Grab Your Guns, Ladies

[redbrunja]

Women Who Fought In World War II

What really kills me about this photo, of firefighters at Pearl Harbor? The lovely woman who is second from the left? Likely ended up illegally detained in an interment camp months after this photo was taken.

Comments

[helicopini.livejournal.com]

The lovely woman who is second from the left? Likely ended up illegally detained in an interment camp months after this photo was taken.

Probably. :/

Still, great photographs.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Actually, it is likely that they weren't.

[chomiji]

Great pictures!

Of course, anyone who read the WWII-era British children's classic Curtain Up (Theater Shoes in the U.S. release) by Noel Streatfield knows about the aircraft transport auxiliaries, because Petrova Fossil (first seen in Ballet Shoes as an enthusiastic young would-be pilot) is said to be serving in the British version.

I fear you're quite right about the Asian-American woman ... women, actually, because the second from the right also looks to be Asian.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Notice that none of the ladies in that Hawai'i photo look white? It might encourage you both to know that the odds are overwhelmingly that those heroic women were not interned. The situation in Hawai'i was very very different from the universal removal and internment on the mainland -- while there was no lack of hysteria in the newspapers and panicky calls for more drastic action from the mainland government, when all was said and done fewer than 2,000 people were interned, out of a Japanese population of about 150,000. Mind you, this wasn't really a matter of more enlightened attitudes from the powers that be, but rather simple pragmatism; the local Japanese made up 1/3 of the state's population, so their removal would have absolutely gutted the island labor force; and the then-territory went under martial law immediately after Pearl Harbor (http://archives.starbulletin.com/1999/09/13/special/story5.html), so in conjunction with the obvious geographic isolation and size of the islands, the entire local populace was already under stricter control and supervision than folks on the mainland.

(These very different experiences around internment were a large part of the initial cultural clashes between mainland-born and island-born Japanese recruits during the formation of the 442nd regiment -- the mainlanders didn't understand that the local boys were so relaxed and free-spending because their families back home were living and working normally in a place where they were a large and influential part of the local culture, the islanders didn't understand that those too-stiff-and-serious mainlanders had grown up in a very different climate of being a small, visible minority, and that their families had been forcibly removed, imprisoned, and lost their homes and businesses. Cohesion and understanding finally came after the unit visited a camp in Arkansas and the local boys saw the harsh conditions: as Sen. Inoue described it, "We understood what the kotonks were suffering, and that they are our brothers." (http://www.goforbroke.org/learning/learning_teachers_lesson_european.asp))

These different wartime experiences also extended to the post-war years -- in the islands, the local Japanese became a huge political force in the post-war push for statehood, and were a very major component in the Democratic party "machine" that dominated local politics for many decades after statehood finally knocked the primarily white Republican oligarchy of the territorial days out of power. I suspect this history would have been massively different if the internment situation had been more like it was on the mainland -- the locals would have had much less freedom to pursue politics and education if they'd lost their homes and businesses and needed to struggle just to rebuild their lives from the ground up after years of imprisonment.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Notice that none of the ladies in that Hawai'i photo look white?

I most certainly did!

And thanks for the links - I was assuming that the americans of asian descent had a similar time as did some of the japanese americans over in my part of the country, which they clearly didn't.

Thanks so much for the link.

Monte Cassino, an ancient monastery, blocked the Allied advance to Rome. Some military experts called Monte Cassino one of the world’s greatest natural defenses with walls 10- to 15-inches thick

GEE I WONDER WHY THEY SENT THE 100TH THERE OF ALL PLACES.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Hawai'i really is a different world: the history, demographics, cultural milieu, are such that you really can't view it through the lens of the assumptions you might be used to from mainland US history. The Asian experience in the islands vs. the mainland U.S. was a very different thing from the very beginning -- you have to remember that in Hawai'i, the first immigrants from China, Japan, Korea, and the Phillippines (along with folks from several non-Asian countries, especially Portugal) were coming in when it was still a sovereign kingdom. There was a huge demand for more warm bodies to work in the early boom sandalwood industry at first, cattle ranching, and later the better-known pineapple and sugar cane plantations; and while even in the pre-annexation days there was already a small but politically and economically powerful oligarchy of white American business and land owners, the population of the islands was (and still remains) predominantly non-white. The islands had rapidly growing industries and not enough workers, so the various waves of immigration weren't subject to the same sorts of limitations they faced on the mainland, where there were protectionist immigration quotas meant to keep cheaper immigrant labor from taking jobs from native-born citizens, and restrictions on immigration of women, families, pretty much anything beyond young able-bodied men, spawned by "yellow peril" racist fears of being overwhelmed by "inferior" races. Asian immigration to the islands was much more inclusive of women and families -- married laborers might come to the islands alone initially, then send for their wives and children or other relations as they saved up enough money to do so; single men might save up and work with matchmakers to have brides brought in from their homelands. And even after the kingdom's illegal overthrow and annexation, it was in the oligarchy's interests to continue bringing in the cheap labor they needed...territorial status, rather than full statehood, was in the best interests of these white landowners, because it allowed them to bypass the immigration quotas and restrictions imposed on the mainland U.S.! (The eventual post-WWII statehood movement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Revolution_of_1954_%28Hawaii%29) was essentialy a populist uprising, with much representation from the descendants of this non-white immigrant labor force, against the minority of wealthy white plantation owners who in the annexation and territorial years had pretty much run the islands as their own little fiefdom.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

(Whoops, long comment is long...please forgive the rambling, this history is close to my heart.)

The whole pattern of immigration, community building, daily experience of institutional prejudice, etc., was very very different for the smaller Japanese and Chinese communities on the U.S. west coast, so there was much more organic community-building, and earlier on, in Asian communities in the islands. (And broader acceptance of intermarriages, again going back to the pre-annexation kingdom days when many of the first Chinese immigrants married Hawaiian women...whereas on the mainland U.S., along with the restrictions limiting Asian women from immigrating, anti-miscegenation laws in many states barred Asians from marrying whites.) And for the island folks, the experience of racial issues and prejudice were very different in a place where whites came to have an upper hand politically and economically, but numerically were very much the minority, and the non-white majority population from many different lands was living and working alongside each other, and continuing to intermarry as well. So in Hawaii, Asian family-owned businesses, community and business and political associations, all had a more favorable climate to develop early on, and the Japanese community in particular did not suffer the massive economic setbacks that AJAs on the mainland did during the internment camp era. So where most mainland nisei vets were coming home to face rebuilding their family's businesses and lives from the ground up, the island vets came home fired up from proving themselves and galvanized by their experiences of prejudice on the mainland (http://www.pbs.org/thewar/detail_5281.htm), free to build on their families' ongoing business interests, pursue G.I. Bill educations, and get politically organized.

GEE I WONDER WHY THEY SENT THE 100TH THERE OF ALL PLACES.

Yeah...not to mention how it then took FIFTY GODDAMN YEARS (http://www.goforbroke.org/history/history_historical_medal.asp) before Nisei soldiers who'd proven their loyalty in blood a thousand times over were recognized with Medals of Honor...

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Oh, please don't apologize! I have greatly missed your epic comments. And history is one of the subjects where I really feel my HS education screwed me over, so I am ALWAYS grateful for more information, especially about non-mainstream things.

I find the way the labor was arranged differently and the different immigration laws changed the whole dynamic of the islands to be fascinating.

Yeah...not to mention how it then took FIFTY GODDAMN YEARS before Nisei soldiers who'd proven their loyalty in blood a thousand times over were recognized with Medals of Honor...

Grrr.

[helicopini.livejournal.com]

I second the thank you for the links. And also very interesting historical info.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

You might also like reading through this piece (http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/specials/pearlharbor60/chapter4.html) from a Honolulu Advertiser special on the 60th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attacks -- that whole special edition is full of incredible stories, but the linked chapter focuses on the Japanese-American experience in Hawai'i and gives a lot more detail and personal reminiscences related to all this stuff I've been babbling about.

[chomiji]

Ohhh ... I know we talked about some of this at some point already!

>facepalm<

I'm sorry - I am thick-headed lately.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Cool!

[sekaigo.livejournal.com]

Those are fantastic pictures.

You may have already seen these, but there are some pretty incredible pictures of female Red Army soldiers up on Flickr--I'm really fond of these (http://www.flickr.com/photos/damopabe/3097614719/) two (http://www.flickr.com/photos/damopabe/3212865276/). (This woman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyudmila_Pavlichenko), also.)

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

No I have not!

And wow, those ladies are so BADASS.

[the-sun-is-up.livejournal.com]

These are awesome! Thanks for the link!

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

You're very welcome!

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Especially badass older women with guns.

[zeldabel.livejournal.com]

I am totally in awe of these pics. WWII is a particular fascination of mine. I've also been thinking about women in the military a lot since September 11, 2001. You know how radio stations played that Lee Greenwood song "God Bless the USA" over and over in the weeks after 9/11? The line "I won't foget the men who died..." really annoys me. Women have died, are dying, for our freedoom as well.

Gorgeous post.

[helicopini.livejournal.com]

Ever read Susan Faludi's "The Terror Dream"? It went into detail about this bizarre post-9/11 cultural regression on female soldiers.

[zeldabel.livejournal.com]

I haven't read that. Thanks for the suggestion. I would love to read it.

[helicopini.livejournal.com]

She has a lecture series covering her basic premise and thoughts about the book here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MlAl9Xol7Q&feature=PlayList&p=08FEE9AFFF2D82A5&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=1

Bigass url, sorry. xD

[zeldabel.livejournal.com]

Wow, that was absolutely fascinating. I can't wait to get my hands on the book.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

You might appreciate this for an antidote to that shallow, sexist piece of jingoism:

[zeldabel.livejournal.com]

That is absolutely amazing.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

That was rather epic.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Oh, damn, that annoys me so very much too.

[mistaria.livejournal.com]

This is so badass. ::saves some of the pics::

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I know, right?

[ivy-chan.livejournal.com]

I shall save this for the next time I get into an argument with another douche who decides to tell me that women didn't fight in the army or be active in war until just recently.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Please do.

[qualapec.livejournal.com]

You may also be very interested in this slideshow from BBC News about female Soviet Pilots who flew combat missions. The Germans called them Night Witches.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/8329676.stm

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I want a movie of that, right fucking now.