FEATURED VETERAN
Fred Ida
Fred Ida was up early that Sunday of Dec.7, 1941. The University of Hawaii student lived in the tower above the Dreier Manor in Moiliili where he managed the St. Louis Alumnae Association clubhouse. Foremost on his mind that morning was the large sum of money sitting in the club safe. After a big game the night before between Hawaii and Fresno State, the bar had done a brisk business and Ida needed to see those proceeds safely deposited in the bank.
But the money did not get to the bank that day, or the next, or that week. Every bank would close its doors after hearing the announcement that was just then coming through Ida's radio. "We interrupt this program to bring you a special news bulletin: the Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor!"
The news sent Ida rushing upstairs. Pearl Harbor was a good ten miles away, but he looked out the window of his room and saw that the Makali'i Drugstore, just a block away, had been hit. He went out to assess the damage, and found a man lying in the street, dead, his legs blown off. A block further down the school roof was in flames.
"That's when I really knew that the war had broken out," Ida says.
It wasn't long before Ida began to see people, one after another, packing up and returning to the mainland, selling their property and possession at great bargains. That's how his family was able to buy a house, and how Ida got himself a newer car. Wartime gas rationing was in effect, but Ida's sister and brother-in-law owned two gas stations in Kailua. They often received ration coupons from people who couldn't use their full gas allotment and gave them away to friends and family. So it was easy for Ida to get extra gas and he thought nothing of taking the 12-mile drive into Honolulu, which he did almost daily.
Until the FBI stopped him.
It wasn't Ida's first run-in with the authorities. He was 13 when his father died. Being the oldest boy of nine children, Ida was the one who would climb behind the wheel of their Chrysler and, seated on a stack of zabutons (floor pillows), drive into town to get gas. Whenever a policeman spotted him, he'd get a ticket for driving without a license. "The pastor always fixed it up with the police station," Ida said, "so I never paid a fine."
Ida had a license now, but the FBI was after something else. "We want you to come down to FBI headquarters," the agent said. "What for?" Ida asked. "Where you getting all the gas?" they wanted to know.
At headquarters Ida learned the FBI not only knew who he was, but that he kept a 50-gallon drum of gas at home. They even knew he had a full set of new whitewall tires for his Oldsmobile. Things were getting serious, so he asked to make a phone call. "Who you going to call?" they said. Ida answered, "Well, I don't know whether to call my family, or Jack Burns." Burns was a longtime friend of Ida's. He was also captain of the police force, and would later become the first elected governor of Hawaii.
Ida called Burns and explained his situation. Burns asked to speak to the FBI and they released Ida into his custody. But Burns was not going to "fix" this situation like Ida's priest had before.
"They want you to volunteer in the army," Burns told Ida. "How come you didn't volunteer?" Indignant, Ida replied, "It's 'volunteer.' I'm not going to volunteer." But the FBI was insisting he enlist, and Burns strongly advised him to comply or things could get bad for him.
There was only one day left to volunteer, so Ida went directly from Burns' office to his draft board and signed up. He thought his chances for being selected were slim, but three weeks later when volunteers were summoned for training at Schofield Barracks, his was the very first name called. "I think they really wanted me bad," Ida says.
Ida went on to serve with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team as a Company G squad leader. He didn't see much combat, though, after being injured at Hill 140 in Italy (he still has the shrapnel that pierced his thigh and ricocheted off his bone), and again later when both eardrums were shattered.
Decades after the war, Ida returned to visit Sospel, France, a town where the 442nd had been stationed and which was almost obliterated by the Germans. He was surprised when a man jumped out of a car and ran up to hug him. It was the Mayor of Sospel, who remembered the 442nd and how the townspeople had all wondered what Japanese were doing in France. This time, the Mayor said, "I know why you are here."
Ida might have said he was there because of the FBI and a drum of gasoline. But he stayed because of a sense of duty and honor, and to stand by the words he tells his grandchildren today: "to make no shame."
