Colorado native, Robert M. Hardaway III, a surgeon with the U.S. Army Medical Corps, was responsible for treating some of the first casualties of World War II. He was stationed in Hawaii with his wife, Lee Harkey, during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Hardaway shared what it was like in an interview published in the July 2006 issue of Army magazine. Here are some excerpts:
Septic surgery was sort of a strange thing. I think only the Army had it, but I was in charge of all trauma, all infections and all burns. And of course there were a lot of infections and a lot of burns, and a good bit of trauma, too. I had two wards, a total of about a hundred beds, and almost that many patients. Then came the attack.
Q. Can you tell me about Pearl Harbor and also about what Lee did?
A. We had quarters right near the hospital. We were just getting ready for breakfast. Lee was going to play the organ for services at the chapel. (It was Sunday morning.) Her dad was the post chaplain. We heard this tremendous roar overhead, and we ran out to see what was going on; there were a whole lot of airplanes right over our house about a hundred feet up. Lee said, "Those are Japanese planes; they have rising suns on the wings!" We could see them easily. We could see the Japanese guys in the cockpits. Lee recognized the situation right away. I said, "No, it couldn't be. They're having some sort of maneuvers and I'd better go over to the hospital."
Lee drove me over to the hospital, andthen she went directly to the chapel where she was going to play the organ for church. She got strafed by a Japanese plane on the way. It wit the car, but it didn't hit Lee, fortunately.
I was the first doctor at the hospital. I was just going in the door when an ambulance came roaring in. I ran over and opened the back door and there were four soldiers in there just blown apart. One of them was already dead. Just then I could hear the bombs going off down in Wheeler Field, which was close by. That was the first time I realized this was a war. It wasn't just maneuvers. ...
Q. Did the hospital get hit?
A. Yes, it did. It didn't get bombed, but it was at the end of the row of barracks. They attacked for several hours. They came ripping down this row of barracks, spraying machine-gun fire and we got the tail end of the strafing every time. I could hear them coming and gave serious thought to diving under the operating table. A lot of shots went through the hospital. Only one patient was hit. It hit the cast on his leg, but it didn't hit him. I worked all that day and we had several hundred wounded. At nighttime they put out an order sayng there was a complete blackout. We couldn't turn on the lights. All night long I was operating under a blanket with a flashlight. I'd been going for about 24 hours, and the next morning I was hot and tired and I didn't know where Lee was, so I went out on the porch to get a breath of fresh air. ... There was a radio I could hear, and I went over and listened to it. It was President Roosevelt talking about the "date which will live in infamy." He asked Congress to declare war on the Japanese, and they played the "Star-Spangled Banner." When it got to the line, "Bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there," I looked out and by George, the flag was still there. That sort of perked me up, and I went back to work, and worked for another 24 hours before we got them all taken care of.
Q. When did you find out Lee was all right and where she was?
A. She and other women and children had been evacuated to Honolulu the night of December 7. I didn't know where she was, I guess, for several days. I didn't get out of the hospital. A chaplain came to see me, and he had a letter from Lee. The letter didn't say, "I'm OK." It didn't say, "Are you OK?" It just said, "Go back to the quarters and let Val out." That was our little dog. So I went back to the quarters and let Val out and took care of him at the hospital. ...
The women an children were housed in the gymnasium of a school in Honolulu. They stayed there for a while; then they went to the States.
Q. Were they permitted to go back to their homes to get their belongings?
A. They even let household stuff go back. It had never even occurred to us that they would do that, but Lee didn't want to go back to the States. Here dad was in Hawaii, and my dad was in the Army, and she didn't really have any place to go. Besides, she wanted to be there with me. They had just started an organization called the Women's Air Raid Defense, and if you got a job with them, you could stay over there. They wanted some of the wives to stay there because they needed to hire a bunch of women to run this radar outfit. They couldn't hire local women because they were mostly Japanese, so they hired Army/Navy wives. So Lee joined this outfit called WARD?Women's Air Raid Defense.
Q. Were they volunteers or paid for their service?
A. They were in and paid by the Army. They had a uniform and everything. They were part of the 7th Fighter Command. Their job was to man this big board. ... Each woman was connected to a radar station. They had liaison officers there?one from the Army, one from the Navy, and one civilian. They would have to decide if planes were ours or not. One night in March 1942, three months after the attack, Lee was on the obard and her radar guy said planes were coming in toward Oahu. ... It was the Japanese, but they were afraid to sound the alarm because they already had a perfect blackout, and we didn't have any night fighters anyway. ... Lee got out her gas mask and put her helmet on and sat there. Pretty soon she could hear the planes go overhead and the bombs going off. They missed everything. ... The bombs all hit on the mountain behind Fort Shafter.
Q. How long did you remain in Hawaii?
A. We were there until 1943. The Battle of Midway had been fought, so were were hopeful for the first time that we might win this war. But the Japanese still pretty well controlled the ocean, so we went back in a convoy. I think we had five transports and two destroyers.
Q. Just coming back from Hawaii to the States?
A. Yes. We were zig-zagging around; it took us two weeks to get back from Hawaii. We were attacked by a Japanese submarine shortly after we left Hawaii. Our destroyer escorts were throwing ash cans over and big explosions were coming up. That was about the fourth time Lee had been under fire. ...
