December 1941 (51 page)

Even a week after the attack on Pearl, public information about the health and well-being of men and women in uniform only trickled out. In one case, a happy family received a telegram announcing that not only was their son-in-law safe, but he and their daughter—stationed in Oahu—had had a healthy baby boy.

The parents of Myrtle M. Miller of Baltimore were also delighted, as Myrtle, an army lieutenant and nurse stationed in Hawaii, was also “well, safe.” There was no doubt that young American men bore the brunt of the fight, but a goodly number of women, too, had been at the scene of the battle. Myrtle's father said that his daughter stated, “If war should come, I will follow the boys. They will need help, and I feel it is my duty to do whatever is in my power to do.”
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Miss Miller's words were not just those of a woman or a nurse or a member of the army, but those also of an American.

The names of some of the army pilots who managed to get their planes into the air on December 7 were released by General Walter Short, who was still in charge of the army post in Hawaii. Head of the list was Lt. George Welch, twenty-three, a native of Delaware, who managed to shoot down four Japanese planes, one number short of making him an “ace.” The photos of half a dozen army pilots, including Welch, who had fought Japanese in the skies over Oahu, were widely reprinted. “Lt. Louis M. Sanders . . . engaged Japanese plane and shot it down. Second Lt. Kenneth M. Taylor attacked six Japanese planes; shot down two. . . . Lt. Gordon H. Sterling, Jr., Second Lt. Phillip M. Rasmussen, Second Lt. Harry W. Brown . . . .” All were cited for “Spectacular Heroism.”
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All were handsome young men with full heads of hair, square-jawed, all-American, each with a Tom Sawyer-glint of mischievousness in his eye.

Indeed, the Sunday papers were filled with pro-Allied stories, as if the government had done an information dump of positive news in order to buck up American morale. Stories told of how Americans flyers downed a handful of planes in dogfights over Pearl on the seventh, how American forces had supposedly hurled Japanese invaders back into the sea from their assault on the Philippines, and how British and Dutch forces were supposedly mounting counteroffensives against the Japanese and Germans. The articles were so glowingly positive about the Allies counteroffensive and bravery one could have been excused for thinking Japan would sue for peace within a matter of days.

The women's pages of the papers all featured energetic women volunteering, stepping forward for civic work, helping in their communities. In Georgia, dozens of women patiently took classes to learn Morse Code, tapping out dots and dashes, or more accurately, “dit's” and “da's.” The women attending were described as “busy housewives” and “women” who “ranged from sweatered and socked school-age youngsters to grey-haired matrons.” Classes had been pulled together by the American Women's Volunteer Service.
⁶⁸

This World
, the Sunday magazine section of the
San Francisco Chronicle
, simply reprinted on its cover the first Associated Press alert on the attack at Pearl. “Bulletin Honolulu, Dec. 7—(AP)—At Least Two Japanese Bombers, Their Wings Bearing the Insignia of the Rising Sun, Appeared over Honolulu at about 7:35 a.m. (Honolulu Time) Today and Dropped Bombs.”
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The ever-so-popular comic strips of America—many newspapers carried up to four pages daily—were the last to reflect the war culture. Cartoonists often drew their strips weeks in advance, so it was difficult to take advantage of current events to build into their storylines. So, while war was on everybody's else's lips, in “Wash Tubbs,” “Boots and Her Buddies,” “Superman,” and “Joe Palooka,” all the heroes and heroines of the comics went about their lives, fighting bandits, shady Hollywood directors, and other scofflaws. Cartoonists had not used their strips to promote a political agenda; though within a short time, they would be fighting Nazis and Japanese spies, especially in “Captain America,” whose very creation was as a result of the war.

Theodor Seuss Geisel—who later became know as the gentle and kindly favorite of kids, “Dr. Seuss”—was drawing some of the toughest and most vicious anti-Nazi and anti-Japanese cartoons in the country.
⁷⁰

Roosevelt was getting a clearer picture of the damage at Pearl Harbor, as Frank Knox explained in a confidential, nineteen-page memo to FDR. Scribbled at the top was a note by Roosevelt: “Given me by F.K. 10p.m. Dec 14 when he landed here from Hawaii. FDR.” The memo also went into some graphic explanations over the poor response of the navy and the poor displacement of aircraft. “At neither Army or Navy fields were planes dispersed.” Of the few Japanese planes shot down, “American radio and other American built equipment was recovered from the wreckage.” And, “The
Arizona
is a total wreck, her forward magazine having exploded after she had been damaged by both torpedoes and bombs.”
⁷¹

One week after the seventh, all the Sunday papers contained retrospectives and analyses of the attack, the war, and the future conflict. Many of them were pure spitball, and others still didn't have the full details of the war and the attack at Pearl Harbor. Several newspapers ran profiles of Admiral Yamamoto, not altogether unfavorably. One story noted he “does without the eye-glasses that mark most Japanese.”
⁷²

The
Los Angeles Times
reported that Japanese radio was claiming that Admiral Kimmel had been killed at Pearl Harbor while aboard the
Pennsylvania
, which, according to the Japanese, had also met its demise.
⁷³
Kimmel was alive and kicking, but the fact that the Japanese knew the
Pennsylvania
was the admiral's flagship, demonstrated how much they knew about the American Navy.

Some pieces accurately reviewed the importance of the tiny specks of islands in the Pacific to the war for both sides. The vast majority of Americans had never traversed the Pacific, and it was hard to describe or comprehend its massiveness. It was half again the size of the Atlantic, and planes, ships, and submarines could not roam with impunity. They needed to be refueled, and the men needed time to get their feet on dry land at periodic breaks. If the United States was overlaid over the Pacific, it would stretch only from the Philippines to the Marshall Islands.

Islands that Americans had never heard of before, such as Guam and Johnston, and Palmyra, were all of a sudden known and vitally important. “At the war's start naval bases were being constructed on Midway, Wake, Johnston and Palmyra Islands. Channels were being cut through the coral reefs and coral heads were being taken out of lagoons to provide take-off areas for fully loaded planes.”
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Japan controlled many islands in the Western Pacific and was now attempting to run America off the central Pacific islands. There was concern they would also seize the Aleutian Islands in the cold North Pacific and, from there, establish bases close to the West Coast of America.

The
Boston Sunday Globe
featured a column by Owen Scott who, without quoting an authoritative source on the record or on background, said that the country could not possibly begin to engage the enemy in any meaningful way before 1943. Also, “it will be in 1945 before the United States has its Navy operating in a two-ocean basis with full strength in both.” He furthermore claimed the war would be won with technology and manpower.
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American Exceptionalists would have begged to differ.

Yet other stories delved into how America would administer an occupied Europe, once the war was won. Considering how badly things were actually going, this was as astonishing as it was presumptuous. Still, not a soul in the country believed that the United States would not win in the end.

Newspaper and magazine ads for Christmas gifts included toy airplanes for boys and “pajama dolls” for girls.
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There were ads selling military uniforms, ads pitching washing machines, pianos, tile for concrete floors, and sewing machines; ads for church services and social events and lectures and field trips filled the papers too. Men were urged to please their wives by taking dance lessons at the Arthur Murray Studios.
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They were also urged to purchase “gift nylons.”
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Birth announcements and marriage license applications filled newspapers as did the ads for “naughty Can-Can”
⁷⁹
underwear for women.

Debutante balls went forward, and the Elks, the Knights of Columbus, the Eastern Star, and the Colored Masons all met, elected officers, and stepped up their charitable works. The V.F.W. and the American Legion nationwide made their impressive pool of military talents available to civil defense.

The book review sections of all Sunday papers were eagerly read. John Steinbeck's newest novel,
Sea of Cortez
, was favorably reviewed in many, as were
Wolf in the Fold
by Nellise Child and
The Young Churchill
by Stanley Nott. The new novel
Storm
, by George R. Stewart, was reviewed but not altogether favorably. The best-selling novel was
The Keys of the Kingdom
by A.J. Cronin, and the best-selling nonfiction book was William Shirer's
Berlin Diary
.
⁸⁰

At the President Hotel in Atlantic City, rooms for the Christmas season were going for $4.50 for a single and $7.00 for a couple, per night.
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All the Sunday broadsheets had extensive travel sections featuring resorts and hotels and articles on voyages and destinations.

The top ten movies of 1941 were announced.
Citizen Kane
topped the critics's list, but every film on the list would soon become a classic, from
The Philadelphia Story
to
The Maltese Falcon
.
⁸²
Hollywood and the U.S. government had already begun recruiting and organizing “Bond Drives.”

Some of the first actors and actresses to sign up for the bond drives were Mickey Rooney, Clark Gable, Bette Davis, Spencer Tracy, Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, and Jimmy Cagney. Also a young, up-and-coming actor, Ronald Reagan, though in the army reserves, had been turned away three times for active duty because of his extremely poor eyesight. It was so bad upon testing that, without contacts or glasses, he could not distinguish a tank unless it was less than seven feet from him.

Slowly, the references to the Great War as “World War I” were beginning to seep into news reporting. No one in Washington ever sent out a memo, but over time, all were coming to see that the “War to End All Wars” had simply been a prelude to a new world war. A columnist for the
San Francisco Chronicle
, Carolyn Anspacher opened her piece by penning, “Eternities ago, during a conflict now designated as World War I.”
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But Blair Bolles opened his Sunday piece by calling this the “119th week of World War II,” making the case it had begun with the invasion of Poland in September of 1939, which of course was true.
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The fourteenth of December also marked 142 years to the day since the greatest and most indomitable American ever, George Washington, had passed away. Neither Washington nor his country would or could ever be denied. As the British had learned beginning in 1776—and the Axis Powers would in the near future—the American spirit was an indomitable thing.

CHAPTER 15
THE FIFTEENTH OF DECEMBER

Knox Reveals Six U.S. Warships Lost in Hawaii Attack

The Yuma Daily Sun

Japanese Pounding Hong Kong

Evening Star

United States Lend-Lease Aid
Now Totals $1,202,000,000

The Lethbridge Herald

2,727 Officers, Men Killed ‘Not on Alert,' Secretary Declares

The Evening Star

I
n Lisbon, the port was a madhouse of clamoring humanity, with thousands trying to flee Nazism. The last ship of the American Export Line was about to set sail for the United States before the harbor closed. Only Americans and British subjects with passports and transit visas were allowed aboard. No Germans were allowed, even if they opposed Hitler, and all those German citizens in Portugal wanted nothing to do with the Third Reich. The “pitch blackness of Nazified Europe” was what they now faced.
¹

Still, with their Aryan features, they had a chance to survive in Germany or on the European continent, provided they used their wits. For others, the prospects were terrifying. “Many refugees from Germany were affected. Some 600 Jewish refugees from various countries now in Portugal feared that new developments might cut them off from escape from Europe.”
²
The tales of those left behind ripped at the heartstrings: the elderly couple who had hitchhiked for seventeen days, hiding in cellars, in haymows; fathers trying desperately to get their children and wives to safe passage. Left behind were “kings and dukes, ministers of state, and men of letters, businessmen and just ordinary people, some fleeing because their lives were in danger; others because they shared in the panic that was in the air. There was tragedy and despair, generosity and kindliness, mixed unhappily with selfishness. Lisbon has become just another trap from which, this time, there may be no escape.”
³

As the last ship sailed over the Western horizon, “It is hard to imagine the tragedy of the moment for many thousands of human beings from all over Europe. At any moment, the fate of thousands of helpless fugitives from the Nazi ‘New Order' in Europe may be sealed.”
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