Radar Girls

by Sara Ackerman

  “We’ll know soon enough,” she said.

  Ten minutes passed, and the planes continued a beeline toward O‘ahu. Daisy watched the air force liaison approach Nixon with an anxious look on his face. Whatever he said caused Nixon to slam his coffee down.

  Nixon alerted the room. “Air Force denied any knowledge of the aircraft, which means we need to prepare for an imminent attack. Sound the sirens and dispatch the pursuit planes. I also want a patrol out scouting for carriers, on the double, and shut down the naval yard. These fuckers are not going to get us again.”

  All the officers scrambled to their phone sets. The WARDs on duty were told to gather their helmets and gas masks, and have them on hand. Daisy grabbed Betty’s for her, as she was glued to her headset. Whispers and murmurs circulated around the table. There was a feeling of organized chaos, and dare she say it, anticipation. This is what they’d been practicing for so long. Would they be able to hack it?

  Generals and colonels and other brass began appearing in droves, all of them dripping wet. Every time the door opened, a cold fury blew in. There were so many bodies that nonessential staff were ordered into the break room. Daisy followed Fluff out, but Nixon called her. “Wilder, I want you to vector the pursuits. Get back in here.”

  She stopped cold.

  Fluff turned and said, “Go on, you’re the best one out of all of us for the job.”

  Daisy returned to the table and awaited instructions. She said a little prayer for everyone she knew on the island, humans and animals alike, and ended it with, may this be another false alarm. Danielson hovered over the board, and Daisy was thankful for his calming presence.

  “You ladies are doing good work. I’m impressed,” he told her.

  Outside, the air-raid siren wailed its mournful song for a full minute. The sound sobered an already tense crowd, and no doubt had the whole island scrambling into wet, muddy and bug-infested shelters.

  Betty commented, “These aircraft don’t seem to be moving very fast. What do you think they are?”

  Daisy helped her calculate airspeed. About 190 knots, which was below a B-17 or most American fighters. “Possibly flying boats.”

  So far, nothing else had been picked up by radar. Perhaps they were reconnaissance or forerunners of a larger fleet.

  In the distance, the roar of fighter engines and the whine of ascent cut across the night.

  “There they go. God bless ’em,” Betty said.

  Wai‘anae called in the pursuits, which had just shown up on their screen, and Daisy began tracking the lead plane and his two wingmen.

  The pilot radioed in, “This is Warhawk two-six-niner. Black as tar up here, not a star or moon in sight. We’re going to need all the support you can give,” he said.

  It had taken a little time getting used to the military lingo, using phonetic alphabet and code names and strange phrases. Daisy still felt like an imposter when speaking to the pilots, but she found that using the same matter-of-fact voice she used with the horses came in handy. It almost felt natural. She double-checked the bogey coordinates five times, then said, “Roger that. Fly heading three-zero-five. Incoming aircraft moving at one-niner-zero knots. What’s your altitude?”

  The fewer words the better.

  “Angels three. Cloud bases are low tonight and the rain is spitting.”

  Daisy couldn’t even imagine what it must be like flying around in the dark up there. A good thing they were heading toward Kaua‘i, otherwise they’d run the risk of plowing into the Wai‘anae range with any miscalculations.

  Cigarette smoke and body heat mingled together in the poorly ventilated building, steaming up the board. It was thick enough to choke on. Betty fanned herself with a pamphlet cautioning against venereal disease, which had mysteriously begun circulating the previous day. Someone’s poor idea of a joke. Most likely one of the boys.

  At any moment, Daisy expected a call to come in saying someone had made a mistake, the planes were ours. But that call still hadn’t come. Now, the bogeys were more than halfway across the channel.

  Nixon came down again and stood next to Daisy. “How far now?”

  She pointed to the board, where Betty’s and Val’s markers and her marker were moving closer together. “Twenty-two miles.”

  “You need to tell him that!” he said.

  She flinched. “Come in, Warhawk two-six-niner.”

  “Read you, loud and clear.”

  “You’re closing in fast, twenty-two miles. Head zero-one-zero north and watch out.”

  Watch out? What kind of silly advice was that? How could he watch out when he couldn’t see anything? Daisy wished Nixon had picked someone else. Pressure tended to make her stupid. Pretty soon, the planes were ten miles apart. A quiet came over the room, and the feeling that something big was about to happen. Beads of perspiration dripped down Daisy’s neck, between her breasts, in the creases behind her knees. She wiped her face on her sleeve and reminded herself that she had prepared for this.

  Betty sat to her left, nervously tapping her stick on the floor.

  “Knock it off, Yates, you’re making me crazy,” Nixon growled.

  She immediately stopped. “Sorry, sir.”

  The next reading from Wai‘anae had the interceptors and one bogey on a collision course. The other seemed to be veering north. Daisy notified the pilot. “Eyes wide open, Warhawk two-seven-five. Bogey is within striking distance.”

  “Roger. In cloud soup out here. I’ve dropped down to angels two and am going in and out, but no lights sighted, though am getting intermittent sightings of Ka‘ena Point Lighthouse.”

  Daisy thought that if our pilots couldn’t see a thing, then neither could the Japanese. At least they had that going for them.

  “Try to get above the clouds,” Nixon said, leaning in Daisy’s face to speak directly to the pilot. His breath smelled like stale coffee and sleep.

  One of the downfalls of radar was that it didn’t tell you altitude. One plane could be at five hundred feet and another at fifteen thousand, and they would both look the same on the oscilloscope. Another was that low-flying aircraft often went under the radar and were not detected.

  “Tell him to stay with us,” Nixon said.

  “Stay with us, Warhawk.”

  The next readings showed the bogeys approaching O‘ahu, one near Barber’s Point and one just outside Hale‘iwa.

  “Turn around, heading one-eight-five. You passed them,” Daisy said.

  Word came in from the PBY Catalina pilots who were out hunting for Japanese carriers that so far they’d encountered nothing suspicious. Nor had radar across the islands picked up anything. Carriers might be able to operate without running lights, but as the girls had seen with the US ships, they showed up loud and clear on radar.

  There was something remarkably unsetting about watching the bogeys approach the island from two directions, and pretty soon, the brass began to quarrel. By now, several more fighters had been sent up to intercept. None could see a thing.

  “We need to open fire.”

  “Hickam and Schofield are standing by.”

  “Not with our boys up there, we don’t!” Nixon yelled, face cherry red.

  In the chaos of the Pearl Harbor raid, friendly fire from anti-aircraft artillery not only killed American pilots, but exploding rounds fell in neighborhoods across the South Shore, killing civilians too. When Daisy had heard this, she felt sick to her stomach. What a dilemma. She was thankful it wasn’t her call right now.

  “Wait until someone calls Tally Ho,” Nixon said.

  Tally Ho, she had recently learned, meant enemy in sight and engaged.

  “Anyone not with a headset, put your helmets on,” Danielson said.

  Daisy would have gladly traded her headset for a helmet. Though in all honesty, what good was a helmet against a five-hundred-pound bom
b? Her gas mask rested in her lap. No sooner had she placed the marker in the middle of O‘ahu, when a loud explosion sent shockwaves through the Penthouse. Glass rattled, wood vibrated and people scurried toward the back wall. A moment later, another explosion, and then two more.

  “Warhawk, we’ve been hit. Somewhere not far from Shafter,” Daisy yelled into the radio.

  The blasts sounded close, but not too close, possibly in the direction of downtown Honolulu. Bombing the heart of the city was unthinkable, bound to kill more civilians than servicemen.

  “Roger that. I’m up at angels one, two, no clouds up here. The moon is shining and I’m getting glimpses of the city.”

  Nixon jumped onto the floor and took the radio from her. “Charlie Mike and be ready for more. Stand by for orders.”

  “Charlie Mike?” she asked. She knew the phonetics but had no idea what he meant.

  “Continue Mission.”

  Betty reached over and grabbed Daisy’s hand. If it bothered Nixon, he didn’t let on. Soft and clammy, Daisy clasped as if her life depended on it. That warm hand did more to slow her pulse than any pill. They waited for more bombs to fall.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  Finally, news came in that bombs had come down in a wooded area on Mount Tantalus, just behind Roosevelt High School. The blasts had flattened trees and left a smoldering crater, but there were no reports of injury. Radar tracked the enemy back out to sea until they were no longer visible. Suddenly, Daisy could breathe again, as a wave of relief poured into the room and swept away the tension that had risen to the ceiling. That was the thing with air-raid warnings, you never got used to them. Each one could be the one.

  Nixon called everyone together. “Tell you what. Those bastards planned this knowing the moon would be full. But they didn’t count on the weather and they sure as hell don’t know we are watching them. Now we know how well our radar works.”

  And that us WARDs can vector and plot and do what needs to be done, Daisy thought. Of course, he would never say it out loud. A few cheers erupted.

  “Now get back to business.”

  For the rest of that shift, Daisy checked the clock every two minutes. They were in continuous conversation with the Oscars around the island, and with every hour that passed without echoes, everyone let down their guard a few notches. It went down in the record books as one of the longest nights of her life.

  19

  THE SECRET

  Two days later, on their first day off since the raid, the girls woke to find their lingerie missing from the clothesline again. Daisy’s new underwear—which she’d found at Liberty House—Betty’s fancy Love bra and Fluff’s girdle. Why a twenty-year-old woman needed a girdle, Daisy had no idea, but Fluff claimed it improved her shape.

  “What kind of lowlife would do this? What if he’s a Peeping Tom, too?” Fluff said.

  “How do you know it’s a he?” Betty said.

  Fluff frowned. “No way a female would do this.”

  The young guard who Fluff had questioned claimed ignorance, though assured her he would keep an eye out. Nothing had ever come of it.

  Betty shrugged. “You never know. Maybe someone doesn’t like us. Or they’re jealous. Maybe they want to spook us. As if we need any more spooking.”

  No matter how you sliced it, it was an invasion of privacy. And Fluff was right, what if someone was out there sneaking around in the bushes watching them dress and undress, or listening to their conversations? The run-in with Johnny Boy had left her with an extra dose of caution. “It gives me the creeps. We ought to tell Vivian.”

  Vivian at Headquarters handled the barracks. She smoked her cigarettes using one of those elongated holders and seemed far more sophisticated than the rest of the girls. Ten minutes later, they were sitting in front of Vivian, telling their story through a haze of smoke.

  She laughed at first, then said, “I’ll call the FBI.”

  “I’m not sure it warrants the FBI,” Daisy said.

  As expected, the FBI said there was nothing they could do, so Vivian insisted they accompany her on a search of nearby quarters. Betty and Daisy both refused, but Fluff volunteered to go. After an awkward hour of searching, a procedure Betty claimed was highly illegal, Vivian and Fluff returned empty-handed.

  “Well, that was awkward,” Fluff said.

  Vivian peered out the back door and said, “You need to set a trap. Hang out a bunch of bras and panties and wait in the dark for them. Then, when the culprit shows up, blind ’em with your blackout flashlight.”

  It was worth a shot.

  * * *

  Later that afternoon, Fluff and Daisy had just returned from the Fort Shafter pool—the chlorinated water a sorry substitute for the ocean—when a knock came at the door. Daisy was still in a towel, so Fluff answered. A man’s voice floated in.

  “Lieutenant, what a nice surprise. I’m Fluff Kanahele. I heard you talk at Little Robert that day.”

  Daisy’s ears perked up.

  “A pleasure, ma’am.”

  “Oh please, call me Fluff. Come in!”

  Bold of Walker to show up here, but Daisy was happy to see him. She darted into her room and slipped into a sleeveless yellow dress with big bold flowers printed on it, something Fluff had talked her into buying. Smoothing down her wet hair, she walked into the living room. Walker stood just inside the threshold with his hands in his pockets. When he saw her, he swallowed hard.

  “Sorry to drop in unexpected like this, but I was at Pearl and...well... I had no idea when you were coming back to Waialua,” he said.

  She felt a sudden case of jitters. “Did they clear you to fly?”

  He smiled. “Got the green light today. Doc says I’ve made a remarkable recovery.”

  “I’m happy to hear. We need our crack pilots in top shape,” Daisy said.

  Fluff jumped in. “Did you hear about the fiasco the other night?”

  “Boy did I ever. I would have liked to see our fighters ambush them in the Kaua‘i Channel, but at least the weather kept them from hitting their targets. How was it for you ladies?”

  Daisy and Fluff looked at each other. “Daisy here directed that Warhawk like an old pro–”

  “That is pure exaggeration!” Daisy said, cutting her off.

  Walker seemed amused. “I told her from the beginning she had the brains and talent.”

  “Nixon was right there by my side. Nor did we intercept. Maybe someone better would have been able to make that happen.”

  “Not with those clouds. It was thundering at the ranch and flooding the riverbanks. It would have been hard to see anything even during the day,” Walker said.

  Fluff excused herself, leaving Daisy and Walker face-to-face, though still an arm’s length apart. This was new territory, and she had no idea whether to hug him or kiss him or invite him in for something. Juice? Beer? Necking? She could hardly think straight. Walker, though, seemed to know exactly what to do. He stepped toward her, tilted her chin and kissed her square on the lips. Daisy felt the kiss in the tips of her toes.

  “I hope it’s not a bother I just did that,” he said, afterward.

  “Did I seem bothered?”

  He smiled. “Look, I know you aren’t supposed to have men in your quarters, and my car out there is liable to stir talk, so I’ll get to the point. Would you go on a date with me?”

  Daisy had never been on a date. Not really. While she was still in school, Buddy Ah Sing had walked her home a few times, then later, at sixteen, she spent many an afternoon kissing Charles Kini in an abandoned sugar shack on the river, but his hands liked to wander and she finally tired of it. At nineteen, she had developed a crush on a cowboy named Cousin visiting from Texas. He walked her down the beach one night, asked her to touch my member, and then stormed off when she refused. Proper dates had not been part of h
er experience.

  Walker mistook her silence for hesitance. “The timing couldn’t be worse, but I’m not going to wait until the end of this war to take you out.” He paused, eyes searching. “Say yes?”

  “Of course I will.”

  They decided on the following Wednesday, the only day they both had off. It seemed so far away, she considered telling him she was free this afternoon and would he please take her to a secluded beach and kiss her some more. Though Fluff would scold her for appearing too eager. The woman sure had a lot of rules when it came to men. Never kiss them first. Let the fella do the asking. Turn them down every now and then. It makes them want you more. Don’t give them too much on the first date.

  “It’s settled, then,” he said, his mouth curving up on one side.

  “I’ll look forward to it.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  Walker stole another kiss and then was gone.

  * * *

  Signs of spring began showing up everywhere. Mango blossoms adorned the trees, butterflies floated through the streets, and Blanche, it turned out, was pregnant. Spring had always been Daisy’s favorite season. She appreciated the warm weather and calming seas, and loved watching the foals run around the field on their tentative new legs. Now, spring was a reminder that the world kept on spinning. Even in the midst of war.

  “We aren’t even supposed to have animals in here. How are we going to deal with a whole litter of kittens?” Betty asked.

  “We’ll give them away,” Fluff said.

  Daisy knew better. “You can’t just hand out new kittens to people. They need to nurse until they’re at least a couple months old.”

  Fluff clasped her hands together. “Then we’ll raise them ourselves and keep them a secret. I can’t think of anything better than a bunch of kittens to boost morale. Maybe they could help us get Nixon to smile.”