For decades, an image of a group of women confidently holding a fire hose was celebrated as a powerful symbol of heroism during the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. The women were believed to have battled flames amid the chaos of war. But years later, the truth emerged: The photograph was taken during a training exercise, not during the bombing itself, and the sole remaining living member of the group didn’t even know the picture existed. At the center of the rediscovered story was Katherine Ah Lan Lowe, a Hawaiian-born civilian worker whose real contributions, while not as dramatic, reflected the strength and determination of women on the wartime home front.

Definitely Courageous, but Misidentified

The black-and-white image of young women — you see four in front with a fifth in back — working a fire hose was long thought to capture a moment from the attack on Pearl Harbor. Published by outlets like LIFE magazine and the History Channel, the photo became an enduring image of women’s wartime heroism. The caption from Getty Images claimed these women were “the first women defense workers of America,” fighting fires on December 7, 1941. The story, however, was based on an embellished caption later traced to stock image archives. When historians began investigating the image’s origins, they found no evidence linking it to the attack itself. Instead, it was revealed to be a Navy publicity photograph taken to showcase women’s growing roles in defense work during World War II.

Discovering the Real Story

The true origins of the photograph came to light when historian Dorothea “Dee” Buckingham traced it to the Hawaii War Records Depository. The archive contained over 2,000 wartime images and a caption listing the women’s names: Elizabeth Moku, Alice Cho, Katherine Lowe and Hilda Van Gieson. Reporters tracked down Katherine Lowe, then 96 years old and living in Laie, Hawaii. Seeing the photo for the first time, she was surprised by its reputation. Lowe explained that while she had worked at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, the picture had been taken during a firefighting drill. The women were civilians trained to manage industrial fires, not first responders on the day of the attack.

Katherine Lowe’s Life Before the War

Born in Iwilei, Hawaii, in 1915, Katherine Ah Lan was raised in a working-class family active in the Latter-day Saints church. She married twice and endured personal hardships, including the accidental death of her young son shortly before the war. At the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, she worked as a trimmer at the Dole Pineapple Cannery in Honolulu. On the morning of December 7, she and her family were preparing for church when her six-year-old son told her that the country was at war. Confused but calm, she went to church anyway, unaware of the scale of the event unfolding around them. That evening, she covered her windows in fear that Japanese bombers might target her home.

Serving the War Effort at Pearl Harbor

After the United States entered World War II, Lowe joined thousands of women who took civilian defense jobs. Along with her close friend Elizabeth Moku, she began working at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, where they moved heavy materials and handled oil drums in storage areas prone to fires. Because of this risk, the women were trained in basic firefighting — skills they occasionally put to use during small blazes. Lowe later recalled that while the training was physically demanding, it was also lighthearted at times, as the women sometimes sprayed each other with hoses for fun. The photo that later became famous likely captured one of these sessions, meant to highlight women’s increasing participation in wartime labor.

A Century of Quiet Strength

Katherine Lowe went on to live a full and active life that reflected the endurance of her generation. After the war, she and her husband George Lowe moved to Okinawa, where he worked as a marine superintendent for over two decades before retiring to Honolulu. She raised eight children and enjoyed hula dancing and bowling well into her nineties. When reporters rediscovered her story in 2011, she laughed at the mistaken legend surrounding the photograph, emphasizing that she was proud to have supported the war effort — even if not in the way history books once claimed. Lowe lived to be 100 years old, remembered not as a mythic heroine of Pearl Harbor, but as a real woman whose quiet service represented the resilience of a nation at war.

Sources: NextShark, U.S. National Park Service, The Mary Sue, Hawaii New Now