“Had to be a carrier attack,” Will said. “No other way they could have done it.”
They sat up late that night and spent some time calling the rest of the family. Everybody, of course, was aware of what was happening, and finally, in the small hours of the morning, Owen looked around at his sons and knew that this day had changed everything for him. It was the beginning of the struggle that he had known would come.
“I guess we better go to bed. It’s going to be a hard time,” he said finally. They all agreed, although few of them slept that night.
That day changed America. Some twenty-eight hundred American fighting men lost their lives at Pearl Harbor. The battleship Arizona went to the bottom with most of her crew. The Oklahoma was sunk, and six battleships were severely damaged. The American fleet no longer existed as a viable strike force in the Pacific. Half of the aircraft on the island of Hawaii were destroyed.
A young ensign named John Kennedy was at the Eagles-Redskins game. After the game, he heard admirals and generals being paged through the stadium sound system and as soon as the game was over he got the news report. Kennedy requested sea duty as soon as possible. A brigadier general at Fort Sam Houston received the news when he was awakened from a sound sleep. Dwight D. Eisenhower told Mamie he was going to headquarters and had no idea when he would be back. Some time after the attack, Winston Churchill made a phone call. “Mr. President, what’s this about Japan?” Franklin Roosevelt said, “It’s quite true. We’re all in the same boat.” Churchill replied, “This actually simplifies things. God be with you.” The British prime minister went to bed and slept soundly. At Pearl Harbor a seaman and a rescue party boarded the Oklahoma, which had taken six torpedoes below the water line and was on the verge of capsizing. He said later, “I was terribly afraid. We were cutting through with acetylene torches. First we found six naked men waist deep in water. They didn’t know how long they had been down there, and they were crying and moaning with pain. Some of them were very badly wounded. We could hear tapping all over the ship—SOS taps, no voices—just those eerie taps from all over. There was nothing we could do for most of them.”
On December 8, Adam Stuart sat in Tamara Lane’s apartment. He had done well in his role and had visions of a career as a movie actor. Tamara had been delighted to begin an affair. She had taken him into her life, much to the dismay of Adam’s parents.
Now, the two of them listened as the clear, reassuring voice of Franklin D. Roosevelt filled the airwaves.
“Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a day which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. Very many American lives have been lost. Always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory. We will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us. We will gain the inevitable triumph—so help us God. I ask that the Congress declare a state of war.”
A heavy silence hung over the room, and Tamara stared at the young man whose eyes were half hooded. “What does it mean, Adam?” she said.
“It means that America is in the same shape as Europe.”
“Will you have to go?”
Adam Stuart had listened to the president, and a heaviness now lay over him. He seemed not to have heard Tamara’s question, but after a time he lifted his eyes and stared at her.
“We’ll all have to go,” he said. He left her apartment and went home, but only after he had gotten blind drunk. By the time he reached the house, all the lights were out except the one in the living room. He staggered in, almost falling, and then heard his mother’s voice. “Adam, let me help you.”
“Leave me alone, Mom—I’m drunk!” he muttered.
“I know, Adam. Come along.”
But he stood before her, and looked deep into her eyes. “Mother,” he said, and there was a break in his voice, such as she had never heard before. Looking very young and vulnerable, he asked her, “How can I fight my father’s people?”
Lylah had no answer for that. She stood with her arms around him, and he began to sob. And finally she whispered, “Come, God will help us, Adam—but now you must go to bed.”
COMBAT ENGINEER
For months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, America had been living under the shadow of war and turning itself into what was called “the home front.” For the first time in American history, men had been drafted in peacetime, and government posters had a martial tone showing workers, soldiers, and sailors working together. The stream of women entering the labor force rose, finally reaching a flood crest of eighteen million during the war. The war meant well-fed Americans had their menus curtailed by food rationing, and a people accustomed to going everywhere by car had to adjust to gasoline rationing.
Home-front people worked harder and longer, earned more money, and had less to spend it on than ever before in their lives, so they bought war bonds, paid off old debts, and had their teeth fixed. Rationing hit everyone. Shoes were rationed, so Americans walked on thin soles. Coffee, cigarettes, liquor, train seats—all were in short supply, and the most common sight in America, perhaps, was long lines of cars waiting for gasoline at the local gas stations. Tires became worth their weight in gold, almost, and the shortage of silk and nylon stockings brought leg makeup into popularity. A few acrobatic women joined those painting their legs with makeup by adding a seam, but for most this was an anatomical impossibility!
There were blackouts all over the country as a precaution against air raids, and scrap metal drives took place from cities as small as Two Egg, Alabama, to New York City. Everyone did something useful. People served on draft boards and rationing boards; some even flew private airplanes over coastal waters in search of U-boats. Others stood watch as aircraft spotters and air-raid wardens. Householders ran war-bond drives, and many plowed up vacant lots and planted enough “victory gardens” to produce some 40 percent of the fresh vegetables needed. Americans gave thirteen million pints of blood to be administered as plasma to the battle wounded, but not everything in America was quite as attractive as these sacrifices. There were ugly episodes of racial violence. In Detroit, 34 men died as whites rioted against Negroes. In Los Angeles, young Mexicans, usually attired in the zoot suits, were persecuted by servicemen.
One of the blackest marks against America’s war record was the harsh treatment of Japanese Americans. This was the most indefensible of all, because it resulted from government policy. The treachery of Japan’s attack at Pearl Harbor, the savagery of the early fighting, and the fears that mounted with each U.S. defeat—these combined to create panic in military and civilian leaders. More than 110,000 people of Japanese descent were taken from their homes on the West Coast and locked up in bleak concentration camps. Many stayed there for most of the war, but not a single act of sabotage or espionage was ever proven against them. It was not until late in 1944 that the internees were permitted to return to their homes.
Few Americans had any illusions about what kind of a war it would be. Franklin Roosevelt called it simply the “Survival War.” In advertisements, the immaculate soldier at the beginning of the war quickly gave way to the begrimed infantryman plodding through war-torn villages. War reporters such as Ernie Pyle and Bill Maiden showed their GIs unshaven, weary, bitter, and profane. The country realized that the war would not end quickly or be fought easily. To dislodge Hitler from his control of the continent would be a painful, bloody business, and the road to Tokyo would be paved with the bodies of American men.
And the tools for the job, how were they to be obtained ? For all practical purposes, the American navy was smashed at Pearl Harbor. There would be no carrying the fight to the enemy by the seas. The army had been reduced to a peacetime size after the Great War and was having to be rebuilt from
the ground up. The Air Corps had been starved for funds for two decades, and even as late as 1938 was practically nonexistent, according to General Hap Arnold, especially when compared with the large air fleets constructed by Germany, Italy, and Japan. A three-hundred-million-dollar shot in the arm, voted by Congress in 1939, enabled Arnold to begin building a modern air force. The cherubic-looking but hardheaded officer sped the development of heavily armed fighters such as the Lockheed P-38 and the Republic P-47, and he finally persuaded Boeing to begin designing heavy bombers that would carry the war across oceans and national boundaries. When all was done, the skies over Germany would be blackened by flights of thousands of American bombers—but this was all far in the future, and with the shadow of Pearl Harbor still hanging over the land like a gloomy cloud, America geared up its loins and went to war.
Clint Stuart had been bending over his suitcase packing his few belongings, but a melody from the radio, which was in the living room, caught his attention. Standing up, he listened as the song, “Remember Pearl Harbor,” filtered through the farmhouse. The song had become an instant hit. As he listened, Clint was swept with conflicting emotions. The dread of the unknown, perhaps dismemberment or death lay before him, hidden and shrouded in the uncertain mist of the future. He did not fear death so much, but the idea of being maimed and blinded, a cripple to be cared for by others, was a terror to him. He had always been an independent, self-assured man who could not bear the thought of being helpless without apprehension. The song ended, and immediately he heard the sound of Jimmy Dorsey’s smooth orchestra playing “Tangerine,” with Bob Eberly and Helen O’Connell joining together for the duet. He had liked that song since he first heard it, and he remembered when he had been at a dance with Carol at the American Legion Hall. Almost, it seemed, he could smell her perfume as she had moved around the floor in his arms, her large eyes smiling up at him.
The hands of the clock on the chest beside his bed moved inexorably forward, and he hurriedly threw some underwear into the suitcase, tossed his shaving kit on top, and shut it with a sense of finality. Picking it up, he moved out of his room, but he stopped and gave one last look. All of his life he had lived in this one room. He smiled as he saw the balsa airplane models hanging by thin threads from the ceiling, thinking of the hundreds of hours he had put in on them. His eyes moved over to the gun racks where his first rifle, a single-shot .22, still brought back fond memories. Beneath the .22 lay his twelve-gauge shotgun and below that his .30-06 hunting rifle. Everything in it was familiar, and he realized poignantly that he might never look upon it again.
With a decisive motion, he turned, shut the door firmly, and moved down the hall. He met his parents, who embraced him, unable to say what they felt. They were not an emotional pair, but Clint knew that his leaving was tearing part of their lives away from them.
“I’ll take you down to the depot, Son.”
“You won’t do that, Logan,” Anne said quickly. She was a small, plain woman who loved this boy who was her only child by Logan Stuart. “He’ll want to say his good-byes to Carol.”
Logan ran his hand through his auburn hair, still fresh and crisp as it had been when he was a teenager. “I guess you’re right. A fella’s got to have some romance when he leaves to go to the army. Come on, Son.”
“Good-bye, Ma,” Clint said. He embraced the small woman, feeling the fragility of her bones, and kissed her on the cheek. She clung to him for a moment, then released him. He turned and went out the door, and the two men got into the Studebaker pickup. It cranked slowly, and Logan shook his head. “Got to get a new battery. This thing’s about worn out!”
“You better get it overhauled, Pa. I meant to do that before I left, but I didn’t have time.”
The two men said nothing about the war as they drove into town, although it was on their minds. When they reached the Davidson house, Logan pulled the truck up but left the engine running. “I won’t get out, Son,” he said. He wanted to reach over and embrace this young man, but Arkansas farmers were not known for their emotional excesses. It was Clint who reached over suddenly, put his arm around his father and squeezed him hard. “I hate to leave you with all the work, Pa,” he said.
“Don’t worry about that. You just–you just take care of yourself.” The slightest hesitation in Logan Stuart’s voice told the young man all he needed to know. His eyes suddenly were blinded with tears brought on by deep emotion. He loved this father he had spent his life with, and both of them knew that his return was not at all certain. “I’ll write you when I get to the camp,” he promised. Getting out, he shut the door and waved as the ancient Studebaker rattled off.
As he turned to go to the door, he felt a moment’s apprehension. The radio was on, and he heard the strains of a popular song: “Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me, till I come marching home.” Might be a long time until that happens, he thought. Putting this aside, he strolled up to the door, and at once Carol met him. She had been crying, Clint saw at once, but she had been crying a great deal for the last few weeks. “I went out to the place and got a few things,” he said. “Spent a little time with the folks.”
“Is it time to go?” Carol whispered, and there was a poignant note in her voice.
“I guess so. I’ve already said good-bye to your dad.”
“He’s not doing well this morning. He’s asleep anyway. I’m glad you said good-bye to him though.”
They stood there for a moment, and finally Clint said, “Well, let’s walk on down to the depot. The train won’t be in for half an hour, but we can have that time at least.”
Carol nodded and, stepping back inside, got a light sweater. She put it on, and as she slipped her arms through the sleeves thought, I’ve got to stop crying. I can’t send him off like this! I’ve got to stop crying. Turning, she fixed a smile on her face, stepped outside, and took his arm. “Let’s go down and have a Coke at the drugstore,” he said.
“No, let’s have two chocolate malts, the thickest that Danny can make!”
“All right, that sounds good.”
They moved slowly along the street, Carol clinging to his right arm while he carried the suitcase loosely in his left. Almost with every step, although they talked about general things, Clint was saying good-bye in his mind to a life. They had not been married long, but he had learned that Carol was very dependent upon him. She had transferred her dependency from her father to him, he saw, and this troubled him. He knew that he would not be there for her, and he had gently tried to insist that she try to stand alone—but it seemed to be a difficult thing for her. She needed a strong person to keep her happy, and her father was no longer able to fill that place. Now Clint was leaving, and from time to time he looked down at her almost with alarm. She was, he saw, keeping herself smiling only by an act of will, and he well knew that as soon as he left, she would go home and spend hours in their room weeping. She had already done so, more than once, with just the thought of his departure, and now as they walked along, he tried desperately to prepare her for the shock.
“I’ll be getting a leave after basic is over,” he said, squeezing her hand. “I’ll come home, and you can show me off in my uniform. Then later on, you can come and visit me wherever I’ll be stationed. Maybe get someone to stay with your dad for a while. At least we can have weekends.”
“Yes, let’s do that, Clint,” Carol said, looking up at him. She kept her eyes fixed on his lean, tanned face and reached up to shove a lock of light hair under his John Deere cap. She laughed then with an effort, saying, “You’re not going to wear that ratty old cap off to war, are you?”
“I guess if it’s good enough to plow in, it’s good enough to go to the army in. Anyway,” he said, “I won’t be wearing it long.”
They talked quietly and finally arrived at Thompson’s Drugstore where they went in and sat down at one of the small round tables. Seating himself in a chair with an iron back, Clint grinned and said to the young man standing beside h
im, “Let’s have two of your thickest chocolate malts, Danny. Don’t hold back on the ice cream!”
“Right, Clint!” The soda jerk moved away and soon was back, and Clint and Carol began working on the thick malts.
“Have to eat this with a spoon,” Clint said. “When I was little I used to come in and buy one of these about twice a year. I’d always squeeze the straw to make it last longer.” He grinned then, and his hazel eyes crinkled at the edges as they did when he laughed. “I better squeeze the straw a long time; might not get another one for a while.”
Instantly Clint regretted his remark, for he saw tears form in Carol’s eyes. At the same time, the jukebox started playing a song that had become popular, “When the lights go on again all over the world. . . .” It was a haunting, plaintive melody and did nothing to help Carol feel better. Clint began speaking cheerfully, talking about things that had nothing to do with the war.
Finally, they got up and left and moved down to the train station. They were barely on time, for he cocked his head and said, “I think I hear it coming.”
Carol could not speak for the fullness that was in her throat. She had thrown herself into her marriage with all of the strength that she had. She was aware that she had a tendency to be too dependent, but she seemed unable to do much about it. Now, as the whistle of the approaching train sounded faintly, she threw her arms around him and buried her face in his chest. “Oh, Clint, I wish you didn’t have to go!” she moaned.
Helplessly, Clint put his arms around her and held her tightly. The two stood thus until the train pulled in, and finally he had to unwind her arms and say, “I’ve got to go, but I’ll write. God will take care of you. He’ll take care of both of us.”
Carol could not answer. She was weeping and hated herself for it. She had determined she would not let herself go to pieces on his last day, but there was no help for it. She took his kiss, then watched through blinding tears as he swung on board the train. The whistle sounded, the engine huffed and shuffed, loosing a blast of steam, and then the drivers began rolling, and the train pulled slowly out of the small station. Carol stood, as it gathered speed, with tears running down her cheeks unnoticed. She waited until it had disappeared from sight, then turned and walked blindly away.
Winds of Change Page 10