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Another December
Excerpts from a letter home “On Sunday, December 7,1941,1 had the morning off duty and was so glad to be able to sleep late as I was tired. At 8 o’clock I was awakened by terrific explosions. At first I thought it was the Coast Artillery across the street but the noise was so heavy and so persistent, above the drone of planes, I got out of bed to see what it looked like. I was amazed to see a black sky! ...three girls rushed in from the park and said, “we are at war - Pearl Harbor is in flames.” Then our telephone rang - “All nurses at their posts.” Betty Virginia always said I could get dressed quicker than anyone she ever saw - if she could have seen me that day! I smashed all previous records! ...planes were everywhere - smoke and gunfire. My ward which holds 44 patients had 38 patients of its own. The six beds that were empty we prepared for the casualties...and they were beginning to roll in. The most awful sight my eyes ever beheld. Arms, legs, hands, faces, insides and outsides gone. I’ve seen horrible pictures before in my life but...not anything like this wholesale slaughter before. We were busy giving heart stimulants, morphine, blood, glucose, redressing the severe bleeding, watching them die and all the time not a peep out of a blessed soul - courage - those boys were the bravest, , sweetest boys I’ve ever seen.” ...we worked all night - not once did I stop - ail beds were filled and one poor soul was put out on the porch when I had filled all the beds. As soon as one died, the bed was freshly made and another took his place... ...this is being written between my duties and it is now 4 a.m., December 18,1941 - the first quiet night we have had. ...keep the letters coming. Mary Ashby Slaughter was a young army nurse stationed at Hickam Army Hospital in Honolulu on the morning of December 7, 1941 when Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese. She was bom March 24, 1908 at The Oaks" in Washington and was the daughter of Francis Raymond and Mary Pauline Warden Slaughter of Rappahannock County. She died on December31, 1996at her home in Alexandria.
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