Remember that photo of women at Pearl Harbor apparently fighting a fire that MSNBC was trying to find out about? I mentioned it here back on December 9.
Well, it didn’t take long for investigative reporter Bill Dedman to ferret out the real story by tracking down one of the women.
So the bottom line: These women were female firefighters at Pearl Harbor, the place. To that extent the photo is authentic. But they weren’t fighting a fire when this photograph was taken, and they weren’t fighting any fires on Dec. 7, the day we remember every year on Pearl Harbor Day.
Dedman’s full account is definitely well worth reading.
Still a great photo
Thanks for following up on that. I gotta say I had some doubts when I first saw the picture. It seemed a bit too perfect, lacking the “cinema verite” quality of photos I would expect to see captured during the panic of battle. Too posed, too well-composed.
And the ethnic mix suggested those classic WWII war movies, where each guy in the platoon represents a different ethnic group, different region of the country, as if to say “set aside our ethnic differences, we are all in this together.”
There was a lot of heroism in Hawaii during WWII, both on that day and on others. These women do deserve our gratitude. It was nice to learn the story of Katherine Lowe and her friends.
Thank you, Auntie!
Beautiful lady, beautiful story.