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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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much at a loss as the rest of us were.

The extent of the damage was the only thing that I got out of him very clearly. That was that it was much worse than they had thought originally. It was a very severe damage. Some of these boats were lined up in the harbor and were easy game. It was Sunday and a great many people had shore leave. That, in a way, was fortunate as things turned out, because there would have been a greater loss of life if full crews had been aborad, but many of them were ashore. But the damage to the ships was terrible. There had been great loss of life - absolutely not to be estimated. Knox said that his reports were that the care of the wounded was in good order, that the hospital and medical facilities had been put into operation, and that they were operating. What that meant, he didn't know, but we assumed there had been no breakdown anywhere that the admiral could report.

I've since personally had the strangest private and personal report on the medical aspects of it from a little girl, who is now a grown woman. Her father was a military officer in Hawaii and the family were all living in Honolulu. She was then a little girl of ten. She's now a grown up young woman and has told me the story of her private experiences, which, of course, has nothing to do with this Cabinet meeting.

But it was a business of everybody - man, woman and child - being called down to the chief physician's house and





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