Days of Infamy Series - Characters

Characters

Viewpoint characters are identified with (vp). Historical characters are identified with (h)

Fletcher "Fletch" Armitage (vp) -- Army first lieutenant stationed in Hawaii; later, a P.O.W.

Jane Armitage (vp) -- Estranged wife of Fletch, third grade teacher.

Jim Peterson (vp) -- F4F pilot flying off the USS Enterprise who is shot down on the first day of the war. With no plane to fly, he joins the Army as a private and fights as an infantryman until the surrender.

Joe Crosetti (vp) -- Son of a San Francisco fisherman who enlists after Pearl Harbor and eventually becomes an F6F Hellcat fighter pilot.

Orson Sharp -- A Mormon from Salt Lake City who becomes Joe Crosetti's friend in flight training and goes on to serve with him in the same fighter squadron.

Lester Dillon (vp) -- Crusty Marine Platoon Sergeant, in the Corps since 1920. Dillon is familiar with the islands from his peacetime service, so he provides not only a view of the fighting when the US retakes Oahu but insights into the prewar period.

Isoroku Yamamoto (h)—Notorious in the U.S. as being responsible for Pearl Harbor, Yamamoto was killed in April 1943 in real history.

General Yamashita (h)—In real history, Yamashita led the brilliant campaign that drove Britain from Malaya and captured Singapore in less than three months against forces that outnumbered his own by more than two to one. In the series, he leads the troops that invade Oahu and stays in the Islands after the conquest.

Minoru Genda (vp,h)—Main planner of the Pearl Harbor attack. Both Yamamoto and Genda wanted to invade Hawaii, but in actual history were not able to persuade the Japanese Army to allocate troops.

Stanley Owana Laanui -- The puppet "King of Hawaii" the Japanese set up during their occupation.

Cynthia Laanui -- King Stanley's red-headed queen, and eventually Minoru Genda's lover.

Yasuo Furusawa (vp) -- A mere Superior Private in his army, Furusawa is better educated than most of his fellow troops and, as the son of a druggist, has at least learned how to make out English writing. He is the only viewpoint character in the Japanese armed forces to survive as a prisoner of war.

Jiro Takahashi (vp) -- Born in Japan and still a Japanese citizen (it was impossible for Japanese-born aliens to become US citizens in this era), Jiro has in fact lived in Hawaii most of his life, and owns his own fishing boat, the sampan Oshima Maru, named after the county in Japan where he was born. His sons Kenzo (Ken) and Hitoshi (Hank) do not share in his unshakeable Japanese patriotism.

Kenzo Takahashi (vp) -- Born in Hawaii and, thus, a U.S. citizen, Ken sees Japan as enemy nation, especially after his mother is killed by a Japanese air raid on Honolulu.

Elsie Sundberg -- Ken's girlfriend.

Oscar van der Kirk (vp) -- An early convert to surfing culture who never went home after a Hawaiian vacation. He gets to invent sailboarding in order to catch more fish as food becomes hard to get in Hawaii, especially for non-Japanese civilians.

Charlie Opana -- Oscar's best bud and fellow surfer. After getting caught sleeping with the mistress of a Japanese Officer, Charlie gets to join Jim Peterson and other POWs being worked to death digging a tunnel.

Susie Higgins -- Oscar's latest girl, another divorcee from the mainland, caught by the invasion.