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Pearl Harbor
Digital History ID 4141

Author:   Dorinda Makanaonalani Nicholson
Date:

Annotation: On Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, six-year-old Dorinda Makanaonalani was eating breakfast of bananas and papayas when she heard the sound of low-flying planes, followed almost immediately by loud explosions. She lived with her parents on the Pearl City Peninsula, a finger of land that extends into Pearl Harbor. As her father bolted from the kitchen table into the front yard, Dorinda ran after him and saw planes bearing the orange-red emblem of the rising sun. The planes flew so low that she could see the goggles that covered the pilots' eyes. She watched as incendiary bullets hit her house, setting the kitchen on fire. To escape the line of fire, Dorinda's father drove his family into the sugarcane fields above the harbor, where they hid among the tall cane stalks.


Document: Everywhere we looked, there was smoke and fire... It seemed as if the water was on fire from the burning oil.

Source: Dorinda Makanaonalani Nicholson, Pearl Harbor Child, 15-20.

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