Personalizing the Attack on Pearl Harbor

The ticket to the Arizona Memorial tour at Pearl Harbor is a nice souvenir, which I kept after visiting the USS Arizona Memorial this week for the first time in my life. Imagine that. I’ve lived in Honolulu since 1972 and have never before gone to see the memorial.

The front of the ticket is magnificently designed with a background photo of the waving American flag, a picture of the pure-white memorial, and the time your tour begins with a sobering film of Dec. 7, 1941 and the Japanese attack on America.

But the back of the ticket carries more meaning. Just as you are given an identity when you tour the National Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, just as you are given an identity when you visit the Titanic exhibition traveling the country, so do you become someone who was actually there on that fateful “Day of Infamy.”

The wife’s ticket featured Anna U. Busby of Montgomery, Alabama, who was a second lieutenant in the US Army Nurse Corps, stationed at Tripler Army Hospital. She was having breakfast when she heard the attack and saw smoke spiraling into the sky.

Lt. Busby put on her uniform and reported to duty at the hospital, where she tended to hundreds of patients that day.

My ticket featured Torao Migita of Kalihiwai, on the Hawaiian Island of Kauai. A private in the US Army stationed at Schofield Barracks, he was at home on leave, then rushed to his post when he heard a radio broadcast directing all servicemen to report to duty.

Pvt. Migita did not survive the attack, and became the first Japanese-American serviceman killed in World War II, for which he received the Purple Heart.

These two stories, more than anything else I saw or experienced at the memorial, touched me deeply.