Pearl Harbor: A Navy Nurse Helps Us Remember

Wanted to take a moment to pause from the world of sports to remember December 7, 1941 and what it meant to our country.

Here's a first-hand remembrance 90 days after the attack from a young Navy nurse who saw the carnage for the first time when she arrived at Pearl Harbor.

Lt. J.G. Anna Kaseta, Navy Nurse Corps waited in San Francisco for more than two weeks to ship out to Pearl Harbor. It was early March 1942, barely 90 days after the Japanese attack.

She was 26-years-old as she and her friends boarded the U.S.S. Henderson, a transport, that would join a large convoy to Pearl.

"It took five days to get there," she remembers. "It was a large convoy. When we got our first glimpse of Pearl, it was devastating. It was horrifying to see all those ships just laying there under water. It was worse than we imagined," recalled Kaseta, the daughter of Lithuanian immigrants.

It was the first time they had seen what the aftermath at Pearl looked like. The government had controlled what information came out of Pearl. "No one had any idea of how bad it was," she remembered.

She was one of 20 nurses at the Naval Hospital at Pearl. They were there to help restore order and take care of what would be large numbers of casualties from the fighting in the South Pacific.

"We were always busy," she recalled. "It was an education; soldiers and sailors who were patients recovering, helped us with the other patients who were worse off."

It was simply Americans helping Americans; it was the spirit of the time.

She found friends for life in fellow nurses Phyllis Dana, Helen Rhodes, and Mary Fussell. They worked hard, very hard, but they also found time to relax and discover Hawaii.

It didn't take long for heavy casualties to find Pearl.

"Midway, Midway Island," Kaseta remembered. "They had a terrible time evacuating the casualties, we were ready to pack our bags, thought we'd have to ship out to Midway."

In all, Kaseta spent 18 months at Pearl.

"It was the best of times and the worst of times," she said. "We all worked together, we had to."

Those nurses were a small piece of the machine that helped the United States recover from the attack.

Amazing, was that most of those torn and sunken ships at Pearl were salvaged and put back in action.

"Seemed like it took forever," Lt. Kaseta remembered, "but they got them out, all but the Arizona."

The Arizona Memorial remains the focal point of Pearl Harbor today. And those days at Pearl remain etched in the memories of all who served there.

Of the four friends from Peal, only Kaseta and Fussell are around today. They are members of our "Greatest Generation." There are so few left and the number decreases each year that passes.

Today marks 68 years since the attack.

At age 93, Kaseta remembers Pearl like it was a month ago. 

We should try and remember the time, but even moreso, the spirit and resolve our country showed in the face of disaster. It was a time like no other and produced men and women who helped forge the greatness of America.

Author's note:  Anna Kaseta married a Naval officer, Harold Edrington after the war. They were married for more than 50 years. He is deceased. Anna lives today in Tampa with her son Tom.