Crucible of a Generation

by J. Kenneth Brody

  Friday, December 12, 1941 211

  the same time, British forces in Hong Kong were repelling new assaults. 9 , 10 , 11 A harbinger of things to come: Japan lost nine planes that were attempting to ram

  their objectives, in essence suicide attacks. 12

  America at War: Meanwhile, in Congress

  At Thursday’s vote in Congress on the declarations of war against Germany and

  Italy, eyes were focused on Jeanette Rankin of Montana who had on Monday

  been the sole vote cast against the declaration of hostilities with Japan. She waited

  nervously through the long roll call, clasping and unclasping her handbag. When

  “Rankin of Montana” was finally reached, it seemed as if she had not responded.

  So small had been her voice that the clerk had to call a second time for her vote.

  This time she quietly voted “Present.” When the roll was called a second time

  for the declaration of war on Italy, Ms. Rankin responded, this time with a firm

  “Present” vote. Unlike Monday’s vote, the incident passed without the anger and

  the booing to which she had been subjected on Monday. After casting her votes,

  she retired to a cloak room and was eating an apple and drinking milk when the

  House voted to remove the ban on sending American armed forces anywhere

  they might be needed in order to gain a final victory. 13

  Huge numbers of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and other combatants would be required

  to achieve victories in the wars that had just been declared. This was the responsibil-

  ity of Brigadier General Lewis R. Hershey, Director of the Selective Service System.

  He would ask for the registration of all men and, for the first time, of all women

  from eighteen to sixty-five years of age, aggregating in all some twenty million

  who, in addition to serving in the armed forces, could also work in factories, in civil

  defense or in noncombatant capacities. This would release large numbers of men for

  active military service. Even the thought of registering and classifying women for

  noncombatant service, a first in the American history, testified to the seriousness of

  the country’s situation. 14 More readily understood and accepted was Hershey’s call for 10,000 volunteer nurses.

  It was to be expected that the debacle at Pearl Harbor, the extent of which was

  still unknown, would arouse anger mixed with disbelief. These could be found

  on the floor of the U.S. Senate where Senator Tobey of New Hampshire was

  still emitting howls of rage. He demanded a full accounting of American losses,

  including ships, planes, and facilities. He did not hesitate to call for the dismissal

  of Navy Secretary Frank Knox who had so recently assured the public of the

  Navy’s readiness. The Pearl Harbor ships, he charged, did not have steam up; their

  “listening devices” were not working. “In all good conscience,” Senator Tobey

  declaimed, “how can we sit by and fold our hands and say ‘we must not ask for

  the details when the ships were lying at anchor with no steam up and its listening

  devices not in operation and then 3,000 American boys are dead today?’” 15

  He demanded a responsible Secretary of the Navy and not an irresponsible

  functionary more concerned with talks and magazine articles.

  Senator Lucas of Illinois riposted that Tobey’s angry denunciations were noth-

  ing more than “billingsgate, harangues and floor talk.” He for one would not

  212 First Week at War: December 8–13, 1941

  FIGURE 19.2 See color plate section.

  Poster by Alexander Ross. Courtesy of Northwestern University Library World War II poster collection, FS2.26:N93/10.

  condemn anyone until the facts were known. By his own admission, Senator

  Tobey did not know the facts. A different response came from Senator Walsh

  of Massachusetts, Chairman of the Naval Affairs Committee. Projecting a more

  statesmanlike persona, he was confident that any charges of neglect of duty would

  be placed in proper hands.

  An Expanded War: Churchill Addresses the Commons

  In this dark hour Winston Churchill addressed the House of Commons with a

  review of the war as he saw it. As he had in the past, so now he brought to the

  House grave tidings about the Prince of Wales and the Repulse. This former naval person and sometime first lord of the admiralty intoned:

  Friday, December 12, 1941 213

  In my whole experience I do not remember any naval blow so heavy or as

  painful as the sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse on Monday last.

  But he sought to reassure Parliament and the British people that the combined

  naval power of Britain and the United States was still superior to that of the Axis

  naval powers. There was a “very hard period” to go through that would require a

  new surge and a new impulse. He was not fearful of the end. It would come as 130

  million people in the United States settled down to their wartime roles, including

  a flow of munitions vastly in excess of what had been delivered to date. He passed

  a Churchillian judgment:

  Just handfuls and cliques of wicked men and their military or party

  organizations have been able to bring these hideous evils upon mankind.

  It would indeed bring shame upon our generation if we did not teach

  them a lesson which will not be forgotten in the records of a thousand

  years. 16

  America at War: Expressions of Patriotism

  Whether the tidings were good or ill, the United States shared a community of

  spirit. There was in the nation’s largest city a calm born of a firm determination

  to see it through, however long it might take. Patriotism was in the air, and loy-

  alty through the omnipresent f lags was its handmaiden. Whether in schools or

  stores, factories or private homes, there was no question of the will and the spirit

  of the American people. 17

  If determination was the order of the day, it was not in the spirit of the Ameri-

  can people to be unrelievedly solemn. Often that spirit was aided by a certain vein

  of humor in their responses to the war crisis. At the Greater New Orleans Poultry

  Show, Japanese silky chickens became involuntary patriots as their pure white

  feathers were dyed red, white, and blue.

  In Cincinnati, Ohio, Gordon P. Reif, and Sterling Cramer, Jr., were inspired by

  a picture of the first Japanese battleship sunk by U.S. forces. They formed a club,

  each member of which agreed to buy one 25-cent defense stamp for each 1,500

  tons of enemy war vessels sunk. The initial levy produced a kitty of $5. When

  Mussolini declared war against the United States, the citizens of Italy, Texas, did not

  take it lying down. This small Texas town declared war against Italy, an act beyond

  its powers. More practically, its leaders met to change the town’s name.

  Anthony Mosolino of Pottsville, Pennsylvania, had won the Italian War Cross

  in the First World War. He sent his decoration to the U.S. War Department with

  the instructions: either send it to Mussolini or throw it away.

  Christmas trees and decorations bearing a Japanese label were useful targets for

  venting patriotic emotions. John Rallis of Bristol, Connecticut, tossed his made-

  in-Japan Christmas decorations into his furnace. “If we can’t get American-made

  decorations,” he said “the tree will stand as she is.” In East St. Louis, Illinois, labor
unions demanded the removal of street decorations made in Japan. This patriotic

  214 First Week at War: December 8–13, 1941

  effort achieved irony when it was found that the ladder truck used to remove the

  decorations had been made in Germany.

  It was inevitable that it would happen somewhere in America. Members of a

  club in Kodiak, Alaska, took a no-shave pledge until the defeat of Japan.

  Patriotism could be long-term. In Philadelphia, Mrs. Caleb Fox, Jr., chairman

  of a Red Cross group, received a half-knitted sock from a middle-aged volunteer.

  She was looking for matching yarn to complete the sock. Noting that the sock

  was an off-shade, Mrs. Fox asked when it had been started. “During the First

  World War,” the volunteer replied. 18

  Good humor did not always prevail against patriotic gore. The National The-

  ater of Washington, D.C., cancelled its scheduled presentation of Gilbert and Sul-

  livan’s The Mikado. 19

  There were many tales of unusual recruits and unusual recruitments. In Den-

  ver, a “sizzling mad” old soldier managed to reenlist at sixty. William J. Horan of

  Waterbury, Connecticut, had been released shortly before the Pearl Harbor attack

  because he had passed age twenty-eight. “Go home and forget about the Army,”

  he had been advised. He then bought his own ticket for the trip back to Camp

  Blanding in Florida in an effort to rejoin his old outfit, Company F of the 102nd

  Infantry Regiment. Army officers thought they could accommodate him.

  Emotions did not always rule the day. Seichi Yamada was the American-born

  halfback of the Pacific Lutheran football squad. As a gesture of friendship and

  regard, his teammates presented to him the game ball used in Pacific Lutheran’s

  victory over Central Washington College. 20

  The War of Nerves: Civil Defense

  Whatever the news from the fighting fronts, the nation remained on high alert.

  In Portland, Oregon, the blackout was continued from 1:30 a.m. to 7:45 a.m.,

  creating problems for early risers. There was a benefit to the blackout—a consid-

  erable reduction in the number of automobile accidents. 21

  Irrepressible Civil Defense czar La Guardia offered matter-of-fact instructions

  for behavior in the face of an enemy attack. First and foremost, keep cool. Don’t

  run, don’t scream. Don’t believe rumors. Know the warning signals. “We can do

  it. We will do it, if we stay calm and cool and strong and alert.”

  Stay at home. Don’t throw water on an incendiary bomb. It will only cause it

  to explode. He offered the comforting thought that an incendiary would burn for

  only about 15 minutes if left alone.

  Select an air-raid warden for your home. “Mother makes the best,” he advised.

  Put out lights. And by the way, turn off all gas furnaces and appliances.

  Lie down. The best place is under a good strong table, the stronger the better.

  If your house is hit, keep cool. Answer tappings from rescue squads. Again keep

  cool. “Just keeping cool hurts the enemy more than anything else you can do.”

  And make sure to stay away from windows for obvious reasons. Our own anti-

  aircraft will inevitably shower an area with shrapnel so stay in your refuge room.

  “Above all, keep calm. Stay home. Put out lights. Lie down.” Repetition could

  only reinforce these instructions.

  Friday, December 12, 1941 215

  And finally, there were a million needs in the civil defense effort which men,

  women, and youths could effectively serve. America was on the alert. America

  was serious. America was keeping its cool. 22

  The nation’s concerns spread beyond its borders. There were reports of the

  appearance of bands of armed Japanese nationals in Baja, California. Other reports

  had Japanese fishing vessels putting in at harbors and inlets along Baja’s lengthy

  coasts. Amplifying these reports were estimates from the U.S. Department of the

  Interior of about 4,500 Japanese subjects resident on the west coast of Mexico and

  scattered through northern Mexican states contiguous to the United States. Suspi-

  cion was rife that these Japanese residents might be part of a major fifth-column

  movement that Mexican President Lazaro Cárdenas was preparing to face. 23

  Meet and fitting. Those adjectives could be applied to the memorial planned

  for the hundred sailors of the U.S. destroyer Reuben James who had lost their lives in an encounter with a German U-boat. The service would be held in Boston

  aboard the USS Constitution. If ever there were an iconic U.S. Navy ship, it would be “Old Ironsides,” victor of several engagements in the War of 1812 and the

  subject of Oliver Wendell Holmes’s famous poem. 24

  A common theme arising out of the excitements of the week was the respon-

  sibility of the individual citizen. The message was: yes, it’s about the country but

  in the end it’s about you. A full-page advertisement by the United States Rubber

  Company in The Washington Post showed twelve action pictures of ships, planes,

  guns, tanks, and aircraft, in each case noting where rubber was essential to the

  functioning of these implements of war. Each individual was charged with the

  responsibility of conserving, using frugally, and taking care of the nation’s vital

  rubber resource. 25 In another full-page advertisement in the Chicago Tribune , Wieboldt Stores of Chicago told all of its managers and employees that they

  must “obey the orders of our civil and military authorities promptly and com-

  pletely regardless of whether we think they interfere with our jobs or hurt the

  business.” This was only a part of the duties laid out by the company’s president.

  “It is our duty to adjust ourselves cheerfully and completely to the war order

  of things.” 26

  Even America First, the leading isolationist organization, called for full sup-

  port of the war effort. Its aim, it announced, was summed up in a single word:

  victory. But its president, General Robert E. Wood, could not resist the dispatch

  of a Parthian arrow: “Our principles were right,” he proclaimed. “Had they been

  followed, war could have been avoided.” Wood expressed the laudable hope for

  respect for the freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights, and concluded with a

  warning against secret postwar treaties and the meshing of America into the impe-

  rialism of others. He called instead for a just and lasting peace. 27

  The Keep America Out of War Congress at New York’s Town Hall adopted

  a feistier tone. There had been defections from its originally scheduled program.

  Dr. Henry Noble MacCracken, the president of Vassar College who had been

  scheduled to speak on “No A. E. F.” had declined to attend. John T. Flynn, an

  eminence of the America First Committee, was out of town; poet Michael Strange

  was indisposed and a scheduled skit by playwright Morrie Ryskind was deleted

  from the schedule.

  216 First Week at War: December 8–13, 1941

  But Socialist presidential candidate Norman Thomas was cheered when he

  attacked British and American imperialism and, like General Wood, opined that

  if his and the Congress’s policies had been followed, the war could have been

  averted. He sounded a theme that would have a long life: “If we get out of

  this,” Thomas said, “America should st
op the business of trying to play Lord God

  Almighty around the world for a nickel.” 28

  What the American people thought and felt amid the changing realities of the

  day is reflected in the pages of the newspapers, both in the editorials themselves

  and in letters to the editor. Charles Stuart Dennison wrote to The New York Times

  to express his concern over the coverage and reach of the air-raid alert system.

  New York subways, he said, ran in shallow canals that had been covered over thinly.

  In this, he said, they were unlike the deep-dug Underground of London. In New

  York, he speculated, subways could become death traps. Arthur J. Hedges applied

  a lighter touch in writing to the Chicago Tribune , proposing the “JIG [Japan, Italy and Germany] IS UP.” On the same editorial page William Walter Scott opined

  that if the Emperor of Japan were indeed the Son of Heaven, he would prefer to

  go to another place. 29

  The Atlanta Constitution was succinct. Its response to the German and Italian

  declarations of war: “So what.” 30 To

  The Denver Post : “The Mask’s Last Tatters

  Fall Off. ” 31

  The Houston Chronicle viewed the war news as taking a favorable turn in the

  Pacific and especially in the Philippines. We have drawn blood, it intoned. This

  was only the beginning. 32 The Chicago Tribune adopted a high-minded, not to mention self-satisfied, posture. Its war policy, it virtuously announced, would be

  to give the public the truth and into the bargain the leadership needed to win the

  war. There was a strain of injured pride in the Tribune ’s pronouncement that its warnings had gone unheeded and that with adequate preparation the war could

  have been avoided. The Tribune did not state how; but it extended its thanks to all who had stood with it when the message was unpopular. 33

  The New York Times was in hearty disagreement with the Tribune . Adopting the President’s words, it editorialized that Pearl Harbor was our rendezvous with

  destiny; that the months since Dunkerque had given America time to prepare; but

  in the end, no power could have averted the final struggle. “What was known and

  expected has simply happened. ” 34

  In a nation recovering from the ravages of the Great Depression, Christmas

  budgets were still pinched. In Washington, People’s Drug Stores offered Wrist-O-