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| About the onset of WWII, my son Andrew transcribed the following from my father in 1991:
I was in Fayetteville, Arkansas, on a Sunday afternoon on December 7, about two o'clock. My roommate and I had just finished a late lunch and were just starting to play bridge with our two girlfriends and had the radio on. We were both in the army at the time and were second lieutenants. Of course we were shocked, that is shocked in the sense of being startled and depressed that this had happened so unexpectedly, and beyond that we were not particularly surprised because it had been thought by many people both in the government and just ordinary citizens for a year or more that there was a good chance that the United States might sometime get drawn into the war. I had been in the army over a year before Pearl Harbor was bombed and worked as an instructor at the University of Arkansas for the ROTC program. We were sorry to know we were at war and that it would probably be a long war and that many, many people would be killed and that it was a bad thing, but having realized that, we were very patriotic and we were very full of energy and very anxious to be a part of it and to get on with it and to whip the hell out of the enemy.
My mother, who grew up in eastern Arkansas, had spent the summer of 1941 in Hawaii visiting her aunt and uncle. Her uncle (my great uncle) was Col. (later Brig. General Edgar King) the ranking medical officer at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked in December of 1941.
When Pearl Harbor was attacked on 7 December 1941, the surgeon's office of the Hawaiian Department, located at Fort Shafter on the island of Oahu, was composed of 10 officers (including 4 of the Regular Army), 8 enlisted men, and 15 civilians. In addition, certain medical, dental, and veterinary officers assigned to hospitals on Oahu were considered part of the department surgeon's staff. On the day of the attack, the office of the department surgeon, Col. (later Brig. Gen.) Edgar King, MC (fig. 84), was divided, together with the other technical services, into forward and rear echelons. Colonel King was made directly responsible to the commanding general of the department (Lt. Gen. Delos C. Emmons, after 17 December), who maintained his forward echelon headquarters underground in Aliamanu Crater. Forward echelon performed the functions of a theater of operations headquarters; rear echelon of those of a communications zone. The Hawaiian Department was placed under martial law, and as the commanding general held the additional responsibility of military governor (with headquarters at Iolani Palace, Honolulu), Colonel King became responsible for the health of civilians, as well as for that of Army troops, in Hawaii.( https://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/wwii/orgadmin/org_admin_wwii_chpt9.htm).
According to Edgar King’s daughter, he graduated from the University of Arkansas and the University of Arkansas School of Medicine. He was a career officer in the Army Medical Corps. According to my mother, "He was a pioneer in the field of psychiatry. His entire household staff at Ft. Leavenworth were prisoners whom he had rehabilitated. During his time in the Canal Zone, he probably did more regarding the fevers 'get screens,' than others. He later worked in the Pentagon with some doctors who had served with him in the Canal Zone, and they told me that Granddaddy King had done all of this. He was 6' 9'' tall and a commanding presence."
“At Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, Edgar King was Chief Surgeon - he handled all the casualties (for all service branches). He was prepared - highly decorated - he had known months in advance of a Japanese attack that Hawaii was vulnerable and had requisitioned adequate medical supplies." He was later cited for outstanding service, promoted to brigadier general, head of the Medical Department of Hawaiian Islands (then a U.S. Territory). He retired from there and with his wife Susan lived in Kerrville and El Paso, TX - later in Reno, NV.” (from Susan Dau Fannon, 1989)
My mother recalls from her summer in Hawaii dating young men who were on their way to China to serve as pilots in the clandestine Flying Tigers, formed to help defend China from the Japanese aggressors. Among the dates she had while in Hawaii was one with Lieutenant Westmoreland, who later became commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam and then Chief of Staff of the Army. She said he was a nice young man, but nothing came of it. From Wikipedia: “Following graduation from West Point in 1936, Westmoreland became an artillery officer and served in several assignments with the 18th Field Artillery at Fort Sill. In 1939, he was promoted to first lieutenant, after which he was a battery commander and battalion staff officer with the 8th Field Artillery at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii”
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