December 1941 (50 page)

As a consequence of rumors, the postmaster general had to go so far as to issue a statement saying there would be no censorship of in-country mail.
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Civilians were also admonished to be careful what they said and to whom, especially “ship movements or other information which might be valuable to the enemy. You are violating the security of the United States and endangering the lives of your fellow Americans if you fail to observe . . . precautions.” A Five Point Plan was released, all of it urging civilians in each of the points: “Don't discuss . . . . concentrations . . . movements . . . new weapons . . . naval personnel.”
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In other words, shut up.

But, curiously, newspapers were still publishing the billeting and deployment of individual G.I.'s, naming names and destinations.

More guidelines were issued for blackouts. “Matches and cigarettes used on open streets are easily spotted by rooftop watchers.” Eleanor Roosevelt advised Americans that the government was worried about poison gas attacks, implying that the Japanese had used gas against the Chinese. She also suggested that in order to keep children calm, parents should teach them “war is a game.”
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Long stories appeared advising people on how to deal with a gas attack by the Japanese. Evacuation plans were developed, and Congress debated the bill to fund gas masks for the civilian population. Initially, the government wanted to distribute 38 million gas masks along the East and West Coasts.
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Bombing chitchat continued endlessly. In the militarily unimportant area of San Joaquin Valley, a mass exodus of farmers and farm workers ensued after rumors spread that they were about to be bombed.
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Still, there was reason to be concerned. Law enforcement officials found evidence of attempted sabotage at dams in both California and Maryland. Advice columnists and veterans of the London bombings urged Americans that work was the best therapy for getting over the bombing jitters. When asked by the Gallup polling organization, a plurality of Americans on both coasts believed they might be bombed.
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Stories appeared in newspapers on the “dos and don'ts for handling fire bombs,” giving readers tips on what to do should one fall in a backyard undetonated. “Suppose an incendiary bomb fell in your vicinity, what would you do?”
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Some training sessions to teach civilians how to handle undetonated bombs were called by the dubious moniker, “skull practice.”
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The president's eldest son, James, went on active duty for the marines. In short order, all four Roosevelt boys would be in uniform, John, Elliot, and Franklin Jr. The recruiting offices of the country were still being inundated with applicants, some who had been sent away more than once due to the outpouring. “Boys” and “white-haired men” continued to show up.
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One young man in New York was so deeply moved by the war and the sacrifices of his fellow Americans that he changed his status from conscientious objector to 1-A. “In the face of this dastardly inhuman attack . . . I feel my stand as a conscientious objector in untenable. I feel proud to admit that I have made a mistake in taking the impractical stand of pacifism and repudiate it without the slightest reservation or hesitation. I stand ready to serve!” The wire story did not release the name of the young man for obvious reasons.
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In newspapers throughout the country, stories of young men (and some women) in the war zone or in flight school or gunnery school or boot camp or nursing school began to appear, generated by proud parents and other family members.

And more were turning up dead. A headline in the
Atlanta Constitution
read, “Georgian Killed in Hawaii Attack.” It told of Lt. Ralph Hollis of the Navy.
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On the front page of the
Birmingham News
was another headline, “Lauderdale Negro Killed in Naval Engagement,” its story telling of twenty-three-year-old Anthony Hawkins Jr. who had “died in action” in Hawaii.
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In Lynn, Massachusetts, the parents of Army Private Leo E. A. Gagne were making plans for his mass. He'd been killed at Hickam Field in Hawaii. The outpouring of friends and strangers, like everyplace else in America, was awe inspiring. “Members of his grief-stricken family had hardly made announcement of their plans to have a mass celebrated in the hero's memory when veterans of World War I offered to join them by paying military honors.” Also, the local Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion, along with community groups, came out to pay tribute and console the grieving family. The burial would not be anytime soon however. “The body will not be returned to this country until hostilities have ended, according to the War Department.”
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High school students were assembling stretchers and first-aid chests for carrying bandages and medicines.
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In Miami, a blind man offered his services and those of his seeing-eye dog to help people in blackouts.
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Boy Scouts were distributing 5 million air-raid posters.
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Yet another newspaper account told of a senior class deferring the $37.50 collected for a trip to the purchase of war bonds instead.
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Meanwhile, school kids in New York could be heard singing, “Hi-ho, hi-ho, we're off for Tokyo, to bomb each Jap, right off the map, hi-ho, hi-ho.”
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Such stories appeared by the thousands.

Civic mindedness was deep in the culture now. While not necessarily the clean-living model, a nonetheless patriotic group of strippers at the Follies Theatre in Los Angeles, led by Miss Dorothy Darling, pledged they would purchase $500 worth of war bonds each week.
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Nationally, the American Automobile Association organized an effort to drive women and children to and from military bases while also transporting soldiers and sailors to their new duty stations.
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Virtually everyone was supporting the war effort now.

The final nail was driven in the coffin for the America First Committee. They'd already folded their tent, but not before the storefront of its New York office was besieged with “junior clerks, office boys and stenographers [who] made it a point to pass by the . . . office during the lunch hour and by, shouted remarks and finger postures added to the discomfiture of the staff.” A “for rent” sign was hung in the window.
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A week earlier, the organization had bragged about setting up shop in every congressional district in the country, as a means of pressuring federal candidates into adopting their nonintervention agenda. Now the organization was deader than a doornail, and the former head of the organization, General Robert E. Wood, offered his services as a former military commander to President Roosevelt.
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Wood was a highly decorated and much-esteemed veteran of the Great War.

Congress was nearing passage of a new Selective Service Act, the word “selective” being, by and large, window dressing. The aim was to scoop up as many males as possible. The 1-A classification referred to all able-bodied young, male American citizens between the ages of eighteen and forty-four years of age. The classification of 2-A was reserved for men whose work was considered essential, including many professional baseball players after January of 1942. The classification of 2-B was for men working in war industries, and 3-A was for married men.
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Government officials made it plain, however, that any jobs in the private sector filled by women would be vacated for men once they returned from combat.
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But a federal circuit court of appeals made clear that there was no college deferment for studies or athletics. A football player at Gonzaga University sought to defer being drafted until he finished his gridiron career, but the court threw him for a loss.
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Also, the U.S. Golf Association and the PGA mulled over suspension of the pro links tour for the duration of the war, and military leaders called for cancelling the Rose Bowl.
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The PGA considered a suspension, in part because of tour crowds on the West Coast. “Japanese planes have been seen reconnoitering over San Francisco. Machine gunners and bombers have a fondness for targets of that nature,” reported the
Sunday Star
.
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The amateur and professional tennis tours made no indication of cancelling their seasons. Bobby Riggs was the number one ranked player in the world.
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Movie director Frank Capra was anxiously awaiting his orders. His
Meet John Doe
had premiered in May. On the twelfth, five days after Pearl Harbor, he'd accepted a commission as major in the
Army Signal Corps
, and on the thirteenth he'd wrapped principal photography on
Arsenic and Old Lace
with Cary Grant and Priscilla Lane; only editing remained.
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Capra had already served in “World War I” (as the
Los Angeles Times
called it) as a math instructor at Ft. Scott in San Francisco.
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Soon, General George C. Marshall would give the talented young filmmaker a vital assignment: to create a documentary series called
Why We Fight
that explained to Americans the stakes involved in this world war, outlining the differences between American democracy and the totalitarian systems overseas.
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Meanwhile, in case anyone in Tinseltown didn't get the message, big prints ads were purchased telling readers that, “All theatres are open and operating as usual! Even during Blackouts the show goes on as usual, with outside lighting curtailed in cooperation with the Citizens Defense Committee.”
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War work was proving deadly, and not just for those in uniform. At a munitions plant in Iowa, a massive explosion killed nine and badly injured twenty.
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Over the course of the war, thousands of civilians would be killed in the war industry or because of new procedures. In Los Angeles, a man fell into a culvert and drowned during a blackout.
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With many of the ships in the sea lanes running without lights, a collision involving a commercial vessel, the
Oregon
, and an unnamed navy ship off of Nantucket resulted in the death of seventeen sailors.
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Risk came with the territory for all Americans nowadays.

If American sacrifices and rationing were austere, Canada's were downright Scrooge-like. The country rationed gasoline and prohibited the manufacturing of “bicycles, tricycles, children's metal wagons, ice skates, roller skates, beds and furniture and appliances of every sort made of metal, such as electric broilers, fans, grills, irons, electric tea kettles and a host of other metal objects of everyday use are not to be manufactured except by permit.”
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While Americans would not experience gasoline rationing (not yet anyway), the quality of their gasoline would go down. The anti-knocking ingredient—tetraethyl lead—that gave gasoline the octane so needed for automobiles was considerably more essential for the high performance engines of American airplanes. It would also mean that miles per gallon would drop, significantly.
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Questions arose again, about food and food supplies. During the Great War, American housewives had experienced food shortages and “to a housewife, a world war is a world war.” Government officials cooed that this time it would be different. Supplies were high, sugar could be expected to continue arriving from Hawaii, and new oils, to replace coconut and palm oil from the Far East, could be acquired from South American countries. Also, foodstuffs would not be shipped overseas in the quantities of the last war. Still, this did not stop the rush of food buying, especially of flour, canned vegetables, and sugar (with good reason). Soap manufactures and sugar producers were rationing sales to wholesalers, in the hopes of stopping hoarders.
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The Office of Production Management moved in and banned sugar-hoarding outright.
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Then the government moved in and curbed the shipment of sugar altogether. Rationing began. “The federal restrictions are aimed chiefly at candy and soft drink manufacturers and bakeries.”
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War was also costly. It would be financed with bonds and taxes and bank loans. The nation's banks as of the tenth had assets of $3.8 billion: “This indicated that the banks still have vast idle funds for financing the war.”
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And yet every day there were fresh stories in the papers about the young and old, the poor and rich, black and white, male and female, all purchasing defense bonds, some with their last few dollars.

Now, on a war footing, the country was divided into nine regions in order to facilitate military and civilians responses to possible attacks. The country was not divided on the economy however. By a better than 2-1 margin, Americans supported wage and price controls as a means of combating inflation as well as “war profiteering.”
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The cost of living had been rising, doubling in less than six months with no compelling argument other than government control offered.
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In New York, bulldozers moved in to knock down the last of the 1939 World's Fair exhibits, including a pavilion created by the Japanese government to symbolize the eternal friendship of the American and the Japanese people.
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The World's Fair had showcased many technological marvels and was enormously popular. It was at this venue that Radio Corporation of America (RCA) introduced television to the American public, an astounding invention that had to wait until war's end to come to fruition.
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In 1941, the Fair's disintegrating remnants stood as a poignant reminder of a more peaceful and productive direction that the world could have taken, but didn't.