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''It was pretty horrible,'' says McCintosh, who joined the OSS after the raid. ''The smell. Where the Arizona was, bubbles were still coming up. They still are, actually. The oil. The dead birds all over the streets from the concussion. Myna birds and the doves.''

Security in Hawaii was tight, albeit after the fact.

''They immediately rationed everything. The liquor lines were especially long. Once a week. A man came out with a bottle of liquor and dropped it. He tried to lop it up with a rag. To him, it was tragic. People would go out and put sugar in the pineapples. After a while, you get a pretty nice wine.''

After the attack, she says, everyone expected another wave. But Pearl Harbor was mere prelude. Millions of lives were still left to be lost. The rest of the war would unfold elsewhere, within hours, creating ripples that still move the world.

Mark Fritz's email address is [email protected]