Sunday (DE) Star
Sunday Star
Telegraph-Herald (IA)
Time
Tucson (AZ) Daily Citizen
Wall Street Journal
Washington Evening Star
Washington Post
Washington Times Herald
Yuma (AZ) Daily Sun
NEWS WIRES
Associated Press
Canadian Press
Chicago Tribune Service
International News Service
United Press
ELECTRONIC MEDIA
Tora! Tora! Tora! The Attack on Pearl Harbor. 1970. Craig Shirley Collection.
Midway. 1976. Craig Shirley Collection.
MacArthur. 1977. Craig Shirley Collection.
The March of Time: News Reels. Time. 1931 – 1967. HBO Archives.
FOX News Reels.
OTHER MATERIALS
Claude Wickard. Secretary of Agriculture Claude Wickard’s Diary. Wickard Collection. Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library.
Presidential Records. Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum.
Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack.
Henry Lewis Stimson Papers, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.
The Churchill Center and Museum at the Churchill War Rooms, London, Speeches,
INTERVIEWS
Gerald Eckert, Interview by Craig Shirley.
McShane, Susan. Interview by Craig Shirley. September 12, 2011.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Craig Shirley is the author of the critically praised bestsellers about President Reagan, Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign that Changed America and Reagan’s Revolution: The Untold Story of the Campaign That Started It All. He is the president of Shirley & Banister Public Affairs, was chosen in 2005 by Springfield College as their Outstanding Alumnus, and has been named the First Reagan Scholar at Eureka College, Ronald Reagan’s alma mater.
His books have been hailed as the definitive works on the Gipper’s campaigns of 1976 and 1980. He is a member of the Board of Governors of the Reagan Ranch and has lectured at the Reagan Library.
Shirley, a widely sought after speaker and commentator, has written extensively for the Washington Post, the Washington Examiner, the Washington Times, the Los Angeles Times, Town Hall, the Weekly Standard, and many other publications. He also edited the book, Coaching Youth Lacrosse, for the Lacrosse Foundation.
Shirley and his wife, Zorine, are the parents of four children. They reside at “Trickle Down Point” on the Rappahannock River in Lancaster, Virginia. His varied interests include sailing, waterskiing, sport shooting, renovating buildings, and scuba diving. He was a decorated contract agent for the Central Intelligence Agency.
Shirley is now working on three more books on Reagan as well as a political biography of Newt Gingrich.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
During the final course of writing this book, my editor and friend at Thomas Nelson, Joel Miller, was in the middle of doing a wonderful thing. He and his wife Megan were in Uganda adopting two young boys. While there for several weeks, he edited December 1941 on a laptop on a table in the bathroom of his hotel. Their magnificence of kindness and charity and sacrifice puts book writing into perspective. Thank you, Joel.
Thank you also to the marvelous professionals at Nelson: Dave Schroeder, Heather Skelton, Kristen Parrish, Jason Jones, Julie Faires, Brian Hampton, Debbie Eicholtz, Rosie Colvin, and Dean Nelson. In addition to their skills and patience, they also have a very necessary sense of humor.
As in the case of my previous books, this one would not have been possible without the tender ministries, patience, tough editing, long hours, and superior suggestions of my wife and best friend, Zorine. Nor would this have been possible without the encouragement and support of my business partner and our friend, Diana Banister. Thank you, Zorine. Thank you, Diana.
Andrew Shirley was superb in his research, editing, fact-checking, and advice. He has dedicated, literally, thousands of hours to this book. This is as much Zorine’s and Andrew’s book as it is mine. Thank you. Thanks also to Borko and Andreja Komnenovic for their superb work.
Thanks also to our other children, Matthew, Taylor, and Mitchell for their encouragement and love and help and support. Our children are simply the most important people in Zorine’s and my life.
Special thanks to four dear friends: Vic Gold, Fred Barnes, Michael McShane and Gay Hart Gaines for their support, advice, and wise council. The same goes for Gary Maloney.
And thanks to John Persinos for his advice and input on edits as well as cultural and historical suggestions and many thanks also to my mother, Barbara Eckert and my sister Rebecca Sirhal, for digging up family history for the Dedication, as well as their advice and counsel and love.
In the last two weeks, because of the press of time and the reams of research material, a group of professional researchers came to my assistance to help finish the job, like the Marines coming in over the hill just in the nick of time. Thank you to Kate Maxwell, Kristen Helmstetter, Linda Emery, Inez Feltscher, Jasmina Zahirovic, Scott Whitlock, Megan Higgins, Anna Hyde and Joseph S. Catapano, Queenie Bui, Lauren Elizabeth Merz, Mirah Johnston, Sakari Deichsel, Mark Hensch, and Alex B. Weisman. Each was dedicated and their work invaluable.
In no particular order, thanks also to the following friends: Mark Levin; Tony Fabrizio, Ken Cuccinelli, Jennifer Harper, Michael Barone, Bill Kristol, Mark Masters, Robert Schlesinger, Charles Pratt, John McLaughlin, Matthew Dallek, Jim McLaughlin, Grover Norquist, Mark Tapscott, Michael Phelps, Shannon Bream, Ken Cuccinelli, Tom McDevitt, Ralph Hallow, Rob and Robert Meyne, Paul Begala, Ricky Greenfield, Chuck Todd, Mark Allen, Matt Continetti, Jay Test, Peggy Noonan, Bill Clark, Joanne Herring, Stephen Moore, Roger Stone, Richard Viguerie, Michele Davis, John Fund, Paul and Carole Laxalt, Bill Schulz, Fred Eckert, David Marks, George and Mari Will, Cleta Mitchell, Tom Loringer, Fred Barbash, David Alpern, Newt and Callista Gingrich, Cheryl Rampy, Lee Edwards, Del Quentin Wilber, John Heubusch, Dave Arnold, Mike Murtaugh, Philip Cavalier, John Morris, Joanne Drake, Jewell and Pal Horning, Rick Perry, Ken Cribb, Jim Burnley, Dick Allen, Ken Khachigian, Stu Spencer, Karen Spencer, Fred Ryan, Carl Cannon, Carolyn Hauer, Pat Nolan, Dennis LeBlanc, Quin Hilyer, Brent and Norma Bozell, Susan McShane, Rick and Sue Johnson, Bruce Baker and Rhonda Lognon, Llewellyn King and Linda Gasparello, Ron Robinson, Frank and Becki Donatelli, Dave Roberts, Peter and Irene Hannaford, Jed Donahue, Dick and Mary Snyder, Lou Cannon, Tom and Lyn Finnigan, Ed Meese, Bill Pascoe, Al Regnery, Tish Leonard, Bob Tyrrell, Jim Pinkerton, Howard Fineman, Kevin and Chris Kabanuk, Dan, Soona, Jinnyn, Dan III, Coury and Raymond Jacob, Ross, Candy, Elizabeth and Katherine Bhappu, Manek Bhappu, Dr. Roshan and Perin Bhappu, and Homee Schroff. And to Ellen and Wayne Masters and Nathan, Todd, Eric and Margaret Shirley. And to Human, Stephanie, Laura and Ethan Sirhal Karen Howard and Michelle and John Bae.
Thanks to Tish Leonard, Kevin McVicker, Courtney Nolan, Jameson Cunningham and Dan Wilson at Shirley & Banister Public Relations. And thanks to Matthew C. Hanson, Archives Specialist at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and to everybody at the Library of Congress.
In the course of writing and researching this book, I discovered many things including things about my family I did not know until the papers from the Daughters of the American Revolution were given to me by my mother and sister.
I knew about the many sacrifices of many men in the Shirley, Cone, Abbott, Westbook, Watkins, and McGiveron families in all the wars of America but did not know about Henry Cone of Haddam, Connecticut—on my mother’s side—who enlisted in May 1775 in the 1st Company, 1st Regiment. He was “at the siege of Boston in May, and at Bunker Hill in June. . . .” Under George Washington’s command, our grandfather then “wintered at Valley Forge, 1777–8; was at the battles of Brandywine, Monmouth, and Long Island. In 1781, while still in service, he lost an eye by smallpox. In 1793, he was granted
a pension and [died] at Lyme Dec. 15, 1827, aged 83.” Henry’s son Andrew Diodate Cone—another grandfather—served in the War of 1812.
On my father’s side, Private William Watkins was one of the “men who marched from Connecticut Town for the relief of Boston in the Lexington Alarm of April 1775. . . .” Watkins was in the “Third Regiment, under General Putnam, 1775, fifth company.”
To all the aforementioned, I am in your debt.
PHOTOS
Top left: ARM2/C Ellsworth Abbott “Barney” Shirley, USN. Killed in Action January 1945.
Top right: President Roosevelt signs the Declaration of War with Japan on December 8, 1941.
Bottom: Sugar rationing creates long lines at home.
Courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Hyde Park, New York.
The attack on Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941
Official U.S. Navy Photographs, National Archives Collection
Courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Hyde Park, New York.
Courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Hyde Park, New York.
Americans aid the war effort by collecting shoes, stockings, and cooking grease.
Top: Actress Rita Hayworth participates in the scrap metal recycling campaign by donating her car’s bumper in response to the call for bumpers and other non-essential metal car parts for the war effort in Hollywood, CA, Oct. 4, 1942.
Bottom: Women enter vocational schools to learn war work.
Associated Press.
Courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Hyde Park, New York.
December 1941 Page 83