Kam Fong was employed as boilermaker at Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, when the Japanese attacked on December 7, 1941. He reported to work just after the attack and stayed there for three days. "I stood over the belly-up mine-layer USS Ogalala, the only ship with a Hawaiian captain, and cried. I looked across the bay and saw the battleship USS Arizona burning and I cried," said Fong. He lived in Kalihi during WWII. On 8 June 1944, his first wife and two children were killed when two B-25s collided and the burning wreckage fell onto the homes of his neighborhood.
