Apr 16, 2019 - Sale 2505

Sale 2505 - Lot 237

Price Realized: $ 4,250
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500
(WORLD WAR TWO). Manuscript history of an Hawaiian military base, with an appended eyewitness account of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Illustrated with 22 early 20th-century photographs. 124 pages. Folio, contemporary buckram, worn at corners; light soiling. Honolulu, 1910-13 and 1941

Additional Details

Manuscript history of the medical post at Fort DeRussy in Honolulu, largely written by 1st Lt. Henry du R. Phelan, who served as surgeon there from 1910-1911. Phelan provides a history of the area as an army post, from the Spanish American War to 1910, together with a history of Hawaii in general, illustrating the whole with black and white photographs. The log book then acts as a receptacle for Sanitary Reports, containing various medical issues attended to by the post physicians. These end in 1913.
The final two pages record an account of the attack on Pearl Harbor written by Capt. Andrew F. Scheele of the medical corps. This later addition captures the immediacy of the attack. "Well, all 'hell' broke loose today. It is Sunday and I was on my way to Schofield to play golf. . . . I noticed a big puff of black smoke rise to the sky on Ford Island in the region of the air drome, then 4-5 planes dove down in this area and we could see bombs being dropped. . . . We stopped to watch and got out of the car and found the air full of planes. It looked like 100-150 were there, but that is only a guess. One flew near our car and banked, then it was that we saw the 'Rising Sun' on their wings and realized the Japs were attacking us. This all transpired in the course of 30 seconds or so. . . . This attack undoubtedly is the most barbarous & treacherous in our history & possibly in the history of the world. . . . This is not a Sanitary Report, but I must record it because I never expect to ever forget the sight of those torpedo planes letting loose their cargoes at the resting ships with possibly thousands of sleeping or eating innocent & unwarned sailors, when we were not 'at war.' . . . 1941 Dec. 8. War has been declared officially."