REMEMBERING PEARL HARBOR AND FRANK HEWLETT

As a World War II buff I could not let tomorrow's 69th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in l941 go by without using today's posting to make a personal note, so forgive the frequent use of "I", "me", and "my".

I remember hearing of the attack on the radio soon after it occurred. At the time I was in grade school but clearly remember the occasion. As the family and I were hearing about the attack via radio, my future wife was watching the smoke and flame from the heights of Wilhemina Rise in Honolulu where she lived. This is a lead in to talking about Frank Hewlett who made it possible for me to go to Honolulu where I met my future wife; he was himself a World War II story. Before telling a bit about Frank, let me briefly relate how he came to be my life-changer.

Frank and I met in l959 when I was a fresh-out-of-college reporter for United Press International in Washington, D.C. At the time Frank. who had retired from United Press (it became UPI after UP merged with the International News Service in 1958), was a stringer for several newspapers, including the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Since part of my assignment was to cover Hawaii news, we had frequent occasions to get together. On one occasion we were having lunch at the National Press Club when I casually remarked that the next time he talked with his Honolulu boss, to ask if they might have an opening for a new reporter. Three days later I got a call from the managing editor asking if I was serious about coming to Hawaii. I was, and two weeks later I was on a Matson cruise ship heading for the Islands. Soon after I met my wife-to-be. Now back to Frank's story.

Just before the fall of Manila in December l941, Frank and his wife, Virginia, were evacuated to Corregidor island from where he traveled back and forth to Bataan to report on that historic but tragic battle; his wife served as a nurse on Corregidor. As the Japanese got close to capturing Bataan and threatening Corregidor, Frank was evacuated to India. He was told to wait there and his wife would soon follow. It didn't turn out that way. Virginia was captured by the Japanese and spent the war as a prisoner for the next 2-1/2 years. My wife and I met Virginia when we later moved to Washington. As told to us by Frank at a party at his home in nearby Virginia, his wife was not the same after her wartime ordeal. She would plan and prepare parties and dinners but would not join the guests. She preferred to stay in the kitchen while the guests socialized. And because of her diet while in captivity, rice became an essential part of her meals.


In talking about his war experiences, Frank made it clear he was no fan of General Douglas MacArthur, the Philippines commander. He noted that MacArthur was called by some "dugout Doug" when MacArthur and his family left the islands during the battle of Bataan to take his command to Australia at the order of President Roosevelt. It was some years later in reading the book, "The Rising Sun" by John Toland, I found out that Frank, in covering the Bataan battle was the author of a well known verse of the time, about the men fighting there.

We're the battling bastards of Bataan:
No mama, no papa, no Uncle Sam,
No aunts, no uncles, no cousins, no nieces,
No pills, no planes or artillery pieces,
And nobody gives a damn.

One story he told was about his writing the first news report on the rescue of the survivors a PT boat crew whose boat had been rammed by a Japanese destroyer in the Solomon Islands in l943 -- the captain of the boat was Lieutenant Junior Grade John F. Kennedy. On the night Kennedy was elected President in l960, I was on the desk at UPI when Frank's original story about the rescue was recovered from the files and sent out over the wire. Frank was one of the people who was given a PT 109 gold tie clip by Kennedy.

A final story about Frank and his close connection with the Pacific War occurred at a summer outdoor party we attended at Frank's home. He introduced us to one of his friends, Colonel Rufus Bratton, the army's intelligence liason officer in Washington at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack. Bratton was responsible for delivering decoded messages from the broken Japanese diplomatic code to President Roosevelt and other top civilian and military leaders privy to the secret information. Bratton was one of the featured persons in the 1970 move, "Tora, Tora, Tora" about events in the U.S. and Japan leading up to and including the December 7 attack. Bratton's role was played by E. G. Marshall.

So when another December 7 to Remember Pearl Harbor rolls around, it's a time for me to also remember Frank Hewlett, a kind and gentle man who was both a life changer and a personification of my remembrances of World War II.