*
It was a great age for radio. In Chicago, 8:00 p.m. found Eddy Cantor presenting
singer Dinah Shore, announcer Harry Von Zell, colorful party hostess Elsa Max-
well and glamorous French actor Jean Sablon. Also bidding for prime time were
Fred Allen, whose gallery of comic characters included the vocal Senator Clag-
horn and the immortal Mrs. Pansy Nusbaum (you were expecting maybe Mrs.
Harrison Williams?). With Allen were his wife, Portland Hoffa, singer Kenny
Baker, intriguing French actress Simone Simon and monologist Joe Phipps. In
addition to keeping Americans entertained, radio kept them informed of break-
ing news, with news broadcasts on the quarter hour on most stations.
Diversions: The World of Sport
December was the off-season for baseball but action was hot and heavy, as
always, in the Hot Stove League, named for time-honored gatherings around the
pot-bellied stove of the general store. There dedicated fans learnedly discussed
statistics from baseball’s rich trove of records and fiercely debated preferences and
dislikes for teams and for players, most notably in the Major Leagues.
It was, therefore, sensational news that twenty-six-year-old Mel Ott had been
named manager of the New York Giants in succession to Bill Terry. Ott, a Hall
of Famer, had been from 1934 an All-Star. The first National Leaguer to hit 500
home runs, he carried a career batting average of .304. He had been personally
selected and tutored by baseball immortal John McGraw, who had first seen him
as a sixteen-year-old and had sagely advised him never to change his unorthodox
batting stance. There were concerns about Ott’s mild manner, so different from
the fiery McGraw’s. Indeed, it was of Ott that the Dodgers’ then-manager Leo
Durocher pronounced his celebrated bon mot : “Nice guys finish last.”
Ott would fulfill McGraw’s prediction that he would never leave the Giants,
spending his entire twenty-year career there as player and manager. Part of the
sensation of Ott’s appointment was his salary, raised precipitously from $18,000
to $25,000 a year. It was a salary that recalled Babe Ruth’s celebrated response to
the comment that his $80,000 contract in 1931 was more than the salary of the
President of the United States: “I had a better year than he did,” he replied. 27
The Social Spectrum: Pretty Daughters
In The Atlanta Constitution Sally Forth reported that the diminutive figure on the dance f loor surrounded by the stag line at some debutante affair would be Mimi
Pappenheimer. She was, the report allowed, the personification of cuteness.
“Scarcely five feet in height, laughing blue eyes fringed with dark lashes, her
brown hair arranged in a striking fashion or after a mode strictly her own—that’s
Wednesday, December 3, 1941 87
Mimi.” The newspaper reported in detail her “quaint costumes” featuring off-
the-shoulder necklines and voluminous skirts for formal wear. She was, the
reader was informed, sophisticated, and always at the height of fashion, indeed
looking like a page out of Vogue . It would surely raise the self-esteem of Atlantans of a certain class to know that their Mimi was unquestionably Vogue- worthy.
She was to make her formal bow at a luncheon given by her mother on Friday,
December 12, in the family home. Father Jack Pappenheimer was very much a part
of these celebrations. He planned to host a cocktail party on Saturday at the Pied-
mont Driving Club, and had invited 100 guests “to meet his pretty daughter.” 28
*
Pleased as they may have been with the chic of their friends and familiars, pro-
vincials looked to New York as the undisputed capital of fashion. At Henri
Bendel’s showing, slim-skirted day dresses contrasted with evening wear in
voluminous folds of nets and taffeta. Splashy prints were chic: white angels dis-
ported themselves on the gray background of one evening dress while another
white gown showed black figures performing calisthenics. If Jay Thorpe offered
vivid colors—Tropic Red, Palm Green, Gulfstream Blue, Bimini Blue, and Flor-
ida Orange—he also presented contrasting black slacks, shorts, and bathing suits.
In a conservative era, a black bathing suit featured a “rippling ballerina skirt.”
There was also a ski toga. And one wishes to have seen the costume inspired
by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police featuring a red jacket, a Sam Browne belt
and a red woolen coat with navy facings and lining. All frames of reference were
shattered when this striking costume was followed by an equally eye-catching
after-ski costume. It consisted of a red velvet arrangement of harem pajamas with
a wide embroidered belt and cuffs or alternatively a costume with one pajama leg
blue and the other red velvet, with a black bodice and a wide sash “for the cocktail
dinner hour.” One questions the amount of time the wearers of these costumes
spent on the slopes and the degree of skill they displayed there. 29
The Social Spectrum: Patriotism Interwoven
Houston’s social traditions were the equal of Atlanta’s. Miss Ruth Pilkenton was
married to Walter Scott Red at the First Presbyterian Church. Dr. Charles L.
King read the marriage service. The organist played as a prelude “Ave Maria”
from Otello by Verdi, “Claire de Lune” by Debussy and “My Heart at Thy Sweet
Voice” by Saint-Saëns. Swelling to a crescendo, the choir of the First Presbyte-
rian Church sang “Oh Perfect Love” and brought the music to a climax with the
singing of “The Bridal Chorus” from Lohengrin .
But on the same day, tradition and patriotism were interwoven. At the Junior
League luncheon given by Mrs. T. M. Noorsworthy and her daughter, Mrs. M.
Kirk Harrison, to honor Miss Martha Burton on her approaching marriage to
John Bute II, the table was done in a Victory motif with a centerpiece of del-
phinium, white roses, and red carnations arranged in a pyramid effect in a Spode
container on a pedestal. The bride-to-be wore a Victory pin.
88 Last Week at Peace: December 1–6, 1941
Notes
1.
Atlanta Constitution , December 3, 1941, 1
2.
New York Times , December 3, 1941, 4
3.
Washington Post , December 3, 1941, 1
4.
New York Times , December 3, 1941, 24
5.
New York Times , December 3, 1941, 5
6.
Atlanta Constitution , December 3, 1941, 5
7.
Houston Chronicle , December 3, 1941, 6A
8.
Chicago Tribune , December 3, 1941, 13
9.
New York Times , December 3, 1941, 3
10. New York Times , December 3, 1941, 33
11. New York Times , December 3, 1941, 24
12. Houston Chronicle , December 3, 1941, 2
13. Oregonian , December 3, 1941, 16
14. New York Times , December 3, 1941, 46
15. Washington Post , December 3, 1941, 8
16. Atlanta Constitution , December 3, 1941, 6A
17. Denver Post , December 3, 1941, back page
18. Houston Chronicle , December 3, 1941, A5
19. Atlanta Constitution , December 3, 1941, 4
20. Atlanta Constitution , December 3, 1941, 9
21. Atlanta Constitution , December 3,
1941, 41
22. Atlanta Constitution , December 3, 1941, 24
23. Houston Chronicle , December 3, 1941, 2B
24. Denver Post , December 3, 1941, 31
25. Denver Post , December 3, 1941, 10
26. Washington Post , December 3, 1941, 33
27. New York Times , December 3, 1941, 34
28. Atlanta Constitution , December 3, 1941, 14
29. New York Times , December 3, 1941, 30
8
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1941
FIGURE 8.1 See color plate section.
Poster by Ben Shahn. Courtesy of Northwestern University Library World War II poster collection, Pr32.4812:A-25.
A World in Flames: The Fighting Fronts
In North Africa, rain and cold complicated operations but the Royal Air Force
remained active. Meantime, rebellion and repression were raging across the
European continent. There were shootings and bombings in Paris. In Brussels,
90 Last Week at Peace: December 1–6, 1941
students mounted a strike against Nazi-appointed professors. The Germans
launched a major offensive against irregular forces in Yugoslavia.
The principal theater of operations in Europe remained the Eastern Front. On
its southern reaches, the rout of German forces from Rostov continued with the
Russians sweeping through Taganrog toward Mariupol. The Germans were com-
pelled to throw in reinforcements from their Perekop garrisons to stem fleeing
units of the defeated armies of Col. Gen. Paul Ludwig von Kleist. In scenes that
would be repeated as Mussolini’s Russian venture collapsed again and again, the
Russians reported the capture of two Italian divisions that were seeking in vain to
stem the Russian offensive. At the same time, the Soviets launched major attacks
along the entire front. The pivot of this gigantic struggle was in the front before
Moscow, where the German command acknowledged heavy Russian counterat-
tacks. From Leningrad in the north to Rostov and the Caucasus in the south, the
military scene was one that observers would scarcely have forecast on June 22, the
day Hitler had launched his massive attack on the Soviet Union. 1
*
Another critical battle was being fought every hour of every day across the often
turbulent surface of the Atlantic. Britain could survive, but only with an unim-
peded f low from the United States of the machines and munitions of war and the
necessities of its population. In later years, Churchill remarked that throughout
the war his greatest concern had been the war in the Atlantic, where defeat could
fatally disable Britain’s war effort. The reality of this threat was exemplified by
the battle of October 30–31 when the U.S. destroyer Reuben James , on convoy
duty, was attacked by a U-boat and suffered the loss of 100 of its crew in a three-
hour battle that it survived. 2
There had been German reports of the sinking of four merchantmen in a
November North Atlantic convoy; and Canadian reports indicated the presence of
U-boats off the coasts of Nova Scotia and the Labrador. Thus it was with “unmis-
takable satisfaction” that Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, at a weekly press
conference, dropped a broad hint that the U.S. and the Royal Navies had found
an answer to the submarine menace. The Secretary was coy; he had no details but
told the assembled reporters that a reading of their own newspaper files would tell
a good story. What the files revealed was that neither Britain nor the United States
had reported the loss of a merchant ship since the Reuben James ’s October 30–31
battle. The conclusion could be drawn either that the U-boats were becoming less
effective or that antisubmarine efforts were becoming more effective. In the USS
Kearney ’s U-boat battle on the night of October 21–22, it had sustained torpedo
damage and limped into an Iceland port with ten dead and eleven wounded. But
news of the engagement was released only on December 3, indicating reticence
in such disclosures. 3 As the long subsequent course of the battle of Atlantic was to demonstrate, any feelings of “unmistakable satisfaction” were totally premature.
*
The Atlantic battles emphasized the extent to which the United States was becom-
ing both the arsenal and the depot of Britain and consequently the extent to
Thursday, December 4, 1941 91
which the two economies were coordinating. The German response was logical.
Germany was also to coordinate production of factories in France, Bohemia, Bel-
gium, and elsewhere, all at the service of its economic and war machine. Germany
was recruiting French workers for service in German industries, thus reducing
unemployment in France, where in addition, some 1,800,000 French were prison-
ers of war. A unified European economy had long been discussed, debated, and
dreamt of. The pressures of war seemed fitfully to advance its cause. 4
The Threat of War: Continuing Conversations
While awaiting a response to the President’s inquiry concerning the reinforce-
ment of Japanese troops in French Indo-China, Secretary of State Hull held a
press conference to report on continuing conversations with the Japanese envoys.
Participants came away from the conference with a distinct impression: the gap
between the positions of the two countries was so wide that it left no room for
further negotiations. That indeed was what the Secretary said: since he did not
know if or when Japan would reply to the President’s request, or to his own
FIGURE 8.2 Cordell Hull, Henry Morgenthau, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Franklin D.
Roosevelt.
Photo by Harris & Ewing. Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-hec-47149.
92 Last Week at Peace: December 1–6, 1941
statement, he could not predict further negotiations. Mr. Hull had diplomatically
referred to the Japanese envoys as friends and the President had in his own press
conference called Japan a “friendly power” and moreover one “with which the
United States was at peace.”
But these words could not disguise the basis of American policy and its direct
contrast, not to say conflict, with Japanese values and positions. Mr. Hull said that
Japan’s policies were based upon force in stark contrast to American policy based
upon “law, justice and morals,” pursued by peaceful means. These were policies
unlikely to evoke a positive Japanese response. Mr. Hull reviewed the long course
of exploratory discussions in Tokyo between Admiral Nomura and American
embassy staff, and discussions in Washington between the President and the Japa-
nese Ambassador, all searching for a basis for negotiation. Mr. Hull had kept other
nations, Great Britain, Australia, the Netherlands, and China, informed of these
discussions so that if an accord were reached, it could cover a peaceful settlement
across the continents, islands, seas, and populations of the Pacific. 5
*
The Washington Post portrayed a very different Secretary of State from the one who spoke of friends and friendship and exhaled pieties about the virtues of American principles. In its report, Hull charged Japan with a policy of conquest and
military despotism, concluding that nothing in seven months of negotiations had
narrowed the divide between Japanese and American positions. Th
is narration
charged that Japanese policy was based upon the use of force, as an instrument of
policy, and in every way—political, economic, social, and moral—both at home
and in the conquered territories. The Secretary of State might have been charged
with a certain naiveté in so lately discovering the relationship between force and
policy. He noted that a policy of force meant the conquest of the territories of
others and the establishment of military despotism and control over the lives of
conquered people. It was at this point that the Secretary claimed for his country
a basic doctrine of justice and equality in the treatment of nations, in commercial
relationships, and in the peaceful settlement of disputes.
In the end the conclusion reported in The Washington Post coincided with The New York Times report: the gulf between the two nations had never been wider and had never reached a stage at which fruitful negotiations could begin. 6
*
The Japanese press did not respond favorably to the pieties of the Secretary of State.
Quite to the contrary, The Japan Times Advertiser , a Foreign Office organ, categorized the behavior of Britain and the United States as “scandalous” and “beyond understanding.” Rather than responding to charges of Japanese presence in Thailand, it
predicted that that unhappy country would soon be occupied by Allied troops.
Hochi charged that the whole Far Eastern crisis was a manufactured product
of British propaganda, meant to justify military action while the United States
played for time with its Washington conversations. These were mirror images of
the parties and their positions. But without regard to the alleged massing of the
forces of the ABCD powers in the Far East, and irrespective of the Washington
Thursday, December 4, 1941 93
conversations, Hochi lauded Japan’s progress on her “immutable policy” of organizing a self-sufficient Co-Prosperity Sphere including Japan, Manchukuo, and
China in response to the imperative need for Japanese self-sufficiency.
Finance Minister Tsuneji Taniguchi saw Japan’s policy not as aggression but as
defense. A highly organized national defense was to him the basic condition of a
Japanese policy grounded on a self-sufficient supply of essential commodities in a
joint economic structure of Japan, Manchukuo, and China.
Nichi Nichi was more open and less inclined to rely upon platitudes.
Crucible of a Generation Page 15