were trained to do it.”
“If the Navy,” he said, “has suffered casualties at Pearl Harbor, there’s just one
thing for us to do—buckle up our belts and make a determined effort that will
win the war that much sooner.” 8
The passions, and yes the ignorance, that inspired these exchanges are understand-
able given the curtain of silence that had descended over Pearl Harbor, and reports
of enemy aircraft carriers off the West Coast, none of which were claimed sunk. 9 , 10
The War of Nerves
The President had said that both America’s East and West Coasts were the front
lines of this war. It was in this belief that The New York Times published a set of
Wednesday, December 10, 1941 185
rules for conduct in an air raid since, for the moment, an air raid was the only
feasible means of attack on either coast.
The first rule was coolly magisterial: remain calm and do not be frightened.
This was a salutary injunction to prospectively frightened people. Other rules
followed:
•
Seek shelter in an interior portion of the nearest building.
•
Motorists should park their cars as soon as possible and go to the nearest
building.
•
Obey orders of proper authorities.
•
Avoid the use of telephones but keep the radio turned on.
•
Put out the lights and pull down the shades to avoid giving direction to
enemy planes.
•
Turn off gas and electric service if possible.
•
If bombs should fall, lie down as far away from windows as possible.
•
Don’t believe rumors; wait for official notices.
The rules closed as dispassionately as they began. The public was advised to use
common sense and not become alarmed. 11
These rules were put to the test on Tuesday afternoon when air-raid alarms
sounded in New York City and a part of the East Coast, responding to reports
that enemy aircraft were approaching New York City from the Atlantic. The first
alarm was sounded at 1:30 p.m., lasting until 1:47 p.m. A second alert sounded
from 2:04 to 2:41 p.m.
The experience of Pearl Harbor was in mind as army interceptor planes took
to the air from Mitchel Field on Long Island, to avoid being caught on the ground
in a surprise attack. The Army interceptors were joining the Navy’s own coastal
patrol.
This was a serious business. On the fringe of New York City families of all
Mitchel Field personnel were evacuated, and troops on the ground were issued gas
masks, steel helmets, and rifles in preparation for battles against parachutists or the
much-feared fifth columnists. Radio beams on the East Coast were turned off to
avoid giving invaders navigational help.
Coast Guard and antiaircraft units were at the alert as were New York’s police
and fire departments. Air-raid wardens went to their posts. Ready for incendiary
attacks, they were supplied with fire carts containing sand, stirrup pumps, asbestos
gloves, and long-handle shovels. Special wardens took up their stations on the roof
of the Paramount theater in Times Square.
Special attention was paid to potential high-value targets, including Long Island
aircraft factories, Connecticut industrial cities, and shipbuilding plants along the
New England coast. The reaction across New York City was varied. The Bronx
was reported as baffled, Brooklyn “just a bit tense.” The Lower East Side was por-
trayed as alternatively indifferent and confused.
Harlem retained its reputation for nonchalance as did Little Italy for volubility.
At Clinton and Grand streets Yussel, a pretzel peddler, raged in a confrontation
with an Irish patrolman, refusing to seek shelter so long as he had pretzels to sell.
186 First Week at War: December 8–13, 1941
FIGURE 17.1 See color plate section.
Poster by Charlotte Angus. Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZC2-1108.
A million New York City schoolchildren were sent home. But by and large,
the public took the situation calmly, obeyed orders, and followed the instructions
of police and the military.
There was neither panic nor hysteria nor were there the traffic blockages that
had been expected. Even so, at various times people crowded into the streets.
Others, not heeding the warning to stay away from windows, opened them and
scanned the skies for enemy raiders. The New York Times offered a vignette which captured the spirit of the day:
Wednesday, December 10, 1941 187
In at least one fashionable East River apartment women wardens had a field
day. They ran through the building, breaking up early bridge games and
routing late sleepers. Soon the halls were filled with women in dressing
gowns, with cold cream on their faces, and other women clutching dachs-
hunds and other assorted pets, all converging on the agreed “safety f loor.”
New York was at war. 12
And what of the air raid? Happily it had all been a false alarm. A chain of
miscommunication had been started by a man who telephoned First Army head-
quarters on Governor’s Island, saying he had heard a report of approaching bomb-
ers on a Washington, D.C. radio broadcast. He had simply asked whether or not
the report was true. What did the Army do? Calling not on its own resources, or
those of the Navy or the Coast Guard, it called the Associated Press. The Associ-
ated Press, in turn, told the War Department that it had no report of enemy planes.
Meanwhile, at Mitchel Field, the inquiry was misunderstood as a warning, sending
its interceptor planes into action. 13
The Army made an embarrassed effort to maintain its reputation. Major Gen-
eral Herbert A. Dargue, commander of the First Air Force, said that even if it had
been a false alarm, it had been given under credible circumstances, and that if it
happened tomorrow the Army would do the same thing.
In San Francisco Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt, commanding the Fourth
Army, was neither as kind nor as objective as General Dargue. He stated without
qualification that Japanese planes had flown over San Francisco. He added:
I am frank to say that it may have been a good thing if bombs had been
dropped—to wake this community up to the seriousness of the situation.
Death and destruction are likely to come to this city at any moment.
I am not telling you that I can prevent bombs or air raids in this city.
Reinforcements are coming, and when they arrive we will be in a better
position to do so.
General DeWitt said that he was prepared to talk to people who would under-
stand the gravity of the situation and act upon it.
But as long as the rest of you are here, I will speak frankly. The blackout
last night was not satisfactory. The people do not seem to appreciate the
fact that we are at war.
“Lights must go out,” he demanded. “If I can’t knock it into your heads with
words, I’ll turn you over to the police for them to knock it in with clubs.”
“We were in imminent danger last night.” “Why those bombs were not
dropped I do not know.” Absent the rig
ht steps, there would be death and destruc-
tion in San Francisco. Nor should anyone think, he said, that he or his colleagues
would ever call a false alarm.
188 First Week at War: December 8–13, 1941
In closing he reinforced his conviction:
Those planes were over this community. I mean Japanese planes. They
were tracked and followed out to sea. 14
San Francisco was at war. The situation was less frantic in Los Angeles. The
blackout there was only partial, covering the harbor area and industrial centers.
But there had been no blackout ordered for the downtown area or Hollywood,
FIGURE 17.2 “Just in case.”
Cartoon by Rollin Kirby. By permission of the Estate of Rollin Kirby Post. Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-127296.
Wednesday, December 10, 1941 189
where Christmas lights twinkled gaily through the evening mist. Suitable air-raid
warnings were limited by the fact that in the whole area there was only one siren
of any strength. It was on the roof of the Los Angeles Times building. Its only prior use had been for New Year’s Eve and civic fetes.
Repairing deficiencies in the Los Angeles air-raid precautions must have been on
the agenda of Fiorello La Guardia, National Director of Civilian Defense, who had
arrived in town with his Assistant Director: the First Lady. Mrs. Roosevelt advised
housewives to black out kitchens first. It would be difficult, she observed, because
they could go to bed or sit in the dark but they couldn’t cook without light. 15
The bombs and the attacks were real that day in Manila, which was aswarm in
rumors that a fifth-column conspiracy had used false air-raid alarms and light signals
to mark ground targets. It was also speculated that the raiders had come from an
aircraft carrier that had been sunk off Zambales Province, 100 miles from Manila. 16
One place where there were neither doubts nor false alarms was in the lines at the
recruiting offices for all of the services. As an instance, the Navy said that in New
York it had handled 2,000 applications for active duty in a twenty-four-hour period
beginning Monday morning. At noon the next day there were still approximately
1,500 men waiting in line. By way of contrast, Navy records showed only 142 appli-
cations on the first day after America’s entry into the First World War. David Coward
of Brooklyn, twenty-four, who had served three years in the Coast Artillery—two of
them in Chinese refugee camps—was a realist. “We have a tough job on our hands,”
he said. “I know the Japs are good. You can beat them into the dust and they come
out of the ashes. They are the most fanatical fighters I ever have seen.”
Barrie Fowler, seventeen, when asked why he was enlisting, said tersely, “So I
can see Tokyo.”
The draft would ultimately satisfy the manpower needs of global war. But the
rush of recruits to the colors was a stirring evocation of the national mood and
furnished to the armed forces large numbers of those who would be most moti-
vated to serve and to serve well. 17
An Expanded War?
In Berlin, “usually well-informed circles” were buzzing. According to them,
Germany would soon declare war on the United States. The declaration would
be based upon an interpretation of Article III of the Tripartite Pact, which
obliged signatories to come to the aid of a partner who had been attacked. The
claim would be made that President Roosevelt had himself provoked the Pacific
War, and that the United States had maintained an aggressive and hostile atti-
tude toward Germany. It would cite the un-neutral occupation of Iceland by the
United States, its escorted Britain-bound convoy voyages, its “shoot on sight”
orders and the earlier repeal of the Neutrality Act. For the moment, in this dip-
lomatic stand-off, the initiative lay with Germany. The calm, almost detached,
attitude on its part was evidenced by the absence of crowds or demonstrators at
the gates of the American Embassy, where a lone policemen stood guarding the
Pariserplatz entrance in the rain. 18
190 First Week at War: December 8–13, 1941
Tokyo was not so coy. According to its spokesman, Japan had asked Germany
to declare war on America. 19
America at War: Editorial Declarations
There had been air-raid alerts on both coasts and wide swaths of cities and
country had been blacked out. A true account of the losses at Pearl Harbor was
not yet available. The losses there had undoubtedly been severe, but were they
critical? The Japanese were on the attack across Southeast Asia and particularly
in the Philippines. Amid these multiple causes for concern the Los Angeles Times
editorialized: “ LET’S NOT GET RATTLED .” It asked theoretically, what if a
few bombs were indeed dropped over West Coast cities? The Times pointed out
the difficulty of mounting a sustained operation against American targets 6,000
miles away. And it asked, could a Japanese f leet reach America’s shores unde-
tected, especially after the alarm sounded at Pearl Harbor? This was all cool
common sense. “But if it does happen,” the Times urged its readers, “let us show this hit-and-run enemy that we can take it—and give it back with interest.” 20
The Atlanta Constitution seconded the motion. Its editorial was headlined:
“ BEWARE OF PESSIMISM .” It allowed for the possibility that Japanese naval and
air strength were greater than had been thought and further, that American losses
had been more than expected. “The Japs got the jump on us it must be admit-
ted.” “The nation must be prepared to hear bad news.” It was better, the editorial
advised, to expect the worst, stay the course and eschew pessimism on the way to
a certain victory. 21
The Chicago Tribune ’s editorial that day was a simple declarative: “ WE ARE
AT WAR .” Its editorial was as ferociously bellicose as it had previously been
isolationist.
Self-respecting young men will lose no time in getting out of slacker jobs
and into uniforms. Older men can easily be found to replace them. The
burocrats [Colonel McCormick was devoted to simplified spelling] who
are too old to fight should cease running around the country and return to
such duties as they are capable of performing.
The place for the self-respecting young men was in the Army, the Navy, or the
Marine Corps. There they would be trained to meet and defeat the enemy. Ameri-
cans would have to stand up to the Japanese and perhaps the Germans—something,
the inveterately anti-British Tribune said, the British had signally failed to do.
The Tribune called for a purge of incompetent generals and Pinafore admirals and presciently signaled the change in the balance of power between naval and
aerial forces. Not content to advise against pessimism, the Tribune sounded a certain trumpet:
The nation is at war and its young men are eager to play their part. They
don’t want and don’t need to be coaxed and coddled. They will welcome a
Wednesday, December 10, 1941 191
stern, driving unremitting discipline and they will glory in it. All they ask
is a keen, capable, fighting leadership. 22
Under the headline “ A CALL TO DUTY
”
/>
The New York Times adopted a
more philosophical tone. It saw the cultural and moral values of civilization faced
with destruction, not only by Japan, but by a Germany as yet not at war with the
United States. 23
Economic Mobilization
The war would drastically impact America’s motorists, as automobile manufac-
turing plants converted to produce tanks, military vehicles and aircraft, and gas
rationing loomed on the horizon. There was still vibrant activity on the used-car
lots, as seen in the classified advertising in the Houston Chronicle . 24 There were nameplates—Graham, Hudson, Terraplane, Plymouth, Studebaker, and Packard—that have long since gone to the great dealership in the sky. Transportation
was relatively cheap. The economy-minded buyer could pick up a ’34 Studebaker
Six Sedan for $65. The car was advertised to “run fair” with “good tires.” “Runs
fair” was an unusually candid assessment in the used car business and the good
tires might be likened to the compliment paid to a stout lady that she had pretty
ankles.
For $95 you could buy a Graham Six Sedan modestly advertised as “satisfactory
transportation.” The same price would buy you a ’34 Hudson Six Sedan.
Credit was easy to obtain. Bond Auto Loan offered a $575 loan that would
pay all but $20 for the purchase of a 1940 Ford V-8 Sedan. A 1936 Buick Sedan
with a radio and new paint could be had at $245 and financed with a $275
Bond Auto Loan. From the $65 Studebaker to a 1940 Packard Sedan equipped
with radio and heater at $695, there seemed to be a car and a price for almost
everyone. 25
The mobilization of American industry for war can be appreciated in a sin-
gle classified advertisement in the Chicago Tribune . In large type seldom seen in the classified section it advertised “ AIRCRAFT JOBS
” in far-away San Diego.
“Skilled men needed for national defense orders.” Tool designers were offered
$277 a month with tool makers and wood pattern makers paid $1.80 per hour
plus overtime. The advertiser assured applicants that it had two years of steady
work on its backlog. Hires would work forty-five hours a week, including five
hours of overtime with an extra bonus for night work. As an added inducement,
the San Diego Home Registration Office would help hires find suitable housing.
Crucible of a Generation Page 30