Radar Girls

by Sara Ackerman

  “We won’t make that mistake again,” Hochman told them.

  The other stations ringed the island of O‘ahu with their mobile long-range radar sets. Ka‘a‘awa covered the east, Koko Head south, Fort Shafter southwest, Wai‘anae west, Kawailoa northwest, and Opana north.

  “You’ll need to know the exact location of each station so you will know your range. Who can tell me what range is, again?” Hochman said.

  The man was patient as a tortoise, she’d give him that. In a painfully slow manner, he went over and over every detail. Daisy managed to count every freckle on his face. In the beginning, most of his questions went unanswered, though now a few of the girls had latched on and were able to throw out answers confidently.

  He called on Thelma, who had her hand up. “Range is the distance from the radar station to the plot, or the aircraft in this case.”

  Thelma was quickly becoming the teacher’s pet.

  “Exactly. Now, at Little Robert, you’ll have to mark the location—or set number—the condition, altitude, azimuth and range of an aircraft. Remember our SCR-270B has a range of 150 miles, give or take. You know the set number and condition, you know the range. What about altitude? Does radar tell you altitude?”

  “No,” a chorus of voices answered.

  “And what does SCR stand for?”

  “Signal corps radio,” said Peg, who was back in action and had apparently been studying hard at home. Though Daisy wondered if Peg got away with missing all those days because of who she was.

  “So how will you know if it’s an aircraft?”

  Daisy blurted out an answer. “Because it is noticeably moving. Nothing else will move remotely as fast as a plane.”

  “Righto, Miss Wilder.”

  For the first time ever, Daisy was actually enjoying being in class. Maybe it was because the stakes were higher and she was keen to know everything she could about the radar. Perhaps that was the secret. You had to have a genuine interest before you could fall in love with a subject. Daisy appreciated the logical nature of numbers in the same way that Fluff loved English. Though how could anyone fall in love with prepositional phrases or William Shakespeare was beyond her.

  “Now, who here knows where the Japanese forces will likely be coming from? And which stations are likely to pick them up?” Hochman asked.

  “Opana!” Betty called out.

  “The tricky part is going to be discerning between friend or foe. We don’t want any more casualties from friendly fire, so what you’re doing here is critical. Speaking of friendlies, you ladies may also need to vector in some of our boys when called upon. I know it sounds real technical, but vectoring is simply when you tell a pilot to fly at a specific heading.”

  “How would we do that?” Fluff asked.

  “Through UHF radio. Ultra-high frequency.”

  They continued doing practice exercises, learning how to speak with Oscars, which questions to ask, how to do line checks to make sure all was clear between command and the radar stations. Then they practiced vector simulations and simulations of Japanese aircraft moving in. All this talk of another air raid gave Daisy the jitters.

  At high noon, two older Red Cross volunteers came in with lunch. Daisy was famished and nearly drooling as they set out trays of fried chicken, rice, corn salad and mandarin oranges. For dessert, they left several boxes of malasadas stacked high. This was more food than she ate in a month and she couldn’t believe her good fortune. The noise level in the room quadrupled as everyone compared test scores and chattered about the news.

  The girls all fell into groups so naturally, and Daisy circled the room looking for an opening. No one even looked her way. She was about to head outside when Betty waved her over. “Sit with us.”

  “Lord almighty, I need to know your secret,” Fluff said.

  Daisy thankfully squeezed in next to her. “My secret?”

  Fluff was so pretty, her skin glowed. “I’m the girl who always had the lowest math score in the class. I know how to write a pretty sentence, but show me an equation and my brain shuts down.”

  The opposite of Daisy. “A lot of it has to do with how we’re wired, I think. Numbers come easy to me, but I was the worst English student in my class. I was so bad at it, I used to skip all the time,” she said.

  “Where did you go when you skipped?”

  “To the beach, either diving or fishing.”

  “I don’t blame you, then. But most of this material is way over my head. I’m surprised they haven’t kicked me out yet.”

  “They need us all,” Betty said.

  “Didn’t I hear that you left school altogether?” Fluff asked.

  Daisy nodded. “After tenth grade. We needed the money, and school was not my strong suit, so I got a job at Montgomery ranch helping clean the stables. My dad worked there. I did a little horse training, too, on the side.”

  Betty lit up. “I love horses! Maybe we can all go riding when things calm down.”

  “Do you still work there?” Fluff said.

  Daisy was surprised the news hadn’t trickled down to these two. On the first day, she’d overheard Peg saying her name to Thelma, along with Moon and Walker and stolen. She had assumed everyone knew by now.

  “I got fired.”

  The girls both stopped chewing.

  “I borrowed Walker’s horse and he ran off,” Daisy said. “They still haven’t found him.”

  Fluff looked confused. “You mean the Walker who drives you in?”

  Daisy told them the whole story, and it felt good to get it out, especially to people who didn’t know the Montgomerys. When she was finished, Betty said, “Mr. Montgomery sounds like a mean old man. At least Walker seems to have forgiven you.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. General Danielson asked him to drive me since I don’t have a car—or at least one that runs,” Daisy said.

  “He doesn’t look too sad about it.”

  “Maybe he just likes having someone to talk to on the way in,” Daisy deflected.

  “You two would make a fine pair,” Fluff said.

  Daisy winced. “He’s taken.”

  “There’s no ring on her finger, is there?”

  “No.”

  “So, you’ve looked?” Betty asked with a sly smile.

  She had.

  Fortunately, Fluff changed the subject. “By the way, I have uncles and cousins all along the east side of the island, clear up to Kahuku. I can ask around about the horse. Sometimes people know things, but they won’t say anything to a haole.”

  “That would be wonderful!”‘

  “Just help me with the math.”

  “You got it.”

  8

  THE PENTHOUSE

  Days began to blend into each other in a blur of coordinates and conditions and tracks and plots. The Women’s Air Raid Defense—WARD for short, as they had decided to call themselves—was becoming a force to be reckoned with. Danielson had originally suggested Women’s Air Defense, but no one wanted WAD for an acronym. Zero Zeroes had become the motto. By the end of the first week, they sounded like seasoned professionals when answering the Oscars’ practice calls.

  On the drives in, Walker was either lost in the dark corners of his mind, or asking Daisy questions no one had ever bothered to ask before. Being with him stirred a place inside she hadn’t even known existed.

  “If you could be anything, what would it be?” he said one morning.

  “But I can’t be anything,” she answered.

  He was clearly in a good mood today, head bobbing along to the radio. “But what if you could? Humor me.”

  She felt silly telling him. “I want to have my own little ranch and train horses.”

  “I should have guessed.”

  “Is there something wrong with that?”

  �
��Not at all. You have the talent, skill and smarts.”

  But not the money or connections, she could hear him thinking.

  Daisy did not want to talk about herself. “What about you, did you always know you wanted to fly?”

  “Always. The business and the ranch were my dad’s dreams, not mine.”

  “I’ve never been in an airplane,” Daisy volunteered.

  He laughed. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Don’t sound so surprised,” she said, looking out the window at the endless rows of pineapple.

  “You’re serious.”

  “Very.”

  The smile spread across his whole face, forming those crowfeet she’d begun to look forward to seeing. “Now that you mention it, I could see you up there flying your own bird. You bear a keen resemblance to Amelia Earhart, you know that? Short hair, sporty, gorgeous.”

  That last word hit her like a wall of whitewater. Yet she did her best to appear unaffected. “I saw her when she was here. She started my fascination with airplanes, but more than that, I was taken with her fearlessness and the way she encouraged women to follow their dreams.”

  “You ever think of going to flight school?”

  She shook her head. “It was purely a fantasy. My true love will always be the horses. Plus, I had to take care of my mom.”

  Walker tensed up. She could feel it clear across the car. “I’m sorry. That must have been rough on you.”

  Everyone in town knew about Louise, so it was no secret, but she doubted he knew the extent of it. No one did.

  She shrugged. “The day my father died, my mother and I switched roles. I did what I had to, as would anyone,” she said.

  Walker focused all his attention on the road in front. He grew quiet.

  Daisy sensed he had something else to say, but she wanted to keep things light. “Maybe one day you can take me for a spin up there.”

  She imagined him flying across oceans and far continents, ice-cold air coming through the cracks and the smell of gasoline on his hands.

  “I still can’t believe you’ve never flown before,” he said.

  “When would I have? I’ve been working six days a week since I was sixteen. And plane tickets are not cheap.”

  The gap in their upbringings stood between them, wide and glaring. Not that she was trying to rub it in. It just was.

  “That’s another thing I admire about you. You’ve always busted your ‘ˉokole and never once complained about it. Not even when my dad made you brand the foals. It was pretty clear that was hard for you, but you did it anyway. Without a word.”

  She looked at him. “You remember that?”

  “I remember a lot of things.”

  “What else?”

  He drummed his fingers on the wheel. “Hmm, let me think.”

  Daisy turned to see a burst of sun slipping through the clouds and lighting up Mount Ka‘ala. These rides were turning out to be a lot like that sunshine, and making her feel close to Walker in a way she could not explain.

  “This is from a long time ago, but it was the day my dad was trying to impress the mayor and took him and his wife out for a ride. But her horse bolted before we even got started and made a beeline for the beach.”

  He chuckled at the thought. “She was holding on to her hat with one hand and screaming loud enough for folks in Honolulu to hear. Everyone just stood in shock, but you jumped on Peanut and took off like a slingshot and somehow managed to stop ’em just before Kona launched her into the water. He was famous for doing that, remember?”

  Daisy laughed. “He was a rascal, that one. And how could I forget? That woman had no right stepping foot on a horse. She was too high-strung.”

  “And you were so cool about it all.”

  “How old were we anyway?”

  “It was before I left, so you were probably seventeen or so. In a way you seemed so much older than me, more mature I guess, but in another way so much younger,” he said. “Our lives were different.”

  “Depends on how you look at it. They were also a lot alike.”

  For a while, she thought about all the small moments over the years that involved Walker. Not that they were ever doing things together per se, but both had been there, living, working, riding. Shared memories.

  Walker said, “So back to the flying, once it’s safe, I’m your man. Hell, I’ll even teach you to fly if you want,” he said. “We could start off right here at Mokul¯e‘ia airfield and take a scenic tour up around the island, hugging the cliffs. You’re going to fall in love, I promise.”

  Being in an airplane with Walker sounded too good to be true. “Now, if the war will only cooperate,” she said as casually as she could, though her insides were buzzing louder than a whole formation of bombers.

  Falling in love was a frightening possibility—and not just with the airplane.

  * * *

  Daisy had managed to get herself scheduled on the first shift on the first day at Little Robert. She thought it might have to do with her test score and the fact that she memorized all the code names on the grid in one day.

  With gas masks and helmets draped over their shoulders, the group piled into the back of a covered truck outside the Palace. They all wore their smart new uniforms and ID badges. As much as Daisy did not care for dresses, she had to admit she enjoyed feeling so official. So part of a team. And most of the girls had bold red lips. Fluff, never without her lipstick tube, had convinced many of the girls to wear their best fire-engine reds.

  “We need to make a statement. It’s our patriotic duty,” she had told them, handing the shiny gold tube to Betty.

  Her reasoning was that Adolf Hitler had banned lipstick in Germany, and in response, American women from coast to coast had begun wearing it in solidarity.

  “Female power at its finest,” Betty said, opening her compact and applying the red in generous strokes.

  Daisy appreciated their fervor, but could not bring herself to wear it. “None for me, thanks.” She hated lipstick. The plastic taste, the way it smeared whenever she touched her mouth, and how she felt like a clown when she wore it.

  “This goes beyond the individual. What about doing it for your country? Or for us, your friends,” Fluff said.

  Daisy could not imagine walking around all day with bright red lips. Especially the first day on the job. “I think I’m doing my part as a WARD here, so you’ll have to take me as I am.”

  “Fine. But I’ll win you over one of these days.”

  A cold wind whipped through the banyan leaves and up their skirts, making sure everyone knew it was January. As if they could have forgotten. Rain for weeks. Closed flaps kept anyone from seeing them, or them from seeing out. Along with Betty and Fluff, Lei, Thelma and JoAnn were there, and Tippy, who would be shift supervisor. Major Hochman rode up front. “What kind of name is Little Robert, anyway?” Betty said, over the rattle of the engine.

  “For some reason it makes me think of Peeping Tom. It sounds like a creepy man who is trying to pass himself off as innocent,” Jo Ann said.

  “Who knows where the name originated, but it sounds rather harmless, don’t you think?” Daisy said.

  Fifteen minutes later, the truck skidded to a stop, hurling everyone into one another. Betty landed in Daisy’s lap, Lei smashed her face into Thelma’s shoulder, and Fluff fell onto the floor in a pile of limbs and blue material. “Now I know what it’s like for those poor cattle on their way to the ships,” she said.

  They hopped out with a hand from Major Hochman, and stood in a line on the pavement beside the truck. Daisy looked around for anything that resembled a command center, but saw only a concrete warehouse with a two-story wooden building sitting on top of it. A few kiawe trees stood out among the rocky and muddy terrain, with a shed here and a warehouse there. The whole place had an abandoned feel, but maybe that
was how they wanted it.

  “Where’s Little Robert?” Betty asked.

  Major Hochman pointed to the structure. “Welcome to the Shafter Mudflats, gals. This here is known affectionately as the Penthouse. Now, be careful not to step off of the wood or you’ll be in up to your teeth.”

  “That is the Information and Control Center for the whole Pacific?” Thelma said.

  Hochman checked his buttons, smoothed his red hair. “For now. Come on, Colonel Nixon is waiting for us. Trust me, we don’t want to keep him.”

  Daisy wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but this ramshackle building was not it. The moment they set foot on the walkway, the sky opened up, pouring out raindrops the size of alfalfa pellets. There was no way to hurry, so they carefully navigated the thin, slippery planks of wood for what felt like a mile, then up a short flight of stairs. By the time they reached the door, everyone was soaked, well-styled hair now plastered to heads, mascara running down faces. Daisy finally felt at an advantage with none of that to worry about.

  A heavy blanket hung across the entrance and they ducked under it and walked down a dark passageway, then out through another blanket. Daisy brought up the rear, and when she entered was faced with an unexpected scene. The insides of the building were as modern and shiny as the outside was ugly. They were in a room with a big table covered with a giant map of the Hawaiian Islands, this one much larger than the one used for training. A grid covered the whole thing. Plotting stations were set up around the table, with four chairs on the short sides and eight on the long. Each spot had its own headset and mini-switchboard to connect the plotters to Oscars around the island.

  Captain Burgess stood on a raised section with a bulldog of a man looking down on the table. He waved but the other man did not. Uniformed men of all shapes and sizes manned the stations and telephones. They stopped what they were doing and gaped at the women. A troupe of monkeys may as well have waltzed in wearing tutus and party hats. Someone in front of Daisy mumbled softly, “Have they never seen a woman before?”