December 1941

by Craig Shirley

  At Saks Fifth Avenue, Christmas ads were hawking lingerie for women, saying, “There is no shortage of pure silk.”80 Men in uniform were more pedestrian in their gift choices for Christmas. A poll conducted of soldiers said their preferences were “[m]oney, cigarettes, stamps, subscriptions to home-town newspapers, cookies and candy.” Also shirts—but families were warned not to send striped or polka dot shirts as they were banned by the military, even when off duty.81

  Macy’s department store helpfully listed dozens of military posts and dates by which gifts had to be shipped to be there in time for Christmas. The store had its own “post exchange” to help family and friends get gifts headed for all forty-eight states.82

  Another popular item for Christmas was a radio, and many houses had more than one. Emerson, Philco, and General Electric all touted AM radios that were as cheap as $16.95.83 On WMAL in Washington, residents could listen to Orphans of Divorce, Honeymoon Hill, and Quiz Kids. On WRC, they could tune into Guiding Light, Stella Dallas, and at night listen to Eddie Cantor.84 Shirley Temple was heard on stations across the country.85

  In order to stay warm in December, many homes in the Washington area still used the relatively safe coal as opposed to natural gas. There was hardly a day that went by that the newspapers did not report on a home death via a natural gas explosion or poisoning. A ton of good Blue Ridge bituminous coal—delivered—was $10, but if you wanted the small, “egg”-sized chunks for the stove, it was $10.50. The Blue Ridge Co. also delivered a full cord of firewood, stacked, for $7.50.86

  The men in uniform were facing a traveling maelstrom to get home for the holidays, provided they were granted leave. It was expected that December of 1941 would be the heaviest travel month in years. Not enough planes were flying to accommodate everybody, railroads were scrounging to come up with extra cars, and an estimated 100,000 troops were expected to pass through Washington’s Union Station over the Yuletide. The furloughs came in waves, staggered out over the month of December, beginning on the 12th and extending to the 29th. Most of the GIs were looking forward to a two-week vacation.87 Print ads suggested, “If he can’t get home for Christmas—send a carton of Camels.”88

  One soldier (whose name was not revealed) who had taken his furlough a bit too casually years earlier tried to come back; having received a ten-day pass in May of 1919, he did not return to post for twenty-two years. While away, he got married, saw the country, and started his own business, but decided to return to Fort McPhearson to clear his record and serve his country as a mechanic. In truth, he tried to come back in 1919. After his pass was up, he returned to his duty station, but the army said they could not find his records proving he was a soldier in the U.S. Army. He was kicked out of the camp. Still, his conscience bothered him and, two decades later, he attempted to clear the matter up. He’d originally enlisted in 1915 and served under Gen. John J. Pershing in Mexico.89

  The bureaucrats of Washington were in a quandary. A federal tax of $5 per car in America was costing the government more to enforce than it generated in revenue. Few wanted to repeal it, but no one could figure out how to distribute millions of windshield stickers, collect the tax, and still have money left over. Some suggested that additional revenues be raised so the Treasury Department could collect the tax. “If the Treasury is not given the money it needs to finance the collection . . . it cannot collect.”90

  Senator Walter George, Democrat of Georgia, fussed publicly that federal taxes on the American people had reached their limit, and the new borrowing to finance the New Deal and the war effort could mean pushing off repaying the debt, which would then “have to be amortized over the life of the present, the next and maybe the third generation.” He projected that at the current rate the national debt could reach somewhere between $110 and $150 billion. Any future taxes could “tremendously [weaken] our whole economy.”91 But administration officials were already floating the notion of an additional tax of nearly $5 billion.92

  Other congressional representatives were concerned that the huge outlays from Washington were only going to large corporations and that small businesses were missing in the equation, including getting the raw materials they needed to operate. The Office of Production Management said it was working on it. They had, they said, “10 different methods” and these “would be ready in four to five weeks.” The navy said it was interested in helping small businesses, “but not at the expense of the defense effort.”93

  Nazi Germany’s expensive war machine was also costly to their national economy, with two-thirds supported by tax revenue and one-third financed with borrowing, according to the Tax Institute at the University of Pennsylvania. Economists noted, however, the indebtedness, borrowing, taxation, and spending were all controlled by the government in Berlin, and no amount of fiscal or financial Keynesian excessiveness could stop a country from going to war if the country truly wanted to go to war. “On the whole, the methods of German war finance have neither been very radical nor have they been very different from other countries. They contain very little of specific Nazi elements. Like all other countries, Germany is financing the war on sound methods, mainly by taxing much more heavily now than in the First World War.”94 Moreover, Hitler had the firm backing of Germany’s industrialists, notably the aristocratic Thyssen and Krupp families, who perhaps privately viewed the former corporal from Vienna as a clown but also as a useful expedient for ridding the country of unions, communists, and other undesirables. Germany’s industrial might was open at full throttle, for all-out war.

  Because of the trouble obtaining precious metals from the Far East, the United States began procuring these materials from Chile, and an agreement between Washington and Santiago was established.95 One congressman had a novel solution to the metal shortage; he suggested melting down all the statues in the country, all ninety thousand of them.96 Not even scarcity could improve government efficiencies. A huge pile of scrap aluminum collected by citizens at the urging of the government was sitting unattended in San Francisco, “oxidizing under early winter rains on the lot where the metal was dumped.” An official with American Smelting and Refining Co. explained, “We’re awaiting orders from the government.”97

  The navy announced their $300 million effort at island building on Puerto Rico had come for naught. The plan for years had been to turn the island into an American outpost, complete with a thriving economy, English-speaking citizens, clean living, and a modern military capability. The locals thought otherwise. Indeed, “the headaches”98 had been going on since 1898, when the U.S. government took over the island. “Filth, some of the slimiest slums of the New World, poverty, disease and a potent brand of Latin politics are still here,” reported the Washington Evening Star. The appointed governor general, Dr. Rexford Guy Tugwell, one of FDR’s “original New Deal ‘brain truster,’” was at his wits end and contemplated imposing a very un-good-neighborly martial law. Concerns about the “native population” birth and death rate were also heard.99 It would not be the first time America had failed at nation building.

  Farther south, the navy was finding Brazil to be a more hospitable partner, at least when it came to joint operations. With the blessing of the country, American ships patrolled the three thousand-mile-long coastline of the country, running at night under blackout conditions, watching for German ships and U-boats. The Brazilian government was also mobilizing their army, fearful of a German invasion.100

  Ireland was officially neutral, but its hatred for Great Britain caused some of its citizens to cheer the Germans. Still, the Nazis attacked four Irish commercial ships, including passenger ships.101 The German Luftwaffe also blasted and sank a British refrigeration ship, the Meriones, 7,557 tons, as it was stranded on the high seas. They also destroyed another British ship, the Jessmore, 4,099 tons.102

  In the face of what was happening to Ireland and Britain, Navy secretary Knox coyly told reporters that the sinking of American vessels in the Atlantic had recently slackened, but without giving any
reason why. When pressed by the scribes, he evasively said, “Make your own guess about that. There’s a good story in it if you dig it up.” But “the Secretary refused to say whether the Atlantic patrol of the United States Navy was being made more vigilant or whether repeal of the Neutrality Act had anything to do with the drop in the number of sinkings.” He refused to say anything else about the ticklish situation in the Pacific or much else, except that he’d placed orders “for 5,334 vessels, costing $7,351,497,905 since January 1, 1940” or that “[n]early $1,000,000,000 has been spent for expanding shipbuilding facilities in that time,” or that “27 combatant ships have been commissioned, 41 launched and the keels laid for 128.”103

  Loose lips indeed.

  If enemy spies in the United States had missed anything, the last information hole was filled by Assistant Secretary for the Navy Lewis Compton who said America was launching “a boat a day and the schedule will be stepped up to two a day by July. . . . He also revealed that Navy launchings are well ahead of schedule.”104 The New York Times joined in the fun, reporting on new battleships being launched and their locations, such as the Indiana and the cruiser Cleveland.105 Indeed, the Los Angeles Times had a large regular section in the paper, “Shipping News,” in which construction, status, and launch information was all carefully and completely reported, along with “activities at Los Angeles Harbor.” It also helpfully reported on “vessel arrivals and departures,” including ships compliments, destinations, and estimated arrival times in other ports of call.106 The Air Mail Schedule was also reported in detail.107

  Mel Ott was named “playing manager” of the New York Giants, replacing Bill Terry, who was kicked upstairs to oversee the team’s farm operations.108 It was big news in the sports world. Less covered, Lou Boudreau was named player-manager of the Cleveland Indians.109 Boudreau was part-Jewish,110 and for many Americans, this was meaningful, especially at this time in the world. Being only twenty-four, Boudreau’s announcement was duly noted, though he was an outstanding infielder and was already a part of history, helping to stop Joe DiMaggio’s fifty-six–game hitting streak.

  That year was an exceptional one for baseball, as not only “Yankee Clipper” DiMaggio set a record for the next century, so, too, did Boston’s Ted Williams, the last man to hit over .400 for a season. Baseball in 1941 was not only the “national pastime”111 it was the national obsession, and coverage of trades, drafts, and standings were often on the front pages of American newspapers, following the exploits of Bob “Rocket Robert” or “Rapid Robert” Feller, a young sensational pitcher, both players with the Indians. In Washington, a journeyman front office worker from the minor leagues, Calvin Griffith, was named as the traveling secretary for the Senators.112 In Atlanta, fans had no major league team to root for, but minor league baseball was as popular as it was in other secondary cities around the nation. Atlanta’s fans rooted for the Crackers.

  Football was still gaining a toehold, but the college game was more popular than professional football, who some regarded with suspicion. Considerable attention was focused on the “Negro college football championship,” with the title game to be played before a sellout crowd at Memorial Stadium in Atlanta. The game would pit undefeated Morris Brown, located in Atlanta, against North Carolina State of Durham, also undefeated, though they had tied one game. The North Carolina squad was the champion of the “Colored Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.”113

  A one hundred-year-old man, Joseph Punch, was making plans to wed a child bride, Minnie E. Smith, age sixty-six. Punch was born in 1841 in Mississippi. Punch said his father had been a slave but gave no indication as to his own status in a Southern state twenty years before the Civil War.114

  Progress in civil rights was slow at best in the North and had gone into reverse in the South. At Washington’s National Airport, “The Southern Airs, a well-known National Broadcasting Co. colored quartet . . . were refused table service at the coffee shop . . . because of a Virginia segregation law.” The singers had driven to National from Williamsburg to catch a flight to Cincinnati, but it was canceled due to weather. The airport manager, John Groves, hid behind his little bureaucracy, claiming he did not know who had jurisdiction over the airport: the private owners of the coffee shop and restaurant, the Commonwealth of Virginia, or the District of Columbia. Waitresses had refused to serve the foursome. Representatives of the NAACP came to the airport to confer with the musicians and finally, accommodations were offered in the cafeteria “which has permanent facilities for serving colored guests” but not in main dining room of the airport or the coffee shop.115 Refusing, the Southern Airs departed, their dignity intact.

  Yet contrary to what many people in the North thought, not everybody in the South was a racist. In Georgia, a prison camp warden, C. A. Jacobson, a white man, was sentenced to three years in the state penitentiary for the involuntary manslaughter of a black inmate, Louis Gordon, whom Jacobsen had placed in a “sweat box.” The jury deliberated for only forty minutes before convicting Jacobson.116 And yet, lynching was prevalent in the South—a tragic fact about American society that Adolf Hitler delighted in pointing out to the world.

  In Florida, in a war game exercise, a group of “Negro troops” successfully “captured” MacDill Field. “Shortly before 10 o’clock the invaders ‘landed’ from the bay, pushed through a gas barrage and smoke screen in utter darkness and had infiltrated the field before they were discovered.”117

  Military leaders in Japan were naturally calling for the United States to stop aiding Gen. Chiang Kai-shek’s forces in China, to give up any presence or designs in the Far East, and to “retire, strategically and politically, to the Western Hemisphere.” And in Washington, attention was fixed on the upcoming conference between President Roosevelt with Japanese ambassador Kichisaburo Nomura and special envoy Saburo Kurusu.118 References to an old “Nine-Power Treaty,” were thrown around diplomatic circles, but the Japanese said recent events had rendered it null and void.

  Halfway around the world at another conference, five Nazi operatives in the Far East met in Shanghai, “anxious to patch up an understanding so that Japan’s resources in men and weapons may be turned elsewhere against Germany’s enemies.”119

  CHAPTER 4

  THE FOURTH OF DECEMBER

  “Defense Units Study Means to Protect Girls Hired by U.S.”

  Washington Evening Star

  “Jap Evacuation Ship Sails after Mail Is Ordered Taken Off”

  Tucson Daily Citizen

  “America-Firsters Japan’s Ace in Hole”

  Atlanta Constitution

  “Jap Press Hurls Bolts at Allied Powers in Crisis”

  Birmingham News

  An explosive twenty-six-page memo marked “CONFIDENTIAL” arrived at the White House from the Office of Naval Intelligence, analyzing “JAPANESE INTELLIGENCE AND PROPAGANDA IN THE UNITED STATES” and under the heading marked, “Methods of Operation and Points of Attack,” it read, “The focal point of the Japanese Espionage effort is the determination of the total strength of the United States. In anticipation of possible open conflict with this country, Japan is vigorously utilizing every available agency to secure military, naval and commercial information, paying particular attention to the West Coast, the Panama Canal and the Territory of Hawaii.”1

  It also went into great detail about the subversive Japanese elements in the Hawaiian Islands. All the Japanese consulates on the West Coast were busily gathering information on the U.S. Navy, especially in the Pacific. One passage was underlined—perhaps by Roosevelt himself: “Recently it was brought to the attention of the Office of Naval Intelligence that out of a total of 198 postal employees in Honolulu, 51 have dual citizenship and that the foreman in the registry section, Ernest Hirokawa, is an alien Japanese. As a result of this discovery that registered mail for the fleet stationed in Hawaiian waters is not routed directly to the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard as a security measure.” Chillingly, “. . . the [Japanese] Naval Inspector’s Office . .
. was primarily interested in obtaining detailed technical information which could be used to advantage by the Japanese Navy.”2

  Washington, D.C., was experiencing growing pains. The nation’s capital was filling up so quickly with new bureaucrats and new bureaucracies that Senator Jennings Randolph of West Virginia, no stranger to political opportunism, proposed moving all agencies out of Washington that were not directly related to national defense. Naturally, he had in mind moving large chunks of the government to his home state and produced the mayor of Elkins, West Virginia, John C. Freeland, to attest to how his town was ready to handle thousands of new residents. “The delegation traveled 200 miles, mostly over fogbound mountains, this morning to attend [Randolph’s] hearing,” as one report informed.3 The word decentralization was introduced into the political lexicon. Suddenly, members of Congress had all sorts of ideas about moving around the bureaucracy and coincidentally, all these suggestions were in their home states.

  A great big new part of that bureaucracy was the massive building being assembled just across the Potomac to house the War Department. Five-sided, many storied, many ringed, and with roads going everywhere, it was already named the War Department Building. The site was a giant mess, but it was envisioned to become the largest building in the world when completed. The traffic in the area had already been chaotic at best, and the gigantic construction endeavor only added to drivers’ and commuters’ headaches. To ameliorate the complaints of local residents, the military announced it would hold a briefing for the public on the building, its construction, and the new road system being built “at a meeting . . . at 12:30 p.m. at the Harrington Hotel.” There, representatives of the Public Roads Administration, the Office of the Quartermaster General, architects, planning engineers, and top military brass explained the building, its workings, and answered all questions.4 No one was satisfied.