at sea. While the civilians who are doing the work of this place can get only 10 unless their work is directly for defense.

December 31, 1941 Martin and I have just been standing on the lawn making up a new Tourist Bureau blurb, 'Beautiful Hawaiian sea — so calm that the reflection of Koko Head stretches across the bay to be lost in the barbed wire entanglements. From beneath the softly rustling palms gleam the muzzles of machine guns. The city of Honolulu lies beneath the moon completely blacked out.'
January 6-7, 1942 The head chef of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel and the Green Lantern [Restaurant] are both in the internment camp and cooking for the prisoners. The poor guards eat Army chow and drool. (For more stories about the internment of Europeans in Hawaii read the Women of World War II Hawaii columns on Gertrude Schroeder.)

Martin says a Marine lookout had seen the large flight of planes early in the morning on the seventh. Feeling that the force was far too large to be ours he had telephoned in to his lieutenant, who said, 'Go change your brand of whisky,' and hung up.
January 8, 1942 Jimmy Wilder vouches for this one. A farm boy from Idaho, a Schofield [Schofield Barracks] soldier, and his pals found a dead Japanese aviator and buried him in a field. Other soldiers heard about it and wanted to see, so they dug him up again and again buried him. Next day a larger number of their buddies came to see him and so they dug him up again and buried him. This went on for six days until the Jap was quite worn out and officers heard about it and stopped the performance.

January 15, 1942 Another man told me that he was in barracks at Hickam. The barracks were hit in the first attack and the men ordered out. One old guy who had been in the Army all his life turned back into the building. The sergeant bawled after him, “Come out of there.” The soldier said, “I’ve gotta go back and get my teeth.” The sergeant said, “Teeth, hell, they ain't dropping sandwiches.”
Dad phones to say he got some extra gas tickets. I had used my last ones and filled my tank to the brim... and tried to find extra containers to fill but couldn't so I borrowed glass bottles.

January 19, 1942 I've never been a collector of junk but I'm beginning to regret everything I ever gave away. One can't even find a thumbtack. I took some to the Red Cross the other day and I'm certainly going to take them back.

January 21, 1942 Our bomb shelter is a massive structure like a block house. We have unearthed dozens of centipedes so if the bombs fall it is going to be a doubtful choice between centipedes below and bombs above.

January 27, 1942 The office of the military governor has issued orders to all motorists to take to the hills in an air raid. Someone had to tell the governor that there are only three or four narrow rows into the hills.

February 7, 1942 (Note: Early in the war Juanita Vitousek volunteered to make camouflage nets for the Army. To read more about the history of the net making, read the Women of World War II column on the Lei Sellers.) The camouflage work is very dirty, very hard and great fun. We paint dummy guns in obvious disguise and work colored burlap strips into nets and chicken wire to represent kiawe thickets, bare ground or hillsides.
March 5, 1942 This morning I took Saito up Tantalus and found the telephone repair man there. We got to talking about December 7. He lives near Hickam Field and had been sent out there immediately after the first attack to connect the master lines. He told me he had seen men blown to bits, fragments of arms and legs flying through the air. The floor of the hangar so slippery with blood and flesh that one couldn't walk across it.
March 17, 1942 The most exciting news of the month is the eruption of Mauna Loa. The military insists on its being kept a secret. Absurd! It can be seen for hundreds of miles at sea.
May 11, 1942 A month or two ago the Royal T. Frank, a small Army ship, was on its way to Hawaii when it was attacked by a Jap submarine. A torpedo hit and the Frank began to sink. A Filipino crewman, one of the survivors, was asked by reporters to describe his experience. He stood silent until one of the reporters said, “It's all right, just tell us your own way.” The Filipino scratched his head, looked up brightly and said, “Boom! Swim!” (See Notes.)
June 3, 1942 There are all sorts of rumors about activity around Midway. Kauai has had an air alert. Last weekend three carriers dashed into Pearl Harbor and refueled, etc. One, some say the Enterprise and some say the Yorktown, was damaged. A bomb hit the flight deck and exploded down three decks. In 48 hours she was repaired well enough to go out again. The Yorktown brought in many badly damaged planes from the Lexington. There have been persistent rumors that the Lexington is sunk. It now appears certain. [Note: The Lexington was not sunk. In fact, the Japanese reported the Lexington sunk no less than four times. Yet, each time, she returned to fight again, leading the propagandist Tokyo Rose to nickname the ship, “The Blue Ghost” as a tribute to the ship and her crew and air groups.)
June 4, 1942 News came through yesterday that Dutch Harbor in the Aleutians had been raided early in the morning by four Jap bombers and 15 fighters. At noon a second flight went over for reconnaissance or picture taking. In the evening a third raid occurred. Nothing has been given out about the third raid. Is this a prelude to the long expected attack on Hawaii? The military governor has suggested the evacuation of downtown Honolulu. Something is in the air.
Was it!
Midway has been attacked. The town is electric and rumors are flying. Every nerve has been stretched since the fleet went out. Now we hear that our torpedo planes have found the Japanese carriers and smashed them. But that nearly all of our planes have been lost.
We are elated one moment and deeply sorrowful for our lost men the next. This may be the turning point of the war.

Juanita Vitousek was correct. The victory at the Battle of Midway was the turning point of the war, especially in Hawaii. Even if it was not the military turning point, it marked a clear emotional pivot for the people of the islands. After the victory at Midway, the fear of a land invasion diminished. War restrictions were lightened, and a more normal life began to emerge.

The full journal of Juanita Vitousek may be read at the University of Hawaii’s Hawaii War Records Depository.

NOTES:
Roy Vitousek was elected to the Territorial House of Representatives 1923-1939 and served as speaker for four years. He was chairman of the Republican party and a delegate to its national conventions. His worked as Chairman of the Commission on Crime. He worked for the cause of statehood and sponsored legislation in civil service, labor relations, police organization, workmen's compensation, unemployment compensation and public welfare.
A full account of the December 7, 1941 experiences of Roy Vitousek and his son Martin and Vitousek are held by the the Pacific Aviation Museum on Ford Island. Vitousek’s plane, an Aeronca 65TC is also has been restored and is currently on display at the museum.
The plane was housed at the Gambo Flying Service, the first private hangar in the islands. Marguarite Gambo was taught to fly by Robert Tyce (Tyce was killed during a staffing attack of the civilian airport on December 7, 1941. His name is listed among the dead at the Arizona Memorial Visitors Center.).
Gambo was rated as a commercial pilot. There are records that state Gambo herself was in the air, teaching a student, when they were caught in a swarm of attacking Zeros. Gambo seized the controls and flipped the aircraft out of harm's way, and this was memorialized in the movie, Tora Tora Tora. However, there are more records supporting the fact that the female pilot caught in the attack was Cornelia Fort. (See Women of World War II Hawaii column on Cornelia Fort.) Perhaps both women were in the air and attacked.
There are two published explanations for the lack of Christmas trees. One is that the Japanese sunk the “Christmas tree ship” during his Pacific crossing. The other is that there was a storm over the coast of Oregon sinking the ship and littering the Northwest Pacific coast with Christmas trees.

The army transport, Royal T. Frank was sunk on January 28, 1942. There were 21 deaths. Seven were crew members, fourteen were Army.

Juanita Vitousek died at age 98 on August 7, 1988. Her works were praised by international art critics. Painter Jean Charlot was taken with Vitousek’s primitive command of water colors. Locally, the Cedar Street Gallery has handled Vitousek’s watercolors.