Out went the $40 million Old Masters European collection, and in came a rotating “Art in Action” live event, fea-turing painters, sculptors, potters, and weavers. Visitors flocked to watch Diego Rivera paint a giant fresco for the library of San Francisco City College. Brilliant Billy Rose staged the eye-opening Aquacade in an enormous indoor pool. Eighteen-year-old Esther Williams and Johnny Weissmuller, a 1930s Olympic gold-medalist swimmer and Tarzan of the movies, glided, twisted, and flashed watery smiles while Aquabelles and Aquabeaux swam in synchronized formation beside them and Morton Downey crooned love songs. Free big-band concerts featuring Count Basie, Gene Krupa, Benny Goodman, and Bing Crosby packed the Temple Compound with thousands of fairgoers. The Cavalcade of the West, renamed as the Cavalcade of a Nation, a “Mighty Theme Spectacle,” staged three performances a day, replete with steam-chugging locomotives, covered wagons, and soldiers on horseback. The show occurred on a four-hundred-foot stage, two hundred feet deep, against a painted backdrop of the High Sierras. A cast of hundreds, including actors and actresses in costume, livestock, and horses, cavorted across the stage in constant motion. Water jets surged thirty feet high over the dusty, thundering action.
Everything about the ’40 Exposition was big, bold, and brassy. But by summer, it was apparent that the coffers weren’t filling quickly enough. Despite the flamboyant entertainment and ongoing wonders of technology—like the model of the University of California, Berkeley, atom-smasher, television receivers, and talking robots—the Exposition continued to lose money. The redoubtable sensations at the Gayway, dubbed Forty Acres of Fun, continued to inspire indigestion, and not from the food alone. Even the Pan Am Clippers that docked at the island, where thousands of spectators watched the arrivals and departures of passengers who paid the $1,000 fare to Hong Kong, with stopovers for fuel and refreshment on Guam, Wake, and Midway, couldn’t lure visitors through the turnstiles.
Suddenly, fun was out of fashion, nostalgia too empty an emotion for the terror of war across the seas. The grainy images of soldiers, tanks, and fighter planes on Movietone news were haunting filmgoers in growing numbers across America. When the Exposition opened in the spring of 1940, Hitler’s army was pushing toward Paris through the Valley of the Somme. By September, Japan, Germany, and Italy had formed the Axis to conquer the world.
The Exposition closed on the night of September 29, 1940. Thousands of invited guests lingered on, clustered together, shivering in the chilly wind, and in towns ringing the bay, scores of people watched and waited for the beautiful lights of the Magic City to be extinguished. As the radiance faded, the age of innocence flickered into darkness.
When the bills were paid and the books closed, the Exposition had lost money. The directors ordered the demolition of the buildings. Newspapers published stories of the Tower of the Sun collapsing and the Japanese Pavilion in flames. Exhibits were packed away, and auctioneers sold displays. Even Ralph Stackpole’s eighty-foot Pacifica and O. C. Malmquist’s twenty-two-foot, two-and-a-half-ton cast-iron Phoenix atop the Tower of Sun were soon demolished. (For a complete listing of surviving art and architecture, please see the Treasure Island Museum’s publication “Remains to Be Seen.”)
The Administration Building, Hall of Fine Arts and Decorative Arts, and Hall of Aerial Transportation were saved and occupied by the US Navy as a temporary base.
Then, a year later, on the balmy morning of December 7, 1941, Imperial Japanese Navy pilots roared over the Hawaiian Islands in formation. In the emerging light, the skies glowed soft blue; warm trade winds blew steadily. When the pilots sighted Pearl Harbor, they aimed their Zeros, emblazoned with red suns, down at Battleship Row on Ford Island.
At precisely 7:48 a.m., the fighters fell from the sky, shouting, “Tora! Tora! Tora!” and rained down terror, mayhem, and destruction on the US Pacific Fleet. Three hundred fifty-three Japanese fighters, bombers, and torpedo planes came in two waves, deployed from six aircraft carriers in the North Pacific seas. They destroyed eight US Navy battleships and sank four. Cruisers, destroyers, and aircraft were crippled; 2,402 American soldiers were killed, and 1,282 were wounded.
Japanese losses were minimal. On the same day, the Japanese military executed coordinated strikes in Malaya, Singapore, Wake, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Borneo. Landings were made in every location except Hawaii.
The Light of Asia had spoken. From Manchuria to Korea, down through China, and across to Burma, their vision of unification extended to all countries in the Asia Pacific.
In Japan, the generals declared victory, Emperor Hirohito was honored, and the people rejoiced.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared December 7, 1941, “a date that will live in infamy.” On December 8, the United States declared war on Japan and joined Britain and Allied forces against the Axis. America turned her might and power against fascism and tyranny. The giant had awakened.
Acknowledgments
The birth of this novel was a long time coming—ten years of searching San Francisco’s city streets and the labyrinth of my imagination, four years of research in libraries and writing in quiet rooms or on my bed, with papers and books strewn about me. The power of the World Wide Web was a mighty ally—you, too, can unlock the past with a keystroke.
The shape of the story emerged slowly. I could not shake my fascination about the contingent who came aboard the Tatuta Maru from Imperial Japan, the first foreign country to dock at Treasure Island, and then built the largest and most elaborate pavilion of any of the thirty-seven nations. The GGIE was devoted to peace and brotherhood among all countries whose borders touched the Pacific. Imperial Japan spared no expense in treasure or grandiose pledges of peace at a time when over one million Japanese soldiers were burning, looting, raping, and brutally occupying China. How could this be? I wondered.
Nonetheless, I want to state clearly that I found no evidence of spying or treachery at the Japanese Pavilion or among its representatives. Yet I have the advantage of hindsight. History has been my guide; there is no lack of evidence that Japan was plotting war against the United States. Before the war, from San Francisco to San Diego, there were reports of Japanese spies and conspirators swarming the coast. I have spoken to Bay Area residents who remember stories from their parents and grandparents about sightings of Japanese submarines outside the San Francisco Bay and Marin County beaches.
I grew up seeing a black-and-white photograph of my mother at the Exposition, wearing a suit, sunglasses, and a hat and sitting in dappled light with a few friends. The one thing I particularly remember was her saying it was “bloody cold” on the island. She thought my father, whom she did not know at the time, was running an audiovisual projector, but I prefer to think that he was playing sax and singing with one of the bands.
Additionally, I read Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand, the harrowing story of Louis Zamperini, an Army Air Force Bombardier in World War II, who crashed into the Pacific Ocean and survived thousands of miles of open water for forty-seven days, only to be captured by the Japanese forces in the Marshall Islands, imprisoned, and tortured.
When Louie was a star runner at USC, he and fellow members of the track team were befriended by Kunichi James Sasaki, known as Jimmie. Jimmie informed the athletes that he had degrees from Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. Widely accepted and liked by the team, Jimmie became good friends with Louie.
Not until years later did Louie find out the real story. During his POW internment in 1943, he was blindfolded and moved to Honshu, to a secret interrogation center called Ofuna that housed hundreds of starving Allied servicemen. When Louie’s blindfold was removed, Jimmie Sasaki sat across the room. Jimmie explained that he was a civilian employee of the Japanese navy and the principal interrogator of POWs. Thus began another brutal period of beatings, deprivation, and corporal punishment at the hands of the most sadistic scum of the Japanese military.
Bingo! I had, if not proof, then justification that similar Japanese spy activity could have occurred in the Sa
n Francisco Bay Area.
I mention three journalists in the novel. David Warren Ryder, journalist and author, served a term in federal prison in 1942 for acting as an unregistered Japanese agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Ralph Townsend, author and political activist, was also convicted of the same charge and imprisoned. Harry Cotkins, foreign editor of the San Francisco News, was implicated but not charged.
I also want to emphasize that the Japanese American community in San Francisco and the Bay Area were loyal and patriotic citizens and that their internment following Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor was a national disgrace. Written accounts of these camps and the courage of the Japanese American families who suffered such hardships and deprivation are sobering and terrible reminders of how xenophobia can overtake reason and rationality.
This novel contains both imaginary characters and actual prominent individuals, like Adolph and Lillian Schuman, Timothy Pflueger, and Leland Cutler whom I hope I have treated kindly. Their genius and achievements inspired me.
Lily Nordby, Tokido Okamura, Woodrow Packard, and Rosy the Giant sprang from my imagination. It would be imprecise, if not cowardly, not to admit that there is some of my family’s past in this story, but I leave it to you, kind reader, to divine fact from fiction. Many years ago, I saw a man in the audience of a Los Angeles playhouse who became Woodrow. He was one of the most handsome men I have ever seen, and over the years I could not forget him. Now he lives on in these pages.
The following authors and their books provided hours of knowledge and inspiration: Richard Reinhardt’s Treasure Island, San Francisco’s Expositon Years; Patricia F. Carpenter’s and Paul Totah’s The San Francisco Fair, Treasure Island, 1939-1940; Jack James and Earle Weller, Treasure Island, The Magic City, 1939-1940. The Official Guide Book of the Golden Gate International Exposition on San Francisco Bay with a full color map captured by inveterate collector and friend, Peter Oqvist, was the icing on the cake.
Finally, I must bow to the generosity of strangers who provided invaluable historic detail and the steady hand of my writing tribe, Betsy Graziani Fasbinder, Amy Peele, and Linda Joy Myers, who unselfishly gave of their talents and encouragement. Kudos to Patricia Araujo, luminous artist of the iconic images of the Exposition and inspirational friend. Heartfelt thanks as well to Brooke Warner, publisher of She Writes Press, and to Annie Tucker, copyeditor.
The librarians at the San Francisco History Center, the California Historical Society, the Dominican University library, and Marin County libraries, as well as the staff at the Treasure Island Museum, have been exemplary in every respect, and I praise them all.
Equally, thank you to the many friends and family members who urged me toward the finish line. My unnamed mentor and wise friend was by my side the entire time.
Lastly, there is no greater love and support from one person than from my husband, learned editor, photography curator, adventurer, and soul mate, Ron Moore.
About the Author
CHRISTIE NELSON is a third-generation San Franciscan, a graduate of Dominican University of California, a longtime Marin resident, and the author of Woodacre; Dreaming Mill Valley; and My Moveable Feast. She and her husband live in the 1880s brewmeister’s home of the former San Rafael Brewery.
SELECTED TITLES FROM SHE WRITES PRESS
She Writes Press is an independent publishing company founded to serve women writers everywhere. Visit us at www.shewritespress.com.
Portrait of a Woman in White by Susan Winkler. $16.95, 978-1-938314-83-4. When the Nazis steal a Matisse portrait from the eccentric, art-loving Rosenswigs, the Parisian family is thrust into the tumult of war and separation, their fates intertwined with that of their beloved portrait.
In the Shadow of Lies: A Mystery Novel by M. A. Adler. $16.95, 978-1-938314-82-7. As World War II comes to a close, homicide detective Oliver Wright returns home—only to find himself caught up in the investigation of a complicated murder case rife with racial tensions.
A Girl Like You: A Henrietta and Inspector Howard Novel by Michelle Cox. $16.95, 978-1-63152-016-7. When the floor matron at the dance hall where Henrietta works as a taxi dancer turns up dead, aloof Inspector Clive Howard appears on the scene—and convinces Henrietta to go undercover for him, plunging her into Chicago’s gritty underworld.
Shanghai Love by Layne Wong. $16.95, 978-1-938314-18-6. The enthralling story of an unlikely romance between a Chinese herbalist and a Jewish refugee in Shanghai during World War II.
After Midnight by Diane Shute-Sepahpour. $16.95, 978-1-63152-913-9. When horse breeder Alix is forced to temporarily swap places with her estranged twin sister—the wife of an English lord—her forgotten past begins to resurface.
Eliza Waite by Ashley Sweeney. $16.95, 978-1-63152-058-7. When Eliza Waite chooses to leave a stagnant life in rural Washington State and join the masses traveling north to Alaska in 1898 during the tumultuous Klondike Gold Rush, she encounters challenges and successes in both business and love.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
A Historical Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Beautiful Illusion_A Novel Page 21
