Dorinda Nicholson Presentation

 Jr. Ikes with Dorinda Nicholson

Jr. Ikes trying on the gas mask Mrs. Nicholson's used at Pearl Harbor.

Transcript of Pearl Harbor Child Presentation

...when you bring in your speakers and presenters, who are they?  And so they rattled off they named captains, admirals, biographers, researchers, a very well-known military author, and so with all the muster and courage I could bring up, I said, "Do you have any women on your program?"  There was quiet on the other end and the person said, "Well, no."  "Well, do you have anyone who is native to the island?"  "No."  "Well, have you asked any civilians?"  "Well, why would we ask civilians?"  "Well, you know, bullets don't discriminate whether you have a uniform on or whether you don't." have even considered having anyone who is native of the island, and finally she said, "Who is this?"  And I couldn't tell her I was a Raytown housewife. 

 It didn't get me on the program, but I was invited to come to Hawaii and I wasn't invited to that big symposium that all those other big-wigs were invited to, but after I told my story, people were so very interested and some of them came up to me afterwards and said you really should write this down, so I went to museum and memorials to see what they had in books.  I had also looked in our library you could fill tabletops with what's been written on the Pearl Harbor part, but you know what was missing was something for our school children.  There was nothing, and so it's been my mission to speak to these fifth graders and any other school children that will listen while there still is a first-person voice to tell them what it was like to be a child.  We are so fortunate in America   a friend that I have from Germany and she could tell you first hand and many others who were German children at the time, or those who were in Britain at the time.  A friend of mine's brother was born during the Blitz, they can tell you.  They can tell you what it is like in a bomb shelter or to carry gas masks.  Can American children tell you that?  Not very many of them.  But you know that still a part of our history, and I want our children to know that.

So 1993, the first edition of the book was published, and I was so pleased, the Arizona Memorial itself became the publisher.  We're on our fifth printing; we have a second edition, but we are on our fifth printing right now  And having just come back from Hawaii, I can't tell you what a shock it was to have left 82 degree weather.  I came in, I guess, between snowstorms, but we were at the 59th commemorative ceremony at the Arizona just four weeks ago, and it was quite moving.  I would like to challenge all of you to go for the 60th, or don't wait that long.  Go next week.  Come back when...

Something very exciting happened this year that didn't even want to wait for the 60th, and I don't think it even made any of the media, any of your newspapers at all, but what did happen on December the 5th, on board the deck of the Missouri was the reconciliation between Japanese World War II Veterans and American World War II Veterans.  How do you feel about that?  Would you feel alright with that?  There were nine Japanese pilots who are still alive that flew that morning.  Three of them came to that ceremony, and then the rest had served in other parts of the Pacific.  They lined up, the Japanese Veterans and then the American Veterans across from the main bow of the ship.  Then everyone who was there signed a banner.  There were two of them, one to stay aboard the Missouri, and one to go back to Japan with the group that came.  The ceremony was spoken both in Japanese and then in English.  I can't describe the emotion   the ship's captain  certainly we need get on with the war 55, 50 years ago, but I still can't tell you what it felt like to stand there, they're very little, and I'm not that tall, I'm just very average; to see these little, bitty men, who at least three of them had flown over my house then and had bombed us.   It leaves you with all kinds of mixed emotions and questions.   I spoke to some World War II Veterans there, and do you know what they said?  Maybe you might say the same thing.  They said those young men, in fact, look around you, and look at the military guards who look like little boys in uniform.  Those American Veterans, those American Servicemen were little boys fifty years ago, and those Japanese men were little boys fifty years ago.  They were just doing what they thought was right, what they had been trained to do.  There is no answer.  There is no understanding of it, except we did come to a reconciliation, and it seems strange that no one here has heard about it, it was such an important event.

They decided not to wait for the 60th, because just like our Americans, veterans are dying at the rate of 1000 a day. So they decided to do it right when they could.  And one few hours in Pearl Harbor you can go through the Arizona, and you know the Missouri is there.  The Missouri came at the end of June of '98 and then opened in "99 as a museum, a floating museum.  So you have, like bookends to World World II, where the war began and where the war ended, and learn World War II history in a short amount of time, in a short distance, it isn't available to you anywhere else.  How many of you have been to the Arizona, and then the rest of you, how many of you are going?  You will go.  You will go someday.  You owe that...  Yeah, put your hand up.  OK, next?  Yeah...and when you go, isn't it an emotional experience to be there?  It really is.

Let me tell you about the most recent one.  They set up some chairs.  Of course, they had some speakers the morning of December 7th, a month ago.  A particular part of Hawaii that is so special to me is the rainbow.  My mother and I would always, "Oh, did you see that!  Did you see that rainbow!"  A rainbow was so special, almost a way to communicate between my mother and myself; and especially since her death.  Every time I see a rainbow, I think of her.  In fact, the morning of her funeral, I was standing in our downstairs getting ready to leave the house to go to the service; and I turned, and we leave doors open and the windows are all open in Hawaii to let the breezes go through, and as I turned and looked out the back door.. framed perfectly in our back door was a rainbow.  I said, "Hi, Mom," and then we went on to her service.  So when we got to Hawaii this last trip on December the 1st, I was looking for my rainbow, and it's very unusual to go very many days in Hawaii without seeing part of a rainbow somewhere, at least some part of the day and we had not seen any, and we had been there exactly a week.  The morning of December the 7th at exactly 7:55, in the morning, when the first plane flew over, the ceremony started.  All of us were there, standing on the grounds, and those of you who have been there can picture what that's like to be standing there on the grounds with the memorial out there in the water, the harbor itself.  And so, at 7:55 the whistle blew, and a ship came by passing in formation, sailors shoulder to shoulder, at attention as they went passed us and as the ship went passed, then came the missing man formation flying over

Under construction!

To be continued.....

Back to Interviews