|
The Gathering Clouds of War
Most Americans born in the 1930s and earlier will never forget the shock
and horror of December 7, 1941, that day of infamy. For Charles and Trinity
Hansen and their children—Rudyard, Henry, Charlotte, and Virginia—who
were living on the island of Mindanao in the southern part of the Philippines,
it was already Monday, December 8; in fact, the attack on Pearl Harbor
occurred at approximately 2:00 a.m. Manila time. Japanese bombers would
not hit Luzon until midday on the 8th. However, at 6:30 a.m., Japanese Navy
dive-bombers from the aircraft carrier Ryujo off Mindanao did attack the
USS Preston, a U.S. Navy seaplane tender, and two patrol bomber seaplanes
(PBY) in the harbor of Davao.
We were getting ready for our weekly trip back to boarding school after
a most enjoyable weekend, the highlight of which was a joint birthday party
celebrating my brothers’ birthdays—Rudy’s sixteenth and Hank’s fifteenth.
It was shortly after 7:00 a.m. when Dad came bounding up the steps to our
house from his office at the machine shop of the East Mindanao Mining
Company. He was very agitated and asked if we had been listening to the
news on the radio, then announced, loudly: “The Japs have bombed Pearl
Harbor. We’re at war!”
|
