December 1941 (30 page)

While voting to declare war on Japan, Congress had also voted for supplemental funds for the war effort and a bill to “freeze” all currently enlisted men into the services “for the duration of the national emergency.”
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After the bill signing, FDR met with the Soviet ambassador, Maxim Litvinoff; La Guardia; and the chairman of the Red Cross, Norman H. Davis.
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The mayor of San Francisco declared a state of emergency and ordered a halt to all strikes in his jurisdiction while calling for thousands of Civil Defense volunteers. The metropolis had an especially heavy concentration of Japanese citizens, and city fathers feared sabotage.
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Big tuna fishing boats owned by Japanese in Monterey were ordered to stay at their berths or anchorage. The West Coast felt doubly vulnerable to sabotage and the possibility of a Japanese invasion. Blackouts were ordered up and down the coastline. A “Jap Boat” was spotted off of Laguna Beach “flashing messages to the shore from that point.” The local police issued an APB to find and apprehend the vessel.
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Government officials began to discuss the possibility of rationing commodities such as rubber, tin, and gasoline. The government also took out ads in newspapers, calling for blacksmiths, boat builders, machinists, boilermakers, and other skilled labor for work in the Panama Canal Zone. The pay was good, too, as much as $1.66 per hour.
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Air-raid warden schools were opened in Rhode Island. Stevedores called off their strike in New London, Connecticut.
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Harvard hosted a debate on its role in the war, “its role in a country at war,” and what the war meant to Harvard. Dean Paul Buck foresaw no “radical change” for his school. More practically, Emerson College “suspended classes” and hosted a pro-American rally. “An American history exam was cancelled while war in the Pacific made current history.”
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Roosevelt immediately ordered the arrest of all Japanese “dangerous to the peace and security of the United States,” said Attorney General Francis Biddle. At the time, ninety-three thousand Japanese had registered with the government as a result of the Alien Registration Law.
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The FBI was ordered to implement the arrests. Almost immediately, 738 Japanese aliens were picked up and the Bureau had another 50,000 on their watch lists.
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The government also began rounding up Japanese “in the jurisdiction of the Fourth Army, which takes in the west coast and Alaska, and the Hawaiian and Canal Zone departments.”
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Those arrested were placed in “immigration detention centers” and from there would be turned over to the U.S. Army. The U.S. attorney in charge of the program announced his office would remain open twenty-four hours per day until further notice. They already had in custody 1,200 Germans and Italians locked up in facilities in Montana and North Dakota.
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In Baltimore, a municipal judge, William Coleman, was supposed to preside over a pro forma citizenship swearing in ceremony but instead, he denied the thirty-four individuals of German, Italian, and Finnish origin their application to become U.S. citizens.
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At the time, Japanese could not become American citizens. Over the objections of President Calvin Coolidge, Congress had passed the Asiatic Exclusion Act in 1924.
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A number of Japanese nationals were arrested in New York under the Enemy Alien Act and taken to Ellis Island for holding. Japanese newspapers were ordered closed.
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The secretary of the treasury, Henry Morgenthau, announced “the seizure of all Japanese banks and business in the United States,” to be carried out by his agents.
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He warned “that anyone hiding or destroying, or helping anybody else to hide or destroy, any of the Japanese property ordered seized would be risking ten years in prison.”
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Morgenthau also ordered all communication with the empire of Japan banned as well as commerce under “Section 3 of the Trading with the Enemy Act.”
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The order covered all indirect commerce or communication as well. He also closed the borders of Mexico and Canada to all Japanese nationals and placed a ban on any financial transaction in America by “Japanese aliens.” Those intercepted at the borders were detained and additional security was added.
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Additionally, Morgenthau ordered the impoundment of over $131 million in Japanese holdings in U.S. banks, and all exit visas out of the country were canceled for Japanese nationals. Customs officials were ordered to stop and detain any Japanese national from leaving the country. Morgenthau's order was complete, absolute, and harsh. “All general licenses, specific licenses and authorizations of whatever character are hereby revoked in so far as they authorize, directly or indirectly, any transaction by, on behalf of, or for the benefit of, or any national thereof.” The order was not only aimed at preventing commerce with Japan; it also prevented the conduct of commerce by Japanese citizens in America or any territory controlled by the United States. The United States had $217 million in banks and holdings in Japan, and all assumed they would freeze those as well.
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Morgenthau hinted that his actions might also apply to Germans and Italians.
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It was unclear how the new edits from Washington would affect second generation Japanese Americans, known as “Nisei.”
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One Japanese-American, grasping at straws, speculated that it might have been possible for the Germans to get a hold of Japanese planes to carry out the attack. Another young Japanese man, a truck driver, said, “This is it. I guess I'll join the Army. ‘He meant the American Army.'”
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Public facilities around the country immediately took on a “nation at war” cast. There was an increased military presence, and spontaneously, Americans began showing up at Red Cross stations to donate blood for the war effort. As men returned grimly to their bases, the
Los Angeles Times
noted, “There were no gay farewells in sharp contrast to the usual scene of men returning to duty.”
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Brandishing M-1 carbines, the standard military issue, affixed with bayonets, armed marine, army, and navy guards stood at post around Washington's government buildings, including the Capitol, something that had not been seen since 1917 and before that, since 1865. They were under orders to be “strict.” Carrying full field packs and wearing steel helmets, they were on guard twenty-four hours a day.
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The phrase
war footing
was injected into the lingo while the word
theater
took on a whole new meaning. Rather than the local movie theater, now it was used in the context of “Pacific Theater” and “European Theater.”

An increased police existence was noticeable in Washington, as were increased Secret Service agents, though not as noticeable. But in other cities and towns, the reality of men and women in all sorts of uniforms and others wearing officious badges and armbands took root. The civilian guard around the Boston Navy Yard was doubled and other precautions were taken, including increasing the boats patrolling the Inner Harbor and “guarding of the different Japanese business concerns in the city proper. Guard posted at the Emperor Hirohito Club, Braddock Park, South End, headquarters for the greater Boston Japanese.” Riot squads were also reconstituted in Boston, and an air-raid system was announced.
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The America First event scheduled for Boston Garden was up in the air for the coming Friday evening. Lindberg was slated to speak, along with other leading isolationists. Mrs. Sohler Welch, head of the Boston office, sheepishly said, “If they do go through, I imagine the plans will have to be radically altered.”
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Other America Firsters came forward and issued statements of support for FDR. Herbert Hoover, Gen. Robert Wood, and Alf Landon all came forward.
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Senator Gerald Nye, however, accused the United States of “doing its utmost to provoke a quarrel with Japan” and said that America was being led around by the nose by Churchill and the British. He said the attack on Pearl Harbor was “just what Britain had planned for us. Britain has been getting this ready since 1938.” Even knowing of the attack, Nye went forward with an America First speech in Pittsburg.
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An antiwar rally in Baltimore, sponsored by the Keep America Out of War Congress, featuring noted socialist Norman Thomas, was also slated to go forward.
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The Coast Guard issued a sweeping order preventing any ship from departing Boston Harbor and all sailing permits were confiscated. The order affected several ships carrying war materiel under Lend-Lease. The FBI also ordered the Boston and Maine railroad to not sell any tickets to Japanese citizens, and conductors were instructed to notify the local police of any Japanese on board any train.
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In New York, ships in the harbor were put under extra guard, and police closed the Nippon Club. “Twelve Japanese who were there when the police came were escorted to their homes.” The State Department ordered the halt of all ships departing from New York for foreign ports. “New York City policemen extended their visits to all Japanese restaurants in the five boroughs. They permitted diners to finish their meals, then escorted owners and their staffs to their homes. Various Japanese commercial units seemed to have had some official signal of what was to come. Many did not renew leases.”
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Government officials seized control of six Japanese banks based in New York.
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Adm. Adolphus Andrews, commander of the North Atlantic Coastal Frontier, was in charge of protecting New York Harbor, though he was not too concerned about an attack. Asked why, he replied nonchalantly, because “there is no Japanese Navy in the Atlantic.”
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Those Japanese apprehended by FBI agents were told they were “prisoners of the Federal authorities” and then removed via paddy wagons and patrol cars after they were allowed to pack a suitcase. Upon arrival, their background records were checked and then they were “taken to the Barge Office at the Battery and to Ellis Island by ferry.” Many “underwent extended questioning. Federal stenographers and clerks were called in to [record] the pedigrees of the prisoners. All the prisoners were treated with every courtesy, although they were well-guarded.” Many of the Japanese nationals seized by the government hadn't been to their native country in years. “Some of the Japanese were crestfallen, some were smiling, but none offered resistance.”
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Revisions to the Draft Act were being hurriedly contemplated as the quota for January was not big enough. The pool of eligible young men needed to be expanded, especially as the first solid casualty reports were slowly coming in from Hawaii. First Lt. Hans Christiansen, a marine aviator, of Woodland, California, age twenty-one was killed. Sergeant James Guthrie of Republican Grove, Virginia, an Air Corps engineer, was killed. No age given. Private George G. Leslie of Arnold, Pennsylvania, age twenty, with the Army Air Corps, was killed. Dead American boys came from other small towns including Ravenna, Ohio; Janesville, Wisconsin; and Bloomfield, New Jersey.
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The lists were swelling as bodies were still being recovered in Honolulu and elsewhere. Nearly all killed were little more than small town boys; no one in America yet knew the full story of the thousands of deaths of military and civilian alike. The first Hawaiian casualty may have been a civilian, Bob Tyce, who owned a civilian airport on Oahu. He was seen attempting to “hot prop” the propeller of a plane, but was strafed from the air by a Japanese fighter.
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The Navy Department put out a statement asking reporters to stop making inquiries about the status of military personnel. The department would only respond to the inquiries of families.
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Nor did Americans fully understand yet that the Japanese had practically declared war on America two hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Curiously, Tokyo instituted complete wartime blackout measures, but Washington did not do so immediately. Bridges and important points of transportation in Maryland and Virginia were put under guard. Air raid wardens prowled the streets of Washington, yet without proper identification papers some were stopped for questioning by the police as “suspicious characters.”
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The America First Committee began to quickly melt away, as all now previous isolationists, issued statements supporting the war and the president, and denouncing Japan. The group's inspirational leader, Charles Lindberg, in Chicago—ground zero for the isolationist movement—issued a terse (and some thought) ungracious statement. “We have been stepping closer to war for many months. Now it has come and we must meet it as united Americans regardless of our attitude in the past toward the policy our Government has followed. Whether or not that policy has been wise, our country has been attacked by force of arms and by force of arms we must retaliate. Our own defenses and our own military position have already been neglected too long. We must now turn every effort to building the greatest and most efficient Army, Navy and air force in the world.” The famed aviator then took his family to Martha's Vineyard and went into seclusion, accepting neither telegrams nor phone calls.
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