December 1941

by Craig Shirley

  Americans accepted constitutional provisions to create armies and navies in order to protect them, their freedoms, and their livelihoods, but it was open to question how much Americans needed or wanted the government’s sartorial advice or input on the condition of private closets. To civil libertarians, it was more worrisome than laughable.

  Some of the wartime black humor coming from government was just in bad taste. A prankster at the Tennessee Department of Conservation asked for a requisition for 6,000,000 licenses at $2 apiece for hunting “Japs.” The response from another bureaucrat was in equally bad taste: “Open season on ‘Japs’—no license required.”3 Political correctness was still decades away.

  Other government agencies reacted petulantly as well. The Maritime Commission changed the name of a large packet ship from the Japan Mail to the more palatable China Mail.4 The merchant marines also “weeded out” Japanese, German, and Italian nationals from service, even taking those already on ships, off.5 Of more immediate importance, the Attorney General’s office made a new announcement that over 2,500 aliens had been arrested, not including those in the Canal Zone or the Philippines.6 In the Canal Zone, dozens of Japanese civilians had been arrested, taken from their homes and placed in “quarantine stations, a tent city mushroomed to accommodate the aliens and alleged Axis sympathizers as roundups began.”7

  Also, forty-three Americans in Hawaii were “placed in custody,” suspected of subversive activities against their country.8

  American allies in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Mexico also began the roundup of Nazi diplomats and those alleged to be supporters of the Axis Powers, including Japanese fishermen on the west coast of Mexico who were “suspected of ‘espionage.’” President Batista of Cuba seized all Axis possessions and was holding all Axis personnel on the Isle of Palms, some forty miles south of Cuba.9

  In the “funny, dumb, and dangerous” category was the story of a housewife in Detroit. Mrs. Donald de Rusha had been walking along the shore of Lake St. Clair when she happened upon a “gadget.” While she did not know what it was, she thought the fifty-pound object would make a nice doorstop. The object was an undetonated piece of military ordinance.10 Luckily, her error was pointed out in time, and no one was hurt.

  Even as war and enemies—real or imagined—dominated the thoughts of the citizenry, they still enjoyed distractions to take their minds off the crisis. A long running “soap opera” was the ongoing private/public tale of poor little rich girl, Gloria Vanderbilt, thin, pretty, inheritress, and hugely controversial as the granddaughter of a robber baron and the daughter of two supremely narcissistic and unbalanced parents.

  Gloria herself was a bad news buffet. At only seventeen years of age, she was in the newspapers constantly, photographed in skimpy cocktail dresses at nightclubs in New York and Los Angeles. On the twelfth, it was announced that she was going to marry a man fifteen years her elder, Pasquale Di Cicco, who had already been married, divorced, and, as a Hollywood agent, romantically linked to a number of other women—none of whom stood to inherit another $4 million when they turned twenty-one, however.11

  Poor Gloria’s life had already been a mess-and-a-half. Her mother had been declared unfit when Gloria was a child, and the court remanded her to an aunt. Gloria’s life up to that point had been a movable feast of wine, men, and scandal. Americans, by and large, followed her car wreck of a life with salacious and prurient schadenfreude. It was all outrageous stuff in 1941, a time when society regarded the low brow hijinks of high society with an almost Victorian sense of propriety.

  In the Atlanta Constitution, as in many other newspapers around the country, there were listed the “Downtown Theatres,” “Night Spots,” “Neighborhood Theatres,” and “Colored Theatres.” The movies shown at the theatres for black Americans were generally low budget, little known, or had already been shown first in the “whites only” movie houses. These included Wyoming Wildcat, Buck Benny Rides Again (starring Jack Benny and his manservant, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson), Beat Me Daddy, which was the name of an Andrews Sisters song, and White Eagle, of cowboys-and-Indians genre. In the heart of Dixie—Atlanta—one of the most popular black movie houses was named the “Lincoln.”12

  Besides celebrity scandals and movies, another pastime available to Americans, and indeed the world, was the Geminids meteor shower which appears every December and promised to be especially brilliant this time around. Some theologians thought this meteor shower was what led three kings to a small manager one thousand nine hundred and forty-one years earlier.

  Newsreels detailing the December 7 attacks were beginning to hit America’s movie houses. “War took the play in all newsreels on programs opening yesterday at movie theatres.”13 No actual footage of Pearl Harbor was shown for obvious reasons, and most of the news shorts dealt with the history of the relationship between the United States and the Japan. The “March of Time” newsreel was judged to be among the better of those shown, but Fox also produced some that were informative. However, in each case, only the shots of civilians in action in Honolulu were shown, almost nothing about the navy or the Air Corps.

  Of course, none of the newsreels reported on the Arizona. It was nearly a week after the attack when the name of the ship finally appeared in the newspapers, though it was a wire story of a London report of a Japanese propaganda claim. American editors ran the item, but some ran it with headlines that doubted its veracity. “Reuters today quoted a Japanese naval communiqué broadcast from Tokyo as saying that the 32,000-ton United States battleship Arizona had been sunk in action in Hawaii. The Arizona was launched in 1915, and its normal complement is about 1,359 men.”14

  But the story, fourth-hand, was generally treated as an unfounded rumor except by the Boston Globe, the LA Times and the New York Times, all of which gave the Japanese claim a bit more veracity. As the Birmingham News noted, “It has been an Axis technique to make spectacular war claims, especially naval, in hopes of learning the true results of attacks from its adversaries’ denials.”15

  The Japanese also claimed they had hit Honolulu again at the same time that Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox was conducting his investigation. But this was, like so much other radio traffic, chalked up to propaganda. Still another rumor was going around Washington that “as long ago as November 15 Government officials had received confidential and reliable information from Tokyo pointing out that Japan had definitely decided to wage war on the United States, even before it sent Saburo Kurusu with a badly camouflaged peace dove to Washington.” But this conspiracy theory had it that Japan’s Black Dragon Society was behind the attack on America.16 The attack had been planned for months, but the Japanese fleet did not leave the home waters until November 26.

  Finger-pointing was continuing in Washington, albeit it in softer tones now. The last refuge of patriotism had cloaked any meaningful questions about culpability in either the civilian government or the War Department about the attack on Pearl Harbor. The War Department was still sticking to its story that only one destroyer had been sunk and one battleship “capsized” at Pearl Harbor, but even after almost a week had passed, less information, not more, was forthcoming. The old adage, “the first casualty of war is truth,” was proving true enough.

  After a quick trip to Oahu to meet with navy officials there and to inspect the damage, Knox returned to Washington. He ducked reporters, who clamored for a comment, only saying, “I will not have statements to release until after a conference with the President.”17 The weather in Washington was a bit harsher than what Knox had left behind in Hawaii, where it was always clear and sunny. On the thirteenth, Washington was paralyzed by a cold rain, snow, sleet, and freezing temperatures that forced government workers to keep their cars at home and call cabs. Problem was, for every cab there were dozens of impatient federal workers.18

  In Knox’s absence, President Roosevelt was meeting daily—even hourly—with his military planners and leaders. At his request, Congress authorized a huge boost in the navy’s budg
et to allow an increase in the surface fleet by 30 percent—a tip-off to the unspoken damage done at Pearl Harbor. He’d also sent to Congress a report on the history of U.S.–Japanese relations and the progress of Lend-Lease.19

  Planned additions to the navy included at least seven new battleships, six new aircraft carriers, twenty-seven new cruisers, eighty new destroyers, and forty-seven new submarines.20 All told, the new complement of ships would add some 900,000 tons to the fleet.21

  For the first time, the gates to the once-accessible White House were closed. The wrought iron fence that had gone up some years earlier with its large gates had always remained open, until the twelfth when they were permanently shut. Now anyone wanting to get into the White House complex had better show a “pass with picture engraved on it” to be admitted. And no longer would “cabs, private cars, delivery wagons” be allowed to enter.22

  FDR was thirty-five minutes late to his weekly Friday gabfest with reporters, something he normally was on time for. But he did have a country at war to run.23 FDR enjoyed an easy repartee with reporters; he was a smooth pro at manipulating the Washington press corps with humor and flattery. His powers of obfuscation were truly impressive. He could charm the pants off “the boys” of the Fourth Estate, who eagerly scribbled down his insouciant witticisms, while at the same time telling them absolutely nothing of substance. FDR was widely revered at the time, but certainly not by everyone. Regardless of ideological viewpoint, one fact was clear, throughout the Depression and now on the cusp of global war, Roosevelt’s energetic activism, his irrepressible confidence, and his effervescent charm reassured a frightened nation when it needed it most.

  His totalitarian counterparts overseas starkly reflected the sort of leadership that America could have born when the economic system collapsed in the 1930s. Now that total war had broken out among the great powers, a tale was making the rounds that Hitler and Stalin were engaged in a deal which would halt the Nazi invasion and they would sign a peace accord. Some wondered how true it was and if it was a factor in Stalin’s still not declaring war against the Japanese, as all other Allies had already done. But the Nazis were still pounding the British in North Africa, claiming to have downed seven planes and that “British troops were bombed and shelled successfully.”24

  The air-raid drills had not gone well in Los Angeles. In fact, they were an unmitigated disaster. Glitch followed glitch. Mistake followed mistake. There were car accidents in which people were killed because of the doused street lights but no clear rules on operating cars at night without headlights. Rather than reassure the civilian population, all the practice blackouts did was add to a sense of “hysteria.” The general in command, W. A. Ryan, frustrated, said any future blackouts would “be ordered only when danger from air attack was actual.”25 The county fire warden complained that the sirens on his fire apparatus had worn out because they had been overused.26

  The newest panic in Los Angeles had begun when a flashing yellow light had been misinterpreted to mean “Raiding party on the way.” The yellow light was only supposed to mean “alert,” while a blue light would signal “blackout.” Everybody was thoroughly confused. Half the city responded poorly, and the other half didn’t know what to do. Civilians were ordered off of beaches, and then the order was rescinded. Proprietors of commercial establishments saw their lights smashed by law enforcement officials if they were not turned off within the prescribed three minutes given. In some cases, the broken lights increased the risk of fire. Huge fines and jail time of up to 180 days were proposed for those who violated the rules, whatever they were. In one instance, the only arrest made was that of a drunken man.27 It was never really a blackout; the street lights remained on because they operated on 800 different timers strewn across the city. As no one had been forewarned of the practice blackout, no one was available to turn off the timers. Because of the strict rules against driving in some areas, work crews could not get to municipal lights to turn them off. The owners of billboards also were never told of the blackout drill.

  It wasn’t that the citizenry didn’t want to cooperate. It was the politicians and the military that could not coordinate their actions, especially since they were still attempting to devise a uniform code for alerting the public. Rules would also have to be established for doctors making house calls during blackouts and air raids.28

  In Long Beach, factory workers began the long process of painting thousands of windows black to help facilitate round-the-clock production.29 A system of lights, bells, whistles, and horns was eventually established and then never used. But the coast guard issued new regulations “to prevent aliens from escaping on vessels leaving Los Angeles Harbor.”30

  The blackout in California went from the coast to 100 miles inland. Yet a fourth blackout was imposed on the City by the Bay and this one did not go any better than the previous ones. It too was marred by accidents, “violence,” and of course, new rumors of unidentified enemy planes.31 It was finally decided that to avoid any confusion, all vehicular traffic had to pull off the road and stop for the duration of air raids and blackouts.32 Fines and jail time were imposed on violators.

  All told, eight ports of call were designated “defensive sea areas” by an executive order from President Roosevelt. This meant they were closed for the duration of the war. The three on the West Coast were San Francisco, San Diego, and Puget Sound. On the East Coast: Portland, Maine; Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Boston; and Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, were all closed to commercial boat traffic that did not have the proper authority.33 The San Francisco Bay was closed to all boat traffic except military vessels. “Any ship entering the bay will do so at its own risk. No non-government vessel may enter or navigate on these waters without specific permission from the Government,” reported the San Francisco Chronicle.34

  Baltimore city fathers saw the silliness over blackout drills taking place in other cities around the country and wisely announced their own practice, but ten days in advance, giving all enough time to prepare.35

  San Diegans went through their own panicky air-raid warning when “something” was sighted “out there” off the coast.36 Whatever “something” was, something disappeared, unidentified. Yet another air-raid drill in New England had also gone poorly and several motorists were badly injured from driving their cars with the headlights off.37 Blackouts were also risky because not everyone played nice when they did occur, especially thieves. The owners of jewelry and fur stores in New York were advised to remove their merchandise during the blackouts, as theft had been a common occurrence in London during the raids.38 The city also issued a brochure with verbiage that seemed terrifyingly prescient, even visionary. The title of the pamphlet was “If It Comes” and read in part: “New York City is in little danger of attack from airplanes. But such an air attack is not impossible. New York, as the nerve center of the nation, presents a tempting target which might justify an enemy in taking great risks. We must prepare now against this possibility of aerial attack.”39

  In another security measure, the United States Weather Bureau announced it would suspend public announcements of weather forecasts. “This action is being taken to prevent the flow of valuable data to enemy analysts.” The Service did say, however, it would release weather data on the weekend for “winter sports conditions.”40 Newspapers no longer would contain any specific data, and radio certainly would not broadcast any specifics on weather forecasts.

  For many though, the war had gotten out of control when it was announced that New Orleans had cancelled its annual Mardi Gras. Soberly, city officials said the massive street party “would not be consistent with the present state of the nation.”41 The bacchanalia of the Big Easy was now a bust.

  Meanwhile, churches in New York were preparing for bombing attacks. Different religious denominations had differing guidelines for clergy and parishioners alike. The chancery of the New York Catholic Church said that in the event of an air raid, congregants were excused from completing Mass but priests
were not. The priests had to complete their services, even if bombs were raining down from the heavens.42

  New York, like Los Angeles, had been pretty much of a disaster in its practice drills. The irony was that the head of the nation’s civil defense program, Fiorello La Guardia, was also the mayor of New York. A later blackout drill in New York proved to be more organized. “Brightly lit marquees and lobbies of theatres along West Forty-fifth Street—in the heart of the city’s Great White Way—[were] blacked out.” Ten theatres were holding plays that night while the blackout occurred, even as the audiences were in their seats and the performers were on stage. On their own, the shrines of the American theatre on their own established their own guidelines for air raids and blackout drills, just as the churches of New York had.43

  Some were speculating that the unidentified planes spotted earlier in the week over Los Angeles and San Francisco were scout planes for the Japanese, but it remained a mystery with some speculation that the planes were American aircraft from one of the many military airfields on the West Coast. Some ludicrously suggested that, in remote regions of the United States, there existed “secret airfields” that the enemy was using.44 And there was also a considerable amount of disinformation still out about the raid on Hawaii.