December 1941

by Craig Shirley

  New reports said there were six separate attacks at Pearl Harbor, the first at 7:55 a.m. and the last two at 7:15 p.m. and 9:10 p.m.45 The Japanese government also told their populace that they’d bombed New York City. Twice.46

  Battery powered radios were now being pitched as Christmas gifts touting their ability to get the latest news on air raids, even if the electricity went out. To accommodate holiday shoppers, street parking was banned all throughout the downtown areas of Washington including “both sides of F Street, NW from Sixth to Fourteenth Street.”47

  It was also decided to go ahead with the annual Christmas tree lighting on the South Lawn of the White House, presided over by the First Lady and the president with a twist: “The tree-lightening [sic] ceremony will follow a patriotic theme.48 The invocation will be offered by the Most Reverend Joseph M. Corrigan, rector of Catholic University, while the benediction will be given by the Reverend Oscar F. Blackwelder, president of the Washington Federation of Churches. The carols to be heard would include ‘Joy to the World,’ ’Adeste Fideles,’ ‘It Came Upon the Midnight Clear,’ and ‘Silent Night, Holy Night’.” It would be just too crushing to American morale to have the symbol of Christianity doused by the enemies of Christianity. Events were planned throughout the city for men in uniform, so as to ensure that none of these young men would be alone if possible. Outdoor Christmas lighting for private residences and businesses in Washington was banned however.49

  Mrs. Roosevelt, meanwhile, was on a West Coast tour, discussing civil defense, meeting with Red Cross officials, and meeting with defense council officials in San Diego. While there, she visited her son John and his wife.50

  The unanimity across the country in support of war against the Axis Powers was no less than astonishing. From July 4, 1776, to December 6, 1941, the country had been more or less divided over all matter of things, and compromise was the glue that held together America.

  Compromise as a watchword, though, had been replaced by compel. The American people were compelled mostly by their own free will (along with a generous amount of peer pressure) to support their president and their government as never before. The New York Times sent reporters all over the city to sample opinion, and what they discovered was no less than amazing. “There was no disunity; there was a fusing of people of all groups, all classes, all nationalities, all races, into a feeling of national solidarity. There was no panic; there was the quiet refrain, ‘They started it; we’ll finish it.’ There was no hysteria; there was the cold-voiced slogan, ‘Remember Pearl Harbor.’ There was no more isolationism or pacifism; there was a united people, ready and willing to back up the President of the United States and the armed forces to the limit.”51

  The president of the Life Underwriters Association of New York, Miss Beatrice Jones, said “the Jap attack was the something that had to happen to bring the American people up with a sharp turn . . . to impress on them the soft days are over.”52 A pacifist group, the Mothers of American Sons, voted to disband and turn their assets over for the purchase of war bonds.53 And General Robert Wood, national chairman of the America First Committee, announced its formal dissolution once and for all by an act of its committee. Wood issued a statement urging all Americans to get behind the war effort, something not thought possible a week before in anybody’s worst nightmare.54 Adding to this was the unity among the twenty-one countries of the Western Hemisphere. They were 100 percent unified in opposition to the Axis.55

  Deeper into the polyglot culture of urban America, some wondered about the attitudes of Italian Americans and German Americans. Generally speaking, the Italian Americans in New York’s Little Italy and Harlem professed their loyalty to America, denounced Mussolini, and took his picture down or turned it to the wall. German Americans by and large were supportive of their adopted country as well, but some “dyed-in-the-wool Nazi types sullenly said nothing but looked daggers at American inquirers.” Visitors to New York, where a great many Germans Americans lived, discovered that while most German Americans applauded the United States, they did not do so with the same vehemence as the Italian Americans.56

  To underscore the observations of the reporters, a nest of German spies, including several women in New York, had been caught some weeks earlier and convicted by the government for passing along state secrets to Berlin. The case was thin, and it may have even involved entrapment by the FBI. The presiding judge may have tipped his hand of the flimsiness of the government’s case when he advised the jury, “men are not sent to jail for their opinions in this country. A man is entitled to believe that the German race is a superior race . . . that the world was created in order that the German race might dominate it. So long as he does nothing to carry those views into effect to the detriment of the United States.”57

  The jury deliberated for eight hours before convicting all fourteen on both counts of conspiracy.58

  Private pilots had been grounded since the seventh, and the Civil Aeronautics Board began background checks on the 94,000 licensed pilots in America, investigating their “character and loyalty to the United States.”59 The Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) slowly began lifting restrictions on those whose backgrounds checked out, but it limited recreational flying to a “ten-mile radius of the base of operations” and mandated that any distance flying must first be approved and a strict flight plan filed and obeyed. The CAA also reserved the right to confiscate any plane “piloted by an alien or suspected alien.”60

  Government officials were moving in other directions as well to prevent sabotage. In Massachusetts, guards were placed around drinking water supplies and plans were made for the inspection of milk pasteurization facilities.61 Civilians were warned that if water supplies, were interrupted due to poisoning or bombing, they would have to get by on three pints a day. Under the state and local committees on public safety, new precautions were being instituted daily. “Crack Army Crews” were at the ready, manning antiaircraft batteries and searchlights twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.62 Atop many buildings in the greater Boston area could be seen the antiaircraft guns and men assigned to them, and were “secret storage places for ammunition within speedy delivery distance of the anti-aircraft gun establishments.”63

  Cameras were banned at the East Boston Airport after someone was spotted taking pictures of government planes there.64 The Navy also announced that all navigational lighting and radio beacons along the Eastern Seaboard might be turned off for the duration of the national emergency. Boston, like Washington and other locales in America, was quickly becoming an armed camp. “Sights, sounds and smells of the Army have become a part of the daily life for city dweller and suburbanite alike.”65

  Civilian Defense insignias began to sprout up across the Boston area and around the country on armbands and helmets, on posters and public buildings, all showing what would become the iconic simple letters “CD” inside a equilateral triangle inside a circle. Other patches designated specialties such as “Auxiliary Police,” “Auxiliary Fireman,” “Bomb Squad,” “Fire Watcher.” The insignias began in Massachusetts but spread quickly across the country, along with the specified duties and ranks of the volunteer arm of government.

  Sober Bostonians were relieved to see a Guinness beer advertisement touting beer’s healthful benefits because of its “barley, hops . . . yeasts.”66 Others were curious as to what the pacifist Norman Thomas planned to say at Harvard, which was still examining what the war meant to Harvard.67 Sophisticates descended from the Mayflower exhibited their own form of nativism when the Museum of Fine Arts closed to the public its “Jap art treasures . . . for the duration of the emergency” according to the Boston Evening Globe.68

  Some miles away on Cape Cod, the Selectmen who governed Provincetown voted to shut off the light at Pilgrim Tower. The monument had been dedicated some years earlier by Teddy Roosevelt. A couple of townsfolk complained that the light at the top of the monument was weak, while the North Truro lighthouse was enormously powerful. But it was turne
d off, even as the Truro light was kept on.69

  As if to underscore the danger involved, the famed insurance company, Lloyd’s of London, cancelled its policy of insuring American property.70 Also, a black market for the sale of automobile tires was emerging, and Justice Department officials were busy keeping track of this. A rationing system was hastily arranged.

  Although Washington had ordered the “fixing” of many goods and services in the economy, a federal judge nonetheless ordered fines against he “Big Three”: Reynolds Tobacco, Liggett and Myers Tobacco, and American Tobacco for “price fixing,” conspiracy, and monopoly of the cigarette market in America. In each instance, the fine against each company was $5,000.71 The government also fixed the prices of most oils and lubricants, but not butter, salad dressing, or shortening.72

  Local officials in California had originally blocked the vegetables produced by local Japanese farmers from being shipped to market for fear of poisoning. But Uncle Sam jumped in and gave these very same farmers a pass to continue operating and shipping their products to market. There were just too many military bases in the Golden State that were dependent on the farmers for fruits and vegetables: “to put them all out of business would interfere with the normal economy of the region . . . the Treasury . . . issued an order exempting them from the restrictions which now apply to all other Japanese aliens.” The Treasury Department also issued an order allowing the Japanese access to their frozen bank accounts—but only $100 per month.73

  In New York, the FBI, based on a “telephone tip from a man who spoke in broken English with what seemed to be an Italian accent,” was looking for some WPA workers who had been overheard by the tipster, plotting to blow up the Coney Island Police Station.74

  There were newspapers in America in 1941, and there were tabloids in America in 1941. The Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Evening Star, the Christian Science Monitor were for the most part sober, serious, and down-to-earth papers that more calmly reported the facts of the war and the government—their editorial policies notwithstanding. Then there were the tabloids such as the Boston Daily Globe, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, which tended toward screaming headlines and stories that were thin on facts, but long on hyperbole. To examine the San Francisco or Los Angeles tabloids on December 13 would convince the reader that America and the Allies were winning, that all was calm and well. In reality, while the Americans still held Wake Island and the Philippines, it was only a matter of time before the superior numbers of the Japanese military would overwhelm these two territories as well as others in the western Pacific.

  More honest observers knew and reported the reality: just days in and America was losing the war. “American armed forces battled Japanese attacks on three sides of Luzon Island.” It was also reported the Japanese were on the offensive in the jungles of Malay, their tanks rolling.75

  The stock and commodities markets were slapdash. There were so many factors including: price controls on some commodities, production controls on others, plus the unsettling war news, along with new announcements coming out of Washington. It was not a good time to be in the market. A chart of the market from 1914 to 1941, showing the index of industrial production, demonstrated a steady gain over three decades, even with the big dip at the onslaught of the Great Depression. Industrial stock prices for the same period, however, showed a huge peak in 1929 and then a precipitous decline all through the 1930s. Even with production up from 1937 on, stocks still fell. Airplane stocks were flat too. Eastern Airlines, Western Airlines, Trans World Airlines, American Airlines, United, all showed minimal growth.

  Smoking was allowed on all flights, in all sections, at all times. Some preferred “Kool” cigarettes: its advertising said an overwhelming majority of smokers—83.2 percent—agreed that the menthol brand eliminated “smoker’s hack!”76 Others preferred to give cartons of Phillip Morris as gifts wrapped in “gay Holiday packings,”77 while others still thought a carton of Old Gold’s in the “gay, NEW . . . YULETIDE CARTON,” which offered “New Smoking Happiness,” looked just fine in Santa’s holiday sack.78 The best slogan of the season may have been for the Proctor toaster: “Merry Crispness.”79

  But the best ads artistically were still the Coca-Cola seasonal featuring a hale and hearty Santa enjoying a bottle of the world-famous drink. Their longtime slogan was, “The pause that refreshes.”80

  There could be no pause in the war as the navy conceded that Guam was “probably taken” by the Japanese. “The Navy announced today it was unable to communicate with the Pacific island of Guam by either radio or cable and added that the capture of Guam by the Japanese was probable.”81 Some 400 navy men and around 155 marines were left to defend the garrison on the island. The loss of the small but strategically important island was devastating. “Similarly, Wake and Midway may fall despite heroic resistance. The Navy had already reported that in one 48-hour period, the Japanese attacked Wake four times by air and once by naval units, and that during the latter assault, a Japanese light cruiser and destroyer were sunk by aerial counterattack by the Wake Marine garrison.” Wake was nothing but a little “V-shaped” island in the middle of the Pacific, 2,400 miles west of Hawaii. Strategically, it was anything but nothing.82 Palmyra, only hundreds of miles south of Hawaii, was also an attractive target for the Japanese.

  The frankness of the navy was uncharacteristic of how the military was handling setbacks, publicly.

  During the previous evening, Japanese night bombing had obliterated parts of Manila around Clark Field. At first report, 75 civilians were killed and another 300 wounded. The U.S. Army continued to issue bulletins claiming that the Japanese landings north of Manila on Luzon had been repelled and that American G.I.’s were once again “mopping up” the area.83 The Japanese claimed otherwise, saying publicly that their forces were making their way inland on the big island of Luzon towards Manila.

  The British, more experienced in global war and hence a bit more frank than the Americans, admitted that operations were not going well in the Hong Kong sector, that the Japanese were on the offense, and that the Brits were withering under the pounding. The Japanese agreed. “Japanese Army headquarters declared the fall of British crown colony of Hong Kong was imminent following complete Japanese occupation of Kowloon whose 4-mile-long and supposedly impregnable defenses have been battered down.”84 The Japanese littered the area with propaganda dropped from airplanes designed to inflame racial tensions between the Chinese and the British.

  It was announced, however, that Dutch submarines had sighted and sunk four Japanese troop transports on the east coast of Borneo. Torpedoes were fired, and 4,000 Japanese troops were sent to the bottom of the Pacific.85 In an “exclusive” story for the Boston Evening Globe, the “Jap Naval Attache at Vichy” denied that pilots for his country were using the planes as “human torpedoes” calling it a “myth.” The paper also claimed that neither Washington nor London was pressuring Moscow to get into the fight against the Japanese.86 The same day, however, the Washington Post ran a story saying “Tokyo admits using ‘human torpedoes.’”87 It was the war’s first confirmation of kamikaze pilots.

  Reporters caught up with the widow of Captain Colin P. Kelly Jr., the twenty-six-year-old West Point grad and pilot who was credited with the sinking of the Haruna. Mrs. Marion Kelly was calm, saying “I know he’s happy,” of her now-deceased husband. Photographed on her lap was one-and-a-half-year-old Colin P. Kelly III, nicknamed “Corky.” His mother bravely, if also forlornly, continued, “And Corky will be proud too.” The mother and son had little choice as the most important man in their lives was dead. There was little left in the emptiness except pride and pain, a Gold Star in a window to replace the Blue Star that had previously been displayed, and, under the improved pension legislation for war widows, $42.50 a month for the rest of Mrs. Kelly’s life or until that time as she remarried, from a grateful government.88 But the curly headed, handsome young pil
ot with the wide-set eyes would never walk through the door of his home again, never again throw his arms around his wife, never again have a son bound up into a warm embrace.

  Unfortunately, the Kelly’s would be one of the first of many who would bravely tell reporters how “proud” they were of the men in their family who had fallen in the new war.89 The first Gold Star of World War II had already been awarded to the mother of Private Joseph G. Moser by Mrs. Mathilda Burling, president of the Gold Star Mothers of America.90

  A tradition of the first war had been revived. Blue stars in the front windows of American homes denoted a family member in the service. Silver stars were for a family member who’d been wounded. And then there were the Gold Stars. So many more sad stories were yet to come of dead soldiers and sailors.

  In war, it always seems that the women and the children are the ones who suffer the most.

  CHAPTER 14

  THE FOURTEENTH OF DECEMBER

  Civil Service Law Bars Aliens from Federal Payroll

  Boston Sunday Globe

  San Francisco’s Women Get Ready to Fight

  San Francisco Chronicle

  U.S. Flyers Battle Japs in Manila Raid

  The Sunday Star

  Japanese Report Fate of Hong Kong Sealed

  Los Angeles Times

  Seven days after the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, 836 days after the surprise German attack on Poland, and three days after Nazi Germany and fascist Italy declared war on the United States, an observer needed a scorecard to tell who, around the globe, was at war with whom. The Associated Press went so far as to use a sports metaphor in calling it a “lineup.”1