By Joseph Connor | Military Times
First Lt. Kermit A. Tyler was the next man up on the squadron duty roster, so he resigned himself to spending the coming Sunday morning, 4 to 8 a.m., at the Aircraft Information Center at Fort Shafter on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. At 3 a.m. on that day, Dec. 7, 1941, the 28-year-old fighter pilot drove south from his house on Oahu’s North Shore to Fort Shafter, listening to Hawaiian music on his car radio.
The Information Center was the hub of a cutting-edge system designed to warn of air attacks aimed at Hawaii. A half-dozen radar stations were located throughout Oahu, the site of several military bases including the naval base at Pearl Harbor. The radar operators’ job was to detect approaching planes and report unusual contacts to the center. Center personnel would evaluate the information and determine if the aircraft might be hostile, in which case they would scramble pursuit planes to intercept them.