December 1941
Page 60
One thing was for sure. War was not only hell, it was expensive. As Roosevelt and his advisors tallied things, to effectively prosecute the war would take roughly half the national economy by midyear 1943; that was about fifty billion dollars. Yet another name was coined for the effort. It would be called, imaginatively, “The War Program.” Even as the president told the press about such enormous sums, he pooh-poohed the money owed the U.S. by Britain under Lend-Lease. “Bookkeeping and questions of repayment . . . are almost a thing of the past,” he breezily asserted.9
He also announced that the government was seriously considering going on “Daylight Savings” for 1942. “Mr. Roosevelt recalled that estimates were made that as much as 500,000 kilowatt hours of electric energy would be saved each day by a country-wide program extended from the spring to the fall. That, he added, is an awful lot of power.”10
Funding had already gone forth though for a massive building program of Liberty Ships, which would become famous as the backbone of the Maritime navy. The very first Liberty ship, the Patrick Henry, had been completed in September of 1941 but was commissioned in December. The initial plan of the Maritime Commission was to build 312 of these workhorse boats, which were used for all manner of transporting goods and troops. The Patrick Henry was quickly followed by the John Randolph and the American Mariner and shortly, hundreds more would be splashed with little fanfare, but much admiration.11
Bond sales had exploded in the month of December as Americans bought more than $400 million worth of the paper notes signifying their loan to the U.S. government, but Treasury officials said, when all is said and done, the total haul could go as high as $500 million. Many banks and Bond offices had actually run out, because of the run on Bonds. November saw less than half that number, around $220 million. “War probably was the big stimulus,” the Associated Press dryly noted.12
Congressman W. Disney, Democrat of Oklahoma, was not fantasizing when he proposed a massive $11 billion dollar tax increase to pay for the national emergency.13 Morganthau said in no uncertain terms that to conduct the war successfully meant a “considerable rearrangement of people’s finances.”14
Part of the cost of the new war would go for the proposed new women’s volunteer army. A supplementary to the regular army, “Women volunteers in khaki uniforms would be enrolled as privates and officers of the U.S. Army under a plan approved . . . by the War Department and now awaiting congressional action.”15 The plan for voluntary women to back up the men was the brainchild of Congresswoman Edith Nourse Rodgers, a Republican from Massachusetts. The inspiration had come from the auxiliary organizations of women in Great Britain who worked in uniform in the front office to support the men in uniform at the front. Secretary of War Henry Stimson was all for it.
The women, it was proposed, would be stationed right along with the men at military bases around the globe and the pay would be similar to that of the men. These women, it was envisioned, would practice close-order drilling and the officers and noncommissioned officers would be picked by merit. “They would live in barracks and be subject to military discipline. Outside of several drill hours weekly they would do clerical and secretarial jobs and work as teleprinter operators, cooks, bakers, dieticians, pharmacists, telephone operators and hospital and laboratory technicians.”16 Stimson also envisioned they could take over the entire air warning system in the country, replacing the voluntary hodgepodge set up by the Office of Civil Defense.
Cigarettes would not go up in cost after all, at least for the foreseeable future. The millions of smokers in America, from the president down to the neighborhood paperboy, heaved a smoky sigh of relief when the government stepped in to prevent the hike. The American Tobacco Company had refused the request to hold the line on a price increase by the Office of Price Administration so the OPM changed the request to an edict that no tobacco companies could raise the price of a pack of cigarettes. Americans were free to smoke abundantly and cheaply.17
Washington also ordered that manufacturers of soap and paint were barred from hoarding eighteen hundred different kinds of fats and oils. Everything from cottonseed to “lemon, camphor, clove, wintergreen and citronella” was covered by the directive from the OPM.18 The OPM was also displeased with the allocation of all raw materials to the war effort and one official called for the control of all such supplies from the “bottom up.”19
The nation’s capital was laying in the final plans for the mandated tire-rationing program to begin January 5, 1942. “The ordinary civilian motorist probably has bought his last new tire for a long time to come.” The administration of much of the program would be laid off on the state governments to administer. One governor when told his state would handle the bureaucracy responded, “Where’s the money coming from?”20 Companies such as the Firestone Tire and Rubber Co. took out full-page ads in publications explaining essentially why they could no longer sell new tires. They also produced a booklet entitled, “How to Get More Mileage from Your Tires.”21
Some saw the silver lining in the rubber rationing. According to a Gallup survey, a majority of Americans did nothing for exercise, and that the walking that came with the new realities was a benefit because “health authorities [urged] Americans to take more exercise.” The survey noted that among those Americans who did walk, “the medium average distance walked in any one day is only about one and one half miles.”22 These paternalistic assertions must have come as a surprise to the many Americans who hoed fields, worked with their hands, operated heavy equipment, lifted dirty laundry, shoveled snow off their sidewalks, raked yards, threw newspapers while they pedaled bicycles, carried groceries out of the store and into the kitchen, lifted barges, and toted bales.
Meanwhile, officials of the National Stockyards reported a “marked increase” in purchases of horses and mules.23
As New Year’s Eve was fast-approaching, women were buying out the remaining stocks of silk stockings for those under-exercised legs. The previous August, the government had mandated that no more silk stockings be manufactured but retailers could sell out their inventories, though “promotion of Nylon and new constructions of other fibers are expected to expand to cushion exhausting of the all-silk product.”24
Rumors were going around military circles that Adolf Hitler would be ousted in a military coup in 1942 and replaced by a military junta. Rumors were also cirulating that German generals had secretly flown to Ireland for God knows what. A German plane had made a forced landing in Ireland recently, but there was no one above the rank of a sergeant in the plane. German planes were however over London in large waves for the first time in a long time as it was the first anniversary of the giant firebombing of the old city by the Luftwaffe. This bombing lacked the punch of earlier German over-flights and the stiff-upper-lipped Brits brushed off the attack, as they would a buzzing mosquito. “ [D]amage nowhere was serious and the number of casualties were small,” ran one report.25
Rumors were rampant in the Dutch East Indies “that Allied reinforcements were on their way to the Pacific and that a general offensive against Japan could be expected soon.”26 There were no reinforcements coming.
Great Britain retaliated to the renewed shelling of London, by bombing Nazi-held installations along the coast of France all the way to Norway; a thousand-mile front. The British hit munitions plants, synthetic rubber plants, sunk eight ships, blew up oil stores, ammunition dumps, and hit other assorted targets.27 The British attack had more sting with their Mosquito bombers than did the Germans with their Junkers.
Adolf Hitler sat down for an interview with the famed war correspondent Pierre J. Huss, British correspondent for the International News Service. When asked who was the cause of the war, the Führer said, “Ja, Herr Roosevelt—and his Jews.” He also dismissed the rumor that he “chews rugs” when irate. The setting could have been that of a pleasant grandfather—roaring fire, rain pelting at the window, a dog—with a “swastika collar strolled lazily up to Hitler and nuzzled his hand. He stroked t
he head. . . .” His paranoia of FDR was evident though. “He wants to run the world and rob us all of a place in the sun. He says he wants to save England but he means he wants to be ruler and heir of the British Empire. I first saw this some years ago when Roosevelt began his undeclared war on me through speeches, boycotts and political intriguing in all chancelleries of Europe. Every time I reached forth my hand he slapped it down. When I began to show him that meddling in European affairs was not so easy and might be dangerous, he lost all control of himself and began his campaign of vilification.” He also made reference to the “sabotage of Munich” and how this too was Roosevelt’s fault. He also made an anti-Semitic allusion to “Roosevelt and his golden calf.”28
Huss knew otherwise, of course. Being there with this monster, he said, “[gives] you the uncomfortable feeling that none but the führer should be heard or seen, lest perhaps a blitz of unrestrained temper and authority hit the man nearest this volcano.” Huss referred to Hitler’s aides as “flunkies with booted black pants . . . .”29
This portion of the historic interview concluded with the führer ranting that Roosevelt had broken political tradition in America by seeking a third term but even so, he could outwait FDR because, “I am young and healthy. Roosevelt is not.”30
The circle was closing on Manila and Singapore. Overnight, Japanese planes had raided Singapore four times, bombing it heavily. Since Christmas Eve, bombs had fallen on Manila, but then they went silent. However, no one thought for a minute that the Japanese had changed their minds and withdrawn their forces. They just had a new target to go after: Corregidor.
The Japanese began bombing Corregidor Island, only thirty miles from Manila. For three hours, they blasted at the island with a “very large force of enemy aircraft.”31 The tactic was designed to weaken the fortification strength of the Allied military there as a possible prelude to the Japanese navy steaming into Manila Harbor. “Corregidor is of natural rock formation and is about 61/2 miles long. It is five miles from the northern mainland shore, about midway at the bay’s mouth.” The island was surrounded by several smaller islands, also fortified. Corregidor was honeycombed with caves where supplies had been stored “for any siege and where its defenders could shelter from air-raids and artillery barrages from the mainland.”32 Bristling with big guns, no navy commander in his right mind would attempt to enter Manila Bay without first neutralizing Corregidor.
But Douglas MacArthur did have a new ally in the war for the Philippines. The Balugas, a pigmy tribe whose men stood no taller than five feet, announced their opposition to the Empire of Japan, led by “King Alfanso.”33 They lived in the mountains on the island of Luzon and as tribute to the Allies, turned over to the Americans three Japanese soldiers who had parachuted into their domain.
The Japanese propagandists had tried to divide the Filipinos from the Americans, but there was a bond and a history between the two that ran deep. MacArthur, who had a long and warm history with the Philippines, including his own father, Arthur MacArthur’s service there as Civilian Governor, had raged and denounced the Japanese for the bombings of Manila, which he himself had declared an open city, but there was little other than that which he could do against the surging tide of the Japanese invasion.
MacArthur noted what seemed to be a deliberate attempt by the Japanese to obliterate the religious culture of Manila. “The great Cathedral of the immaculate Conception was a special target of Japanese bombs. It was sought out and attacked on three successive days. The College of San Juan Lateran, with its irreplaceable library of original manuscripts, was likewise attacked. Repeated attacks on successive days were made on Santa Rosa Convent and Santa Catalina Convent. The San Juan Dedios Hospital was also the object of vicious attacks.”34
Things were faring better for the Americans who had volunteered to fly and fight with the Chinese air force. The American Volunteer Squadron had, on December 26th alone, shot down 26 Japanese planes in dog fights over Rangoon. The Americans, led by the legendary Col. Claire Chennault, meanwhile had lost only two planes.35
As soon as Winston Churchill returned to Washington from Ottawa, Franklin Roosevelt planned on convening another “war council” meeting. “Military and naval . . . experts have been laboring on a master strategy plan for the past week.”36 Churchill, while in Ottawa, gave a sterling speech to the Canadian Parliament. It was there where he assured Australia, another parliamentary government, and member of the Commonwealth, and their nervous if also steely prime minister, John Curtin, that the Allies would not leave their friends down under, to the mercy of the merciless Japanese. But his speech was also vague and news reports only said that “Churchill and President Roosevelt have decided on definite measures of defense for both British and American interests in the Pacific.”37
Churchill had hailed the Canadian contribution to the war and mocked the Axis Powers, interrupted often by the applauding audience in the House of Commons. He said the war “must be an assault on the citadel and homeland of the guilty powers, both in Europe and Asia.” The British Prime Minister said the goal was straightforward: “the total extirpation of Hitler tyranny, Japanese frenzy and the Mussolini flop.” Churchill loved tormenting Benito Mussolini. The Italian dictator was a preening and vain egomaniac, obsessed with his own machismo. These qualities made Il Duce an easy target of ridicule; even his ally Hitler considered him to be an embarrassment. “[Churchill’s] speech was filled with jibes and taunts at the Axis partners which moved the crowded chamber to cheers and laughter, but most of it was a calm, confident review of the road already travelled and the road still left to travel.”38
His praise of Roosevelt was fulsome and heartfelt. “I have been all this week with the President of the United States, that great man whom destiny has marked for this climax of human fortune.”39 The crowds inside and outside Parliament Hill went wild. Loudspeakers broadcast his speech to the thousands standing in the cold and snow. “Hitler and his Nazi gang have sown the wind—let them reap the whirlwind.”40
For Winston Churchill and the people of Great Britain, it had been a long and lonely quest as they had been the only major power opposing Nazism. At one point, observers felt there was a real chance England could fall to the Third Reich. No sane person wished for war but the only way to end this new conflict was for more countries to declare war and by the end of December 1941, 90 percent of the countries of the world were at war with someone. Though his headcount clashed with that of the U.S. State Department, Churchill told the Canadians “more than 30 States and nations” were arrayed against the Axis but the striped pants set of Foggy Bottom, ever cautious, low-balled it to 29.41
He concluded his peroration, as only the old master could: “The power of the enemy is upon us,” he said. “Let us then, sir, address ourselves to our task, not in any way underrating its tremendous difficulties and perils; but in good heart and sober confidence, resolved that whatever the cost, whatever the sufferings, we shall stand by one another, true and faithful comrades, and do out duty, God helping us to the end.”42
As with all his wartime speeches, Churchill’s remarks were a pleasure to read and a joy to hear. The words and phrases cascaded over his listeners, convincing them of Churchill’s righteousness and why they needed to join in his cause. There is no doubt that he saved England from Hitlerism and by extension, saved the world from a new dark age. At few times in history had a man been so clearly and perfectly thrust forward to fulfill his destiny.
Other volunteers were springing forth. Under one of the most awful headlines of the month, the Associated Press moved a story: “Red Men Bury Hatchet to Aid War on Axis.” It detailed how California’s Indian tribes, having been at odds with Washington since 1850, “patched up their differences and will support the United States in its war against the Axis. The Mission Indian Foundation, with 3,000 . . . members, telegraphed President Roosevelt . . . ‘a message of loyalty and readiness to serve our great nation.’”43
A reclusive college professor ensc
onced in Princeton, a sleepy college town in New Jersey, gave a rare interview just before he was to address the American Physical Society. The organization was dedicated to the pleasure of knowledge, not the flesh. “Dr. Albert Einstein, renowned German Jewish refugee scientist and once a militant pacifist, said tonight the democracies eventually would win over the totalitarian powers but that ‘we must strike hard and leave the breaking to the other sides.’” The interview with the sixty-two-year-old mathematician “with the great shock of unruly white hair” was conducted in his modest, green-shuttered home, as he smoked a pipe and pondered the often inane questions of his journalistic inquisitors. When asked about conditions in Nazi Germany—3,000 miles away—he replied, “I have no methods of observation” there.44 His books had been banned for years in the Third Reich. The brilliant Einstein, whose groundbreaking Theory of Relatively had forever changed humankind’s basic notions of the physical universe, had been hounded by the Nazis for practicing what they mocked as “Jew science.” Like many of his talented colleagues, Einstein had seen the writing on the wall in Hitler’s Germany and fled to the United States before the outbreak of war. Luckily for the civilized world, the Nazis had chased from their midst the very geniuses who could have given Hitler the atomic bomb.