Biddle reminded Americans that “aliens form 31/2 percent of our population,” while restating that only those aliens with malice in their plans need fear the federal government.58
Japanese-Americans in Los Angeles opened up their own pro-American storefronts and announced they would rat out any Japanese they thought “who by word or act consort[s] with the enemies.” They also came up with their own loyalty pledge.59 Little Tokyo in Los Angeles was a ghost town; shops had been forcibly closed as the Treasury Department had ordered Japanese citizens to stay off the streets. Christian Japanese groups formed support groups. Japanese had some reason to be bitter towards the United States. Since 1924, with the passage of the Japanese Exclusion Act, only 100 Japanese individuals per year were allowed U.S. citizenship.60
For the eighth day in a row, the Japanese pounded both Hong Kong and the Philippines. In Manila, General MacArthur had the added problem of subversive elements on the island facilitating the Japanese offensive, as well as problems with some of the local native tribes and anarchist groups. The Japanese were attempting to incite a riot against the American military. Japan’s propaganda agencies claimed their military was making progress in both battles, as well as all of Malaya where they were advancing toward Singapore.61
Even the stiffest upper lipped Brit was not hopeful about the outcome in either Hong Kong or Singapore, even though the Free Chinese were waging a furious battle against the Japanese. The Christian Science Monitor reported, “British troops admittedly were withdrawing from Kowloon. . . . Britain admitted that Japanese troops once again had gained ground in . . . North Malaya. . . . Britain admitted that its garrison at Victoria, southeastern Burma, was withdrawn following Japanese landings. . . .” According to London officials, the withdrawal from Kowloon was “according to plan.”62 It was a somber forty-sixth birthday for King George VI, who marked it with his wife, Queen Elizabeth, and his daughters, Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret.63
MacArthur issued yet another statement saying the situation was “well in hand both on the ground and in the air.”64 In fact, the conditions in Manila had deteriorated so critically that the national legislature was meeting in a basement and the Japanese had established three different beachheads on the main island of Luzon. The only encouraging news was that Filipino troops had won a fight against Japanese parachutists in the hills outside of Manila. The Allies had already declared Thailand as a lost cause, and Shanghai had fallen quickly.65
In the European sector, the German bombing of London had ground to a halt. Whereas London was bombed some 19,000 times in the month of September 1940, by September 1941 it had “only” been assailed from the air about 1500 times. Nazi air marshall Hermann Goering had once said that if Germans failed in the Battle of Britain, the German people could call him “Meyer.”66 The anti-Semitic slur was obvious.
The Allies did get some good news from North Africa, where the Brits had regained the offensive against Rommel, aided in part by Indian troops, which must have been particularly galling to the racist Hitler. “The Indians captured 21 Axis officers and 350 men. . . .”67 Also, American planes had mounted a small counteroffensive in the China Sea, apparently hitting several Japanese ships.68
Deep in the hills of Yugoslavia, Serbian guerrillas were also giving the Germans fits, staving off division after division totaling several hundred thousand troops. Eighteen total by December of 1941, who were completely stymied by Draja Mihilovic, the heroic Serb general who commanded a force of less than 80,000 men.69
Greek guerrillas were also wreaking havoc with Germany’s plans for their country, and despite their best efforts, the German Army and Italian Army could not dislodge them, in the face of widespread food and arms shortages. The Greek people were starving and, by estimates, receiving only around 250 calories a day whereas, before the war, they were getting “between 3,000 and 4,000 daily.”70
After meeting with Knox, FDR had lunch with his 1940 Republican opponent, Wendell Willkie.71 No eyebrows were raised whatsoever. FDR’s press secretary, Stephen Early, joined them. The Indiana businessman had run a personality campaign in 1940; no one could ever out-personality Roosevelt. The Republican Party of the era was a confusing mishmash of internationalists and minimalists, New Dealers, and the like. It had no coherent organizing philosophy and thus was more akin to a loyal half opposition. The Democratic Party in 1941 was all over the feeble and flaccid GOP.
Willkie lost decisively even as FDR was seeking a third consecutive term, something no previous occupant of the White House had probably ever really considered and certainly not sought. (Ulysses S. Grant had sought a third term, though not consecutively.) Willkie was a Republican New Dealer and fervent internationalist who often spoke up in favor of Roosevelt; many wondered if he’d wandered into the wrong political headquarters as a young man. Willkie later penned a best-selling book, One World, which stood as one of the great exhortations ever written for a coming-together of humanity—or just a big collectivist secular humanistic world. Take your pick.
Willkie was recruited to supervise a labor-business conference called by the White House for the following week, but it leaked out that he might take on even bigger responsibilities.72 The fact was, FDR and Willkie genuinely liked and respected each other.
As with all his days now, Monday was another busy one for Roosevelt as he announced that Lend-Lease to the Allies would continue now that America was officially in the war. He also nominated twenty-five army men to “temporary appointment” as generals. The Senate would have to approve these promotions, including that of Col. Theodore Roosevelt, son of Teddy Roosevelt and a distant cousin of FDR’s.73 Eleanor Roosevelt wrapped up her extended West Coast tour, traveled by train to Portland, and met with civil defense officials the day before. All this was recorded in her widely syndicated column, “My Day.”74 She arrived back at the White House just after 2:00 p.m. on the fifteenth.75
The Honolulu that Knox had left behind had changed a great deal in a very short period of time. A once happy, open, casual, and relaxed town was now paranoid, closed, and insecure. A curfew kept everybody off the streets at sundown. Movies theaters and restaurants stopped their businesses in time for patrons to leave and get home. Bars were closed; people did their drinking at home. Trenches were everywhere, as were barbed wire and barricades. Guards patrolled the streets, and “the use of a pocket flashlight or a match is likely to bring a bullet.” Dinner parties and cocktail parties were a thing of the past, unless the host and hostess were willing to put up their guest overnight; cars were not allowed on the roads after sunset. Even so, many owners had painted over their headlights. Daytime driving was allowed, but gas sales were limited to half a tank, and the radio kept telling listeners to cut their driving to the bare minimum.76 However, limited service on Pan American airlines began again between Honolulu and the West Coast, and for the first time in two weeks, the radio station KGU, a part of the NBC empire, returned to the airwaves.77
San Francisco was just as panicky as Honolulu. Constant air-raid warnings, blackouts, and rumors of enemy planes and ships had about frazzled the nerves of the average San Franciscan. So, when flares appeared in the night sky, they were rumored to have dropped from enemy aircraft. It was just one more headache they did not need. City fathers cancelled the annual East-West Bowl game, one of the biggest college football games of the year. Los Angles also cancelled the Rose Bowl and the Rose Bowl Parade. The Rose Bowl was moved to the East Coast and would be play at Duke University on January 1.78 Still, the NCAA saw its role become more important, as the distraction of athletic competition would be helpful to the nation’s morale.
The U.S. Maritime Commission announced that heretofore, ships would no longer be launched with any sort of pomp or ceremony. No pretty girls breaking champagne over the bow, no glitzy send-off. Ships would just roll off into the water for immediate sea duty, when finished.79
There was a war on, you know.
The gloomy news continued unabated from the Paci
fic. Washingtonians learned of two more of their young men killed. A navy pharmacist, Robert E. Arnott, twenty-one, who had married Loretta Houser of Silver Springs, Maryland, just the previous May; and Lt. Albert Gates of the navy, who was a native of the District and had once been an instructor at Annapolis.80
For the tiny town of Canton, Mississippi, population 6,500, it was even worse. In all of “the first World War,” the town had lost but one son. On December 7, it lost three sons at Pearl Harbor. The town’s eight churches dedicated their services to Eugene Denson, twenty-two, Keith Joyner Jr., twenty-four, and James Everett, twenty-nine. All were U.S. Army soldiers.81
Slowly, a new point of view on the attack was advanced in political and diplomatic circles around the country. The first was the damage could have been far worse. All the first-line carriers were at sea and so escaped unharmed. The Japanese never bombed the fuel and ammo dumps, and many of the ships hit could be repaired as it turned out. If the Japanese had caught the fleet flat-footed at sea, some speculated, the loss could have been 30,000 men and not 3,000 men.
Many in the military political and diplomatic classes also believed that America would have to join the fight sooner or later. What better way to get into a war than with the civilian populace completely united, ready to make any sacrifice, and with the moral high ground of indignation? The Japanese attacked without the decency of the government declaring war on America, first? America was a victim, was angry, knew it was a morally superior country to the Axis Powers, and knew what must be done to win the thing.
If there was ever such a thing as a “Good War,” then this war met that definition. Said the respected journalist David Lawrence, “It was a stiff price to pay—but unity came that way. Thus someday the historians of the present epoch will speak of last week’s events. For it is difficult to realize what a profound change the Japanese attack on Hawaii has made in American policy and American attitude toward things outside the United States.”82
The Allies were a force for moral good in the world, and the Axis Powers were a force for evil. The eternal struggle between good and evil had taken on a new form. Rarely could a conflict of such carnage be labeled a “Good War,” but this was one of them.
The Nazis weren’t merely a conquering national power—they were a warning from history, a lesson as to the human potential for evil brutality. In 1941, not even the worst cynic could possibly imagine just how brutal the war would turn out to be.
CHAPTER 16
THE SIXTEENTH OF DECEMBER
Wandering Jews
Time
New Powers Voted for President
The Yuma Daily Sun
Yamamoto Planned Assault; Seeks to Take White House
The Christian Science Monitor
Buried on page sixty-seven of Time magazine was an article meanly entitled “Wandering Jews,” covering the release of a 151-page report issued by Manhattan’s Institute of Jewish Affairs. The document was horrendous in its content. “Not a Jew is left in Memel and Danzig. The number of Jews in Greater Germany has dropped from 760,000 to about 250,000 since the Nazis came to power. Warsaw’s ghetto had more than ten times as many deaths (4,290) as births (396) last June. In all Poland, Jewish deaths since the start of World War II have been five times the normal rate—300,000 in two years.”1
According to the magazine, “The volume covers 8,500,000 Jews in 16 countries tots up the first full balance sheet on what remains of Jewish life on the Continent.” Italy had passed racial segregation laws in 1938, forcing many Jews to change their religion to Christianity in the hopes of emigrating to Central or South America. “Rumania’s five-day pogrom last January was featured by ‘kosher butchery,’ a monstrous parody of the Jewish ritual for killing animals by throat-slitting. All Jewish men from 18 to 50 years of age have been drafted for forced labor. Their daily food ration is one-eighth of that provided for a Rumanian soldier.” In Czecho-Slovakia, the report noted there had been “no Jewish problem . . . prior to Munich. Afterwards, the Nazis’ Aryanized an estimated $1,000,000,000 worth of Jewish property.”2 Aryanized in this case was a euphemism for stolen.
The startling report went on to detail how, under Chancellor Hitler, the number of physicians and attorneys in Berlin and Vienna had declined from more than half to nearly non-existent. “Today there are no Jewish business enterprises in Germany, no Jewish lawyers, craftsmen, actors or musicians. . . . With the exception of the manual labor which they perform upon a virtual slave basis, the Jews have been completely eliminated from the economic life of greater Germany. Nearly a million European Jews had to flee their homes between 1933 and 1940. Most had gone into the Soviet Union and the United States had only allowed in 135,000 over that seven year timeframe.”3
There in black-and-white, was the documentation of the systemic elimination of Jews from Europe. There was no “Jewish question.” Anybody with half a brain knew what was happening to the Jews of Europe.
Other countries including those in Central and South America had changed their policies, halting Jewish immigration, walling them into Hitler’s clutches. Official Washington and London “have creaked and groaned in the long-winded process of turning out their passports to freedom.”4 The port of Lisbon, the last chance for those escaping Hitler, had closed, and Gestapo agents roamed the city. Some Jews committed suicide rather than fall into the hands of the vile Third Reich. “Scenes at the Portugal frontier were indescribable. Piled up . . . a dirge of human mass pressing to get through. Some went back home, trusting in the promises of Nazi agents.”5
Neither Time magazine nor possibly any other publication of note in America took any editorial position on the atrocious, unspeakable, revolting, repellant, and heartbreaking document. It was duly noted and then dropped out of sight. The relative silence of the rest of world was not lost on Hitler, who interpreted it as tacit approval of his genocidal “Final Solution.”
The city of Boston had finally installed air-raid sirens on the roof of the Tower Building where the police headquarters was located. But almost nobody around town could hear the four big speakers. Later, more were added at strategic points around the city. Stores across the nation were reporting a brisk business for “blackout cloth,” which homeowners used to cover windows from inside. As a result of the big demand, supplies ran short.6 Also, a “booming” business in the construction of cheap fallout shelters in people’s basements was emerging. For a couple hundred dollars, companies would pour two thick cement walls in your very own basement.7
It could have been a moot point as many municipalities changed their policies on air raids and children in school. Several weeks earlier, they were encouraging parents to retrieve their children during an air raid, and now they were telling them schools would be locked down and children kept until the danger had passed. Officials were also recommending that adults seek the nearest basement and not try to make it home.8
Astonishingly, the federal government was making plans to “register” children as part “of a program being worked out by the United States Children’s Bureau and the Office of Civilian Defense for the protection of youngsters in American cities in event of air raids and especially if it should become necessary to evacuate them.” Katherine Lenroot, the director of the effort, said it was in response in part to a school that told children to “go hide in the woods” during an air-raid test. She was confident that parents could be “reassured,” even if children were removed, because the government would take care of all their needs.9
And yet it didn’t stop there. Boston Harbor was essentially closed. All-night boat traffic was banned, and daytime coming and going was severely restricted. Fishing boats were tightly regulated, and space along the piers from which they sold fresh fish was all but eliminated.10 As on the West Coast, the Weather Bureau on the East Coast announced that atmospheric reports were now a “war secret.”11
Boston’s brouhahas went beyond the war; one major fight was over the attempts by some, including doctors, to legalize the
“dissemination of birth-control information.”12 William Cardinal O’Connell, Archbishop of Boston, was mounting a loud campaign against changing the law. Another controversy was how to deal with Boston’s long-festering South Side. After “generations of neglect,” government officials said the crime-infested area was “heading toward ruin because of congestion, deterioration and bad living conditions.” A report was shot through with “overcrowding, disorder, litter.” Part of the recommendation for cleaning up “Southie” included a “need for fewer saloons.”13
Even louder than any of these controversies and certainly the ineffectual air-raid sirens was a big rally for Russia held in the Boston Arena. Ten thousand people turned out to pony up $35,000 in cash to aid the collectivist state. Guest speakers were Joseph Davies, former Ambassador to Russia, and Ivy Litvinoff, wife of Russian Ambassador Maxim Litvinoff. She told the throng, “I wish Mr. Stalin could see it.”14
Davies, in a burst of exuberant class-warfare candor, said, “God bless you cold-hearted Boston people. . . . You may be the home of the Cabots and the Lodges but we know . . . beneath their capitalistic hearts were people who believed in democracy and liberty, freedom and courage.”15
At the time, many on the American left were quite naïve about the real nature of the Soviet state. Many liberals and intellectuals, who should have known better, perceived it as a worker’s paradise; it was only after the war that the true horrors of Stalin’s repressive regime truly came to light. The muckraking journalist, Lincoln Steffens, famously asserted, after visiting communist Russia: “I have seen the future, and it works.”16 The ordinarily perceptive Steffens could not have been more mistaken. But in 1941, with Stalin’s Red Army serving as the bulwark against the Nazi onslaught, the prize-winning reporter wasn’t alone in his delusions. Even FDR viewed Stalin as an avuncular fellow with whom he could do business with, referring to the murderous dictator as “Uncle Joe.” The ugly realities of the Gulag would eventually emerge for the entire world to see.
December 1941 Page 38