I showed Alice a copy of an article she wrote entitled “War Years” which included a photo of her and Christian Sorensen on their wedding day. In the photo, 2nd Lieutenant Chris Sorensen was in his Army dress uniform and Alice was in a billowing wedding gown. The couple posed on the steps of Central Union Church under an arch of swords formed by fellow officers. I told Alice that I looked up her wedding photo in the Honolulu Advertiser and that I couldn’t recognize the flowers she carried in her bouquet.


“They were water lilies,” she said. “They’re my favorite flowers—I still raise some in my front yard at home—and they went beautifully with my gown.” I asked Alice to describe her gown. She said, “It was satin with a slight train and a sweet heart neckline with embroidered seed pearls. It cost mother twenty-nine dollars.” (Before the war the average two-week salary for an office secretary was thirty five dollars.)

Alice continued, “Chris and I were married on the first day of spring—March 21, 1942. Fortunately, there was no air raid that day. The ceremony went off as scheduled and I was married with all the pomp and circumstance that every young girl dreams of.” But there were some adjustments due to the war. “The ceremony was at four p.m. at Central Union Church and the reception was at my parents’ house in Manoa. Mother was able to get a caterer and we served finger sandwiches but there was a seven p.m. curfew, and all the guests had to be home and off the streets within three hours of the wedding. It didn’t leave much time.”

I told Alice that I had read that Central Union’s flower garden was turned into a Victory Garden during the war and that some brides posed in front of the cabbage patch and asked if she was one of those brides.


“We didn’t take any photos at all on our wedding day,” she said. “There were so many weddings at the beginning of the war that the earliest I could arrange one was for the following weekend. So, that next weekend, Chris and I got all dressed up again to take our wedding portrait. Unfortunately, none of the bridal party was able to pose with us.”

I asked her about the beginning of the war and where she was on the morning of December 7, 1941. She said, “I was nineteen years old. I was spending the weekend with my friend Evelyn, at her house at Makalapa Navy Housing. Evelyn’s father was Commander ‘Swede’ Momsen.” Alice paused. “He invented the Momsen lung.” She said it as if I should know who Commander Momsen was. “He was responsible for saving the lives of the crew of the submarine Squalus.” She continued as if to help jog my memory. “Peter Maas wrote a book about it, The Terrible Hours, and there was a movie, Submerged.”

I apologized and told her I would research who he was.

PHOTOS: U.S. Navy



Alice returned to her story, “On the morning of the 7th, I was awakened by the attack. Evelyn and I popped out of our beds. The two of us ran to look out the windows that faced Pearl Harbor. The Momsen’s house was on a slight hill and from the back yard we could look straight across to Pearl Harbor. We put on our clothes and went downstairs and out into the yard.“We had a bird’s eye view of it all. Bombs, fire. There were towers of black smoke that billowed over Ford Island and blew toward Honolulu, covering everything with smoke. From where I stood, I could see Japanese planes coming directly over our heads. They were so low I could see the pilot’s faces.” Alice pointed to the top of a coconut tree on the beach. “Do you see the top of the tree?” she asked. “They were flying that low. I could feel the vibrations of the plane. I could see the Japanese fly over Pearl Harbor and dart in and out of the smoke and I could hear them attack and our clothes shook from the effect of the concussion. We just stood there and watched. Even at Admiral Kimmel’s house which was above Evelyn’s, we saw the admiral in his bathrobe watching.”


PHOTO: View of Pearl Harbor and Ford Island from Makalapa Housing, 1942. Photo: U.S. Navy.

Alice’s tone was somber. She continued her story as if no matter what she said, the experience of the day could never be truly understood or shared by someone who did not witness the attack. “There were flames on the water.” She repeated that to me several times. “And boats bobbing in and out of the smoke. Tugboats, fireboats, liberty boats—they were trying to rescue sailors in the water. The fireboats pumped out water but the harbor still burned.” Alice paused, “I can still remember the smell of the burning oil and the bombs and I’ll never forget the sound of bombs screaming down.”