Living in wartime: Marion County woman recalls her life at Pearl Harbor during WWII

Left: Ruby Abbott, second from left, and friends enjoy a day at the ice skating rink on Hawaii's North Shore. Concerns about a Japanese invasion prompted the U.S. Navy to enclose Waikiki Beach with barbed wire, pile sandbags against residences and offices and sound an air raid siren when enemy planes or subs were spotted. But civilian workers were still able to enjoy Hawaii's beauty.
Left: Ruby Abbott, second from left, and friends enjoy a day at the ice skating rink on Hawaii's North Shore. Concerns about a Japanese invasion prompted the U.S. Navy to enclose Waikiki Beach with barbed wire, pile sandbags against residences and offices and sound an air raid siren when enemy planes or subs were spotted. But civilian workers were still able to enjoy Hawaii's beauty.

Ruby Abbott's teenage years sound something like the intro to a new Marvel Comics heroine. She was a hula dancer and surfer who tucked a snowy gardenia or purple orchid in her hair as she dashed to work - where she helped a global military leader save the free world.

Ruby was 16 when she arrived in Hawaii's Pearl Harbor in December 1942, a year after the surprise attack by the Japanese that devastated U.S. Navy ships and airplanes, sending the country into frantic rebuilding. Within a few weeks, she became a confidential secretary to Adm. Chester Nimitz, World War II commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and the Pacific Area Allied air, land and sea forces.

Now 90 with the married name of Cagle, Ruby lives in a Chattanooga assisted living home. A stroke makes it very difficult for her to speak. But she kept extensive journals of her WWII life, plus voluminous letters, memos, photos and mementos. In her spiral-bound notebook, emblazoned "The Journal and Personal History of Ruby Ellen Abbott," a fun, popular teen comes vividly to life. Yet at the same time she clearly seemed aware of how vital Nimitz's work was for a world that depended on the war's outcome.

"When I was a kid, I asked about her job," says Ruby's son, former Chattanooga radio host Ben Cagle. "She was afraid all the time that enemy planes would bomb Hawaii. During the day, she distracted herself with work. But at night, she lay awake wondering if the next moment her life would end in an explosion.

"My dad was just a teenager working in the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard when the Japanese attacked. He had to pull the bodies of the dead from the ships that were bombed."

Americans who know WWII through the triumphalism of Hollywood movies may be stunned by how uncertain the future seemed to those who lived through the real thing. The U.S. so feared that Japan would capture Hawaii, it printed special money under an emergency order. Each bill looked like American paper money except for the word "Hawaii" printed across it. If Japan conquered Hawaii, America would declare the Hawaiian bills worthless to stop the enemy from using them. Ruby still has one of those stamped bills.

Her photos show sandbags piled against offices and her apartment house to protect occupants from gunfire during an invasion. In one, she poses next to her apartment air raid shelter, a bunker dug into the ground.

All the apartment windows were painted black; a 9 p.m. curfew was enforced. Her first week in Hawaii, the air raid siren shrieked in the middle of the night. Whenever enemy subs or planes were spotted nearby, the siren wailed and everyone fled to the shelters.

But there also were moments of joy.

"There was something special about that generation," son Ben adds. "They could face the possibility of the end of the world and still enjoy life."

Ruby mentions skating at an ice rink in Hawaii, wandering through exotic gardens, visiting pineapple plantations, swimming, taking hula lessons and - what she loved most - surfing as some of the many ways she enjoyed the island.

"A Hawaiian boy who surfed all the time taught me how," she wrote in her journal. "I simply loved it. While he was on his surfboard, I would climb onto his shoulders and ride the wave in with him. Waikiki Beach was very beautiful despite the tangled barbed wire lining the sand to protect us from invading frogmen."

From Maine to Hawaii

Ruby grew up in rural Maine where the wintertime school bus was a horse-drawn wooden box on sleigh runners. A heated soapstone slab on the floor protected children's feet from frostbite. Despite that low-tech background, she wound up writing top-secret reports detailing the repairs needed on U.S. ships bombarded by the Japanese.

Her machinist father, Winton, was already working in Pearl Harbor when it was attacked on Dec. 7, 1941. Her mother, Ellen, was still living in the family's Maine home and decided that she and Ruby must join her father. On Dec. 8, 1942, Ruby, then 16, and Ellen boarded the USS President Tyler, a cargo ship loaded with Pearl Harbor-bound civilian workers and military personnel.

"The ocean trip was one great adventure and a scary one," Ruby wrote. "Our ship was in a convoy. There were lots of ships ahead and behind us giving protection from the enemy. Japanese submarines were out there waiting to take a shot."

Their convoy was targeted.

"We were being chased," Ruby wrote. "Our ship zigzagged back and forth for days to lose the sub. Women were told to put on life jackets and stand by to be lowered into small lifeboats if we were struck by enemy fire. The water was a long way down from the upper deck. I could picture sharks running around our boats."

At night, ship windows were blacked out with heavy drapes. Smokers were banned on deck for fear the enemy might spot a match flame or glowing cigarette ash.

"Upon arrival [at Pearl Harbor] I was given a gas mask," she wrote. "It was my constant companion every day of my life the next four years. It fit in a carrying case I could fling over my shoulder. Wherever I went, it went - to work, shopping, on a date, out to dinner, dancing. If you forgot your gas mask, the guards would not let you into work. You had to take the trolley and bus to go back and get it. When I put it on and looked in the mirror, it was plain ugly. But I dutifully carried it everywhere. It had to be tested every few months."

The test required Ruby to sit in a tightly sealed room with co-workers, each wearing a mask, as the room filled with tear gas.

Ruby's job required so much of her time she decided not to finish her senior year of high school. Her messenger job paid $1,500 annually - with free housing and commissary access to buy groceries - for "delivering both confidential and unclassified material, answering phones for seven officers, relaying messages to the Fire Marshal... typing approximately 1,000 classified messages per month."

Nimitz was one of the seven officers who trusted her with private and top secret messages. Her job file, which she still has in a giant binder, reflects her rapid ascent into his circle. A couple of months after her hire, she was trusted to type industrial planning "readiness reports," which detailed the repairs needed to each ship and plane, the progress of the repairs and the estimated date each would return to active service. Her supervisors agreed she could be trusted to handle "a large quantity of classified matter" because she is "absolutely trustworthy and dependable," the job file says.

Her journal notes that civilians in Hawaii were startled when 1943 letters from friends on the mainland were heavily censored. Entire paragraphs were blacked out, prompting them to wonder whether the war was going badly. She was shocked to hear about ration cards for items such as coffee and sugar, which grew abundantly in Hawaii so everyone could buy plenty of both.

Normally, she used a Jeep to deliver classified documents. But sometimes Nimitz and his officers were reluctant to put sensitive information on paper. Her journal describes a growing fear of espionage and invasion. Her supervisors admired her ability to memorize crucial data and messages and deliver them verbally to officers scattered across Oahu. And they listed her other duties: "sharpens pencils, cleans and fills inkwells, dusts desks, etc."

Personal life

Few Americans had ever seen Hawaii's tropical paradise in the 1940s, and Ruby seemed dazzled by the beauty of the island's "paradise flowers, palm trees, blossoming trees, ferns, the indescribable sunset and then the moon glowing above the palms... waterfalls and rainbows," she wrote.

She and her friends relaxed by wandering through the lei stands in front of the Monona Hotel. Fragrant loops of ginger, tuberose, rosebuds and sky-blue vandas were like a pavement garden. Poinciana trees were topped with orange blossoms so bright, they seemed on fire. Poinsettias grew wild on stalks taller than her.

In a sad note, however, Ruby's parents were estranged and living separately in Pearl Harbor by this time, says her son Ben.

"Sadly, my grandfather had a drinking problem, but he and my grandmother tried hard to make their marriage work," he explains.

Ellen and Ruby lived in an apartment so small, the only place for their beds was on the screened-in veranda.

"It's a wonder we got any sleep at all with all the salamanders scuttling across the screen," Ruby wrote. "Some thought lizards cute, not me. Oodles of them collected on screens and crawled all over at night."

But it was a minor irritation. She loved her short daily stroll to Nimitz's office. She met Eleanor Roosevelt when the First Lady was visiting Nimitz on the behalf of President Franklin Roosevelt. She watched comedian Bob Hope's USO show from an office window.

By June 1943, her parents were divorced. Ellen and Ruby moved in with a party girl who had a wild and noisy social life.

"There was never any peace," Ruby wrote.

But housing authorities told Ruby and Ellen they must wait months to get their own home.

"I decided I must go see my friend Admiral Nimitz," Ruby wrote. "He said, 'Honey, I will take care of this personally.' The next day, mother and I had our own house in the Navy Yard. It was wonderful for him to do this for us."

Although Ruby was not able to attend the Japanese surrender ceremony on Sept. 2, 1945, with Nimitz on the deck of the USS Missouri, she - along with other members of the crew - was given a schedule of tasks to accomplish that day on the ship; among others, they had to wash the battleship's deck with "fresh water."

While in Hawaii, Ellen introduced her daughter to mechanic Benton Cagle; he and Ruby married October 1945, a month after the Japanese Day of Surrender. The Navy gave Ruby a Certificate of Honorable Discharge, which reflected how unaccustomed the military was to women doing sensitive and crucial work because it referred to her as a man: "Ruby Cagle was employed at Pearl Harbor Navy Yard where his services contributed to the mission of that Pacific Naval Base. For his faithful work and his contribution to winning of the war, he is awarded this Certificate."

Benton brought Ruby to his Marion County, Tenn., home, where they raised three sons. He ran an automotive dealership and also served as a Grundy County constable. In that job, he helped the FBI bust a Mob-spawned crime and solve a cold-case murder, which were highlighted in "True Detective" magazine.

"I am blessed to have had two amazing parents," Ben Cagle says as he sorts through the "True Detective" magazines and photos of his mom in a WWII Jeep and in a swimsuit next to her surfboard.

"My Dad got threats for his law enforcement work, but Mom was there by his side always. After getting through the war, I think they looked at life as a great adventure."

Contact Lynda Edwards at ledwards@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6391.

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