On July 19, 2009, Florence Misazaki shot an 88 at The Experience Golf course at Koele Lodge; she was 86 years old. She had no trouble sharing the details of that game with me, or the celebration afterward, but when I asked her about life on Oahu during World War II, her memories were not so easily forthcoming. It isn’t because Flo’s memory is fading. Her mind is sharp, so are her hearing and her ability to assess people and situations. You can see by her photo, that Flo is young-looking, strong, active, has a sense of style and a great smile. And, somehow you just know that behind that smile is a woman with the constitution of steel.
Florence Aoki Miyasaki was born on April 25, 1923. She grew up in Honolulu, in the McCully neighborhood, in the house where she still lives now. Her parents were nissei Japanese Americans making Flo a World War II third-generation Japanese American.
Flo’s house is just blocks away from the intersection of McCully and King Streets where, on December 7, 1941, American shrapnel landed, destroying one city block of stores and several homes. Three people were killed, and 31 families were left homeless. (One of the houses that burned belonged to a Honolulu Fire Fighter who was fighting the fires at Hickam Field.) “We were scared,” Flo said. “We could hear and see what was going on.” She said it in a matter-of-fact way. “We were scared,” she repeated. “We knew what was happening.”
A few blocks away on Pumehana Street, fires raged at Lunalilo Elementary School. Lunalilo School was a large two-story wood frame building built in a U-shape. It was designated as a Red Cross First Aid Station in case of emergency. When shrapnel hit, the school there were wounded in the building and Red Cross workers carried them from the building on to the lawn. Among the high school volunteers on duty that day was “Danny” Inouye (Senator Daniel K. Inouye). “Danny was a year behind me at McKinley,” Flo said. Thankfully, Flo’s house was spared of damage that day—by luck and a sprawling monkey pod tree. The shrapnel that could have landed on their home, struck the tree and lodged in its branches.
The Aoki children went outside to see what was going on, but their parents ordered them inside where they stayed through the night. “Then the next day we went for food—canned food mostly. We knew food would become scarce.”
Flo downplays how close their family came to having their home burned. She downplays the food and gas rationing, and blacked-out windows. She accepted it as a way of life, and in some instances a source of pride.
During the war, the landscaped flower gardens of Central Union Church were turned into a Victory Garden. (When I interviewed Alice Sorensen, another Woman of World War II Hawaii, she remembered a few brides taking their wedding pictures in cabbage patches where the flower gardens once were.)
The Central Union plots were given out upon request, and Flo’s mom had one. She grew pumpkins, vegetables, bitter melon, and squash. Flo proudly told me that her mom “won the prize for growing the biggest bitter melon at the Victory Garden Fairs—not once, but a few times.”
When I asked if she helped to tend the garden, she laughed. “No. After graduation, I went to Canon Business School and got a job at City Welding in Honolulu.” She distinctly remembers a sailor who would stop by the office to see her boss when he was ready to ship out. “The sailor would give away his ‘Hawaii’ money,” Flo said, “because he had no use for it. It was no good outside Hawaii.”
During our conversation about “Hawaii” money, Flo’s husband, Kenzo joined us and showed me his collection of a few “Hawaii” dollars. Kenzo explained that after the war you were supposed to trade in your Hawaii-stamped currency for U.S. currency, but that, “Most of us kept a few dollars.”(During the war, the U.S. government collected and burned all U.S. paper currency and substituted currency that was stamped “Hawaii.” The reasoning behind the switch was that if there were a land invasion of Hawaii by the Japanese, the currency they captured would have been worthless on the world market.)
Kenzo spent his war years in the army stationed at Tripler Army Medical Hospital; his brother was already stationed overseas. (In 1941, Tripler Hospital was not the Tripler Army Medical Center as it exists now. The hospital was a cluster of several wooden structures at Fort Shafter. At the outbreak of the war, it had a 450-bed capacity which, over the years, expanded to 1,000 beds through the addition of one-story barracks-type buildings. Plans for the new Tripler were drawn in 1942 and construction was completed in 1948.)
Florence dated Kenzo through the war years, he was her high school sweetheart. He even took her to her senior prom at the Waialae Country Club. That was the last prom for McKinley students for several years. In fact, her class, the Class of 1941, was the last class for several years to have a “proper” yearbook, to have a prom, and a graduation without graduates carrying gas masks over their gowns.
Flo and her husband told me about street cars being so jammed that people hung on to the sides. They talked about the seas of white navy uniforms “everywhere you looked.” They remembered going to the movies, especially the “Road to ….” pictures with Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour. And when I asked Flo if they went to matinees because during the first six months of the war, the movie theatres were closed due to the sunset curfew, she laughed.
“No,” she said, “We went out during the day because my parents were stricter than the military! And we went ‘Dutch’ too.”
It was a joy to interview Flo Miyasaki. She offered insight into the war years, but, more so of herself. Yes, the war years were hard. Yes, she worked full-time at City Welding and then volunteered at the Red Cross rolling bandages and assembling gas masks. Yes, there were bomb shelters criss-crossing all of downtown and there were trenches dug in back yards of homes and in school playgrounds. She remembers that the trenches flooded all the time, and dogs would go in them to play. But there was never a sense of regret or heroism in her telling about those years. She also remembers many of her school mates who were killed during the war.
(For more information about the Japanese American Veterans, see the Japanese American Veterans Collection Finding Aids at the Hawaii Archives at Hamilton Library, University of Hawaii, Manoa.)Florence Aoki Miyasaki is very proud of those Japanese young men who joined the Victory Varsity Volunteers. They were the core of the Army unitl that was to become the 442nd, 100th Battalion “Go for brokes,” 442nd.
Flo’s husband pulled out his McKinley High School yearbooks, and in between the pages of photos of graduating seniors were cut-out yellowed newspaper obituaries. Some of the clippings date back to the war.
The day the war was over, Flo was in Hilo visiting a friend. She remembers showers of ginger flowers, church bells ringing, and the meal-time siren from the sugar mill blasting.
As I left the house, Flo pointed across the street to a clapboard home. “That’s the house where Kenzo grew up. The Aoki family lived right across the street. Both of our parents were quite strict,” she said. Then she told me that she and Kenzo had their first kiss under the same monkey pod tree that saved their home the day of the attack—right between their two houses.
After the war, Florence and Kenzo married. She took a position with the Outrigger Hotels working for Dr. Kelley. They had two children, raised them in the same house where Florence grew up. And these days, if you stop by the house and they aren’t at home, just assume they are playing golf.
