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The Diary of a Naval Aviator
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Author: 1271941

December 10, 1942 (Thursday)

December 10, 2017 1271941

Kaneohe NAS Flew our three oldest planes over to Kaneohe this morning. Flew formation on Fuzzy all the way over.…

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Posted in: December, 1942

December 9, 1942 (Wednesday)

December 9, 2017 1271941

Barbers Point NAS This war is sure hard at the moment. The “Battle of Waikiki” is the toughest engagement of…

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Posted in: December, 1942

December 8, 1942 (Tuesday)

December 8, 2017 1271941

Barbers Point NAS Rained heavily most of the night and all morning. Streets near the Honolulu Advertiser Building were flooded…

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Posted in: December, 1942

December 7, 1942 (Monday)

December 7, 2017 1271941

Barbers Point NAS Well, it was a year ago today that I sat reading the Sunday funnies at the McCahey’s…

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Posted in: December, 1942

December 6, 1942 (Sunday)

December 6, 2017 1271941

Barbers Point NAS Rained hard most of the night and all day today. Wally and I had a bad time…

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Posted in: December, 1942

December 5, 1942 (Saturday)

December 5, 2017 1271941

Barbers Point NAS Got a very much needed haircut from one of the towns many new Chinese-girl-barbers. It was a…

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Posted in: December, 1942

December 4, 1942 (Friday)

December 4, 2017 1271941

Barbers Point NAS No hop scheduled today so I decided to go into the intelligence center at the Navy Yard…

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Posted in: December, 1942

December 3, 1942 (Thursday)

December 3, 2017 1271941

Barbers Point NAS Back to the squadron at Barbers Point in time for a 9:45 hop. Wink Hayward and I…

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Posted in: December, 1942

December 2, 1942 (Wednesday)

December 2, 2017 1271941

Barbers Point NAS Out to the Halekulani in the morning to find out we moved from Cottage #3 to Cottage…

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Posted in: December, 1942

December 1, 1942 (Tuesday)

December 1, 2017 1271941

Barbers Point NAS No hop. Into town in the afternoon. Picked up Patu and spent the night up at her…

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Posted in: December, 1942

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A secret for 75 years

Kailua resident James Claire Nolan kept a secret most of his life. A Navy pilot during World War II, he kept a detailed diary and drew pictures throughout the conflict, a practice frowned upon by security-minded authorities. When he died in the early 1990s, he entrusted the pages to his friend and military historian Burl Burlingame of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Burlingame is now Historian at the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum.

Trained as a navy bomber pilot, Nolan was rushed to the Dutch East Indies as war broke out and returned to Pearl Harbor, where he was pressed into service flying PBY “Catalina” flying boats on patrol.

Later, Nolan served with distinction at the battle of Midway, on Guadalcanal and became the personal pilot for Vice Adm. Aubrey Fitch. Nolan said his proudest moment came when in the summer of ’43 he discovered the slowly sinking bow of USS Helena, sheared off by a Japanese torpedo several days before and covered with desperate survivors. He stuck with the ship until help arrived.

After the war, Nolan joined the US Air Force and continued to fly. In civilian life, he was a historian at Hickam Air Force Base.

We are publishing these diary entries exactly 75 years to the day after these pages were written. Except for very minor spelling and grammatical updates, they are as written — including observations that may seem not “politically correct” these days. It is a look into the mindset of a young man fighting a war across a vast ocean.

This site will remain active for five years. It is sponsored by historical-interpretation company Pacific Monograph.

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