The Tribute of Tender Hearts

The idea for this story started out simple enough, then very soon became more sensitive and tender as I worked through yet again some of my research on WWII veterans experiences and my correspondence with their families in the years since. In awe at their willing and dedicated sacrifice, I am pleased to honor in this small way all those who waited for them to come home again... many of whom wait even yet... in their twilight years, holding to a dream that has sustained them in their long travail. May their hopes for togetherness yet come to pass.

*

"'And then she screamed at me!' she sobbed.

"In between her tears, her voice cracked and I could feel her heart wrenching inside her as she sat up again and looked at me.

"'Then she said that just because I had 'big tits' I thought all the boys would chase after me for me to show them. I don't think that, Jake!" There was a look of chagrin on her face, embarrassed, I think, that she was even telling me about what had happened. Then that sweet blush of hers flooded her countenance and she didn't know what to do with herself.

"It was easy to invite her to snuggle close to me again and I wrapped her in my arms to soothe her hurt a little.

"I had not had any idea that girls could be quite so vicious with each other, especially ones who were supposed to be friends. What could I say? I did not have near the experience with girls that some of the other fellows did; of course, some of their 'experience' I figured I could do without. As to the four girls, it appeared to me that whatever friendship had been between them was now shattered and gone. How could Katherine go back to the other girls who had spoken so hurtfully? What I mean, though, is what kind of response would be helpful at the moment? I was not at all sure."

Jake was in no hurry, and chose his words carefully.

"Only as I held her in my arms, and allowed myself to begin to think of her as 'my girl' did the fog clear. I think I was quiet for a long time, and her sobs gradually ceased as she relaxed with me. We had become close friends, perhaps not as close as brother and sister, but friends who could talk with each other and discuss things. I liked her the first time I saw her. Neither of us really fit with the small group into which we had been sort of tossed by chance."

Jake had been on a liberty downtown and fallen in with three sailors for a while one evening and the four of them had met these four girls. The others were all heavy party animals, but Jake and Katherine struck a different note together, were more inclined to conversation, and enjoyed ideas. Of course, her natural good looks didn't hurt anything at all, and was a very strong draw. Jake admitted that to me right off, and that told me he was more serious about her than I had ever seen him. She wore her auburn hair long down her back, he added with a wistful note and a casual wave of his hand, and it fell about her pretty face in a very attractive way, even when she used a ribbon to tie it back. I had never seen him so wrapped around the axel over a girl.

One very obvious and impressive feature was her very statuesque figure. She was only to my shoulder high, but she was... well, 'stacked' as some fellows would say. I didn't meet her until later, but this night after watch Jake only mentioned that Katherine carried a lot of 'top hamper.' That is an older metaphor used by some sailors, with reference to full-rigged sailing ships running before a fresh breeze with all sails set, and filled by the wind. In such cases, one might say that a beautiful ship carried more 'top hamper' than others did.

Evidently, I thought to myself, judging from Jake's not at all disrespectful comment, Katharine carried her share of 'top hamper.'

Not too much, though. Her figure was not out of balance, but very finely tuned, and, in my judgment, she carried herself well, with grace and reserve. Some girls might have flaunted themselves for the attention they could surely garner.

Katherine did not.

That frustrated the other girls, he ventured in explanation, made them jealous, probably. "Whether she flaunts it or not," and I heard some distress in his normally confident voice, "her 'top hamper' is a major attraction for the fellows."

Yes, I could understand that without further explanation. There was a long pause in the darkness, and I thought I could hear his teeth grinding together in anger, and I waited for him to go on.

"The other three guys have commented," he continued slowly, "when away from the girls, that she makes their hands itch to get a feel of her."

His nature was not to let any of his frustration show outwardly, but in his tone I could sense his disgust at such crudity. From the time we had been friends I knew he did not look at a girl in that way, even though he appreciated a pretty girl just as we all did.

Basically, we had both talked about girls a lot, and so now I could detect the subtle changes in his feelings. In just a couple of dates, of which he had told me essentially nothing, this girl had somehow touched his heart and called forth something quite special.

"I have found from experience that I have to be choosy and selective; and only on our previous date had I begun to feel I could, well, exert my own personality a little. When she told me this afternoon what Bobby had said to her, my blood heated up. I was so angry with Bobby and the other girls for their insensitivity and crudeness, and I spoke out almost before I had thought through what I was saying.

"'You do not have tits, Kit!'

"'Animals have tits.' And," he said softly, "Almost immediately, I could feel her go stiff in my arms."

"'Girls have... ladies have breasts.' I was more than a little astounded at myself," he continued on, "that I would say such a thing to her, even though I felt the difference in the word usage very clearly. To me the one label is demeaning to a girl, reducing her to a much lesser status than she deserves, and I think she felt this connotation also." Jake paused a moment, but I could tell he was not finished. "That was part of what hurt her so badly.

"'A lady has breasts,' I repeated to her, 'and they are one of the features of her physical beauty. I've never seen your breasts, Kit, but I think yours are the most beautiful I have ever imagined. Perhaps some day you'll show...' and I froze before I could finish the sentence."

He sat there, looking off across the water to the lights in the shipyard, shocked at his own words to her. "I had been running on open and caught myself."

He stopped, his head drooped and he shook it like a condemned man, and his voice cascaded into the depth as if he were reliving the experience.

"What will she think of me now? How dumb can a guy be, really! The words were out, and she could easily finish the sentence without any problem. She stirred in my arms and began to sit up next to me carefully, and I closed my eyes wishing myself into some crack in the earth to be swallowed up forever.

"I opened my eyes and found her looking into my face intently, though I could not read the thoughts running through her pretty head.

"'Thank you,' she said to me, 'Thank you for the compliment, Jake. That's the nicest thing any fellow has ever said to me.'"

He turned to me in the dim light, as were he asking me whether such a girl could be real.

•

That's how he first related the story to me, in the first person like that. We were sitting together in the cool of the night on the seawall behind our barracks. We had just been relieved off watch, it was after midnight, and he was all wound up and needed to talk. We knew each other well enough that we could listen to each other without comment. On this occasion, he was just overwhelmed at his experience that afternoon with Katherine.

I don't think he had mentioned her to me by name more than two or three times, though I knew he had made the acquaintance of somebody that meant something special to him. Now, finally, I was getting the low down, though I knew him well enough to know that intimate details would not be forthcoming. That was not Jake.

He was particularly touched by her sweetness. She thanked him for his compliment and I could see in his eyes as we talked that night that just the memory of their intimacy on the sofa that afternoon almost caused him to loose his train of thought altogether.

Well, girls can do that to a fellow. I know; Caroline had done that to me, and I loved it.

I'm Charlie, and I'm relating the story to you as I heard it over a period of time, from him during those first days of their acquaintance as we stood radio watches together at the Naval Air Station Ford Island in Pearl Harbor, and on some occasions from her, only much later. I'll try to fill in some details and make it interesting.

•

The few days just before that had been very difficult for her, and that in the light of the fact that her entire life had been hardship and anxiety. This was not so uncommon in that day. Growing up is a challenge, doing it in a rural setting during the Depression years was perhaps as rough a road as there is.

She was borne Katherine Anne, fourth and youngest child to a family struggling to succeed on their San Joaquin Valley farmland through an extended period of economic trials that seemed endless and unrelenting. Homemaking and farm chores were demanding, but she could see the need for much cooperative effort and worked willingly and with increasing skill and initiative. Her father and her older brothers were protective, especially as she approached womanhood. She felt the changes in her own being through her high school years, and the sometimes penetrating stares of older boys, the seasonal farm workers, and even her brothers, though their protection sheltered her from much of the world around her.

Her mother might have been a greater support to her, but her attitude seemed at odds and unavailable. In fact, slender and even skinny in her figure, her mother was probably reeling inside herself at her husband's reproach at her deficiencies. Her daughter's blossoming in her junior year opened the distance between her and her daughter. I am guessing here, since Katherine was never really able to speak of it to me, and Jake's comments were very brief. Envy, questions that have no answer, recriminations with no resolutions meant that Katharine was left alone much of the time on a farm remote from other social contacts that might have assisted her in accommodating the challenges of adolescence and approaching adulthood.

Her last two years of school did bring some meaningful changes. Her father brought his daughter into the office to keep better tabs on the finances and the shipping movements. This introduced her to bookkeeping and numbers, and strengthened her organizational skills, but also exposed her to truckers ever alert for an easy lay, and the crudeness of their comments. She realized that her breasts had developed to be larger than many other girls were and that this brought on much attention from men, yet the lack of feminine contact left her with a very unbalanced and insecure sense of self. She was by nature shy and reserved, made sure her dress was modest, neat, and fresh, kept her chestnut hair, long and thick and glorious, brushed out and tied with one of her small collection of bright ribbons. These were simple standards of grooming she set for herself, but they added to her natural beauty and, on their own merit, especially against the contrast of the laborers all around, including women, many Mexicans, and the sweat and dirt and even squalor of the farm in the summer's heat, made her stand out like a beacon of desirability. She was too naïve, I think, to have recognized her situation for what it was.

She felt her father's protective influence when he set her up in the office with a Dutch door, over which all the paperwork passed, her youngest brother being responsible for tallies and counts of the outgoing shipments just outside. This put a barrier and a little distance between her and the many loose hands prone to grope and grasp. Her sense of well being was shattered, however, when she deduced from her own observations that her father and older brothers were often involved with 'meetings' with some of the work force, most often a single Mexican girl about her own age or younger. Something broke for her at the realization of what was happening, and in her mind there was no setting it aright and no one to whom she could turn. The world beyond not only beckoned, it was now for her also a refuge from a home now no longer a haven.

She graduated from high school in the spring of 1941, very near the top of her class, and having done well in English. She answered a newspaper add for dining room and housekeeping staff for the Matson Lines vessels sailing between the west coast and the Hawaiian Islands, and was thrilled when they accepted her. In July, she sailed from San Francisco for Honolulu, and the sharp and dramatic break with her past was as much revelation and it was refuge.

Among the several younger staff aboard were three other girls in a very similar situation. All were from farms in the Valley, looking for something better. Bobby had sailed once before, and could kind of clue the others in to how things went. Tony's hair was short and coal black, and she was a bubbly, outgoing girl, pleasant and fun. Brenda's hair was almost fire engine red, and from the first, she went by the nickname "Red." She was talkative, clever, and a little mouthy for Katharine's taste, but that was fine. Not everyone was the same, she reasoned.

They bunked in a stateroom for four, and after a second day at sea, hearing the constant talk of all kinds of new things swimming through her head, Katharine had a moment to herself in the bathroom after her shower. Bobby had left her dressmakers tape measure hanging over the clothes hook. The other girls' conversation about boys and sex and measurements and figures and such stopped her cold. She had never talked so openly about such things, nor had the opportunity to do such a thing, but now found herself checking her own body carefully. Long hours of farm work, lots of walking, and a diet skimpy on sugars and fats left her with a very trim and well toned figure, but she was surprised at herself: her waist was only 21 inches, her hips 34, and her breasts – she already knew she was larger than the other girls were. She was surprised at how much larger. Was she too big? Too big to be pretty? She sensed that height played into the equation, and she was as tall as Bobby at 5-8. Tony and Red were two or three inches shorter, or more. But what did that mean? The question bothered her deeply. Was she too big to be pretty?

And there was no one she felt she could ask.

That in the off hours and the rest times the male crew members flocked to her seemed to tell her nothing. Their attention was like the men she had experienced on the farm; banter, small talk, and crude jests and casual suggestions left her unmoved and aloof. She had learned that they offered her nothing, and by instinct she knew to brush them away like flies.

Katherine's particular blessing... well, from a man's point of view it is a blessing, but she didn't know what to do with it... was that she had the physical attributes, the very nicely developed attributes of a young girl with extraordinary charm, and the looks of an innocent little pixie fresh from some story book. She was really quite a looker. Her gray-green eyes were bright and playful, but full of sweetness and sincerity. Her facial features were smooth and youthful, and complemented her flashing eyes and pixie-like exuberance for life. Her hair was a light chestnut, and the sunshine in Hawaii soon brought out the rich streaks of reddish blonde. She wore it long, and down almost all the time, and it often fell across her face and needed her to whisk it away, and her efforts to control it that way were an unconscious study in delightful and uninhibited femininity. Almost always it splashed down onto her shoulders in cascading disarray.

Some might have thought it artless and untended; for an appreciative gentleman, it was, in a rustic and free-spirited way, breathtakingly beautiful. Jake acknowledged that she had him in her spell.

She had always dressed very conservatively. Jake told me this later as I got to know them better. She had been very concerned that she was not pretty, that – he explained carefully – her breasts were too big to let her be really attractive to a man. She had always dressed comfortably and without much attention to style or shape. That changed gradually after they became close, and she gained more confidence in herself.

In relating her earlier experiences to me, Katherine spoke well of her family, and her older brothers, but there was a piece she seemed always to overlook, consciously or otherwise. Something hindered her having a more confident feeling about herself. She was very private with me, but Jake mentioned once when we spoke about her, that she had told him about her mother's aloofness and the Mexican girl, and these things had created a barrier for her.

They also must have contributed in their own way to a particular strength, I thought. You had to get to know her a little and watch her. Although she had the body and the face of a temptress, including that impressive top hamper, and the personality of a playful seductress, she was always reserved, gracious, and respectful, never cheap or sexually suggestive. She also had the integrity of person and intuition to seek for what she wanted and the innate savvy not to be led astray by cheap flattery and a shallow come-on from any fellow that tried to cajole her. Polite and friendly, she could nevertheless turn a fellow off with a sweep of her hand, and he knew it was over.

At a dinner party at their apartment just weeks after we three couples were married in October, I had the chance to ask her directly, in a brief private moment, what it was she saw in Jake that attracted her. We were good friends by then and she teased me often about my questions to everybody, as were I, she taunted playfully, a writer gathering material for a novel, and laughed. Still, very seriously, she bounced right back with her answer. He was a man, a gentleman, she said, and the simple, forthright declaration spoke a great deal about her as a lady. He was very intelligent and interesting, she added, and treated her as if she was too. Left unspoken, but clearly obvious from her manner, was that she had found no other man who had ever been up to those standards, not even close. As cute as she was, she was still human and had her faults, but she knew her own mind and heart.

I had known Jake from the day he reported in to the squadron out on Ford Island, back in January 1940. He was a singular kind of guy. Friendly and open, he could chat about most anything and was very knowledgeable, yet he did not talk about shallow or pointless things. His mind was always working, and it showed, both socially and on the job. All the chiefs thought him to be one of their very best radiomen. He got many of the plum assignments, and not because he was a goody-two-shoes, but because he was alert, professional, learned quickly, and worked hard.

I my mind, they were two peas in a pod; Jake and his Kit, meant just for each other. Let me tell you a few of their experiences together.

"Why do you stay with them?"

It was much quieter on the verandah in the cooler evening air under the palm trees. They had left the smoke filled Waikiki lounge where they had been sitting with the others, only the second time they had been together. He had invited her for a walk outside, and now they sat together at the little table with their fruit juice, neither sure what to say to the other.