December 1941

by Craig Shirley

  There was no rest for the Poles under the heel of Nazi governor Hans Frank, an eager and enthusiastic supporter of Hitler’s genocidal policies. While grinding Poland into the ground under his iniquitous administration, “hundreds of children between the ages of 14 and 16 have been executed for their political activities, including membership, in the Boy Scouts. A Polish official said in one town, 100 Scouts were executed in the central square and a nine-year-old boy was shot because he destroyed a Nazi propaganda poster.”38

  Secretary Knox had not been entirely forthcoming in his report on the damage at Pearl Harbor, but he had said all along he wasn’t going to reveal everything, in the name of security. The New York Times said his report was “undoubtedly an understatement of the damage done ”39 The Japanese of course were claiming much more damage at Pearl Harbor and in the Philippines than Washington was, but this time, the Japanese estimates were closer to the truth than the American revelations.40

  The casualty report was as accurate as could be expected in those days after the attack, but Knox said at the time the government would not release all that they knew, and now, once again, some members of Congress were agitating for a full inquiry. Knox also did not release the names of any of the deceased, but he did meet with key congressional representatives in secret. His report was long on heroics but short on specifics, such as the story of the four ensigns who, when their captain went down, supposedly guided their destroyer out of the harbor in an attempt to track down the enemy.41

  Capitol Hill was sharply divided, with some members eviscerating Knox. One said that America needed a new Secretary of the Navy. Supporters of the White House had hinted for several days that Roosevelt would soon order an investigation. Others members of congress said if they went forward, they would not ask Knox to testify about his own findings. But another, Senator David Walsh, Democrat of Massachusetts, said they might have to “investigate the investigation.”42 Walsh had been a bitter opponent of Lend-Lease and was a fervent isolationist—until December 7. The call for a congressional inquiry had been safely bottled up for over a week, but it was beginning to escalate again. Knox had also claimed that the navy was at sea looking for the Japanese; that was true in only the barest sense.43

  The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Tom Connally, Democrat of Texas, was not satisfied in the least with Knox’s limited report. “The statement . . . that neither the Navy nor the Army was on the alert at Hawaii when it was attacked by the Japanese is amazing. It is astounding. It is almost unbelievable. The Navy of John Paul Jones and that of Dewey must wear crepe. The old Army must carry an arm band. The loss of life is staggering.”44

  At the same time, photos of B-17s on the ground, aflame, at Hickam Field on Oahu were appearing in the newspapers. Photos of other damage done at Pearl began appearing, but nearly all were of civilian centers and homes. Only a few photos of damaged planes were released and no photos of ships.

  It was also revealed that a Japanese pilot on that day had landed his troubled plane on the island of Niihau, two hundred miles northwest of Oahu. Without phones or radios, these islanders knew nothing of the morning’s attack. There the pilot encountered a native islander, Benny Kanahele. After being shot by the pilot three times, the large Hawaiian grabbed the pilot and rammed his head into a stone wall, killing him.45 “The pilot shot me . . . in the ribs, hip and groin. And then I got mad. I threw him against a stone wall.”46

  Benny was, for the record, a woman.

  So as to head off any congressional investigations into the attack at Pearl Harbor and to control the controversy, FDR went ahead and appointed his own Joint Inquiry Board, a blue ribbon commission made up of five men.47

  They were to take the preliminary (and to many, unsatisfactory) findings by Knox numerous steps further and take the heat off the administration. A justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Owen J. Roberts, would chair the panel, and he immediately promised there would be no “whitewash” of the events or those responsible. The other four members were all respected career military men.48 They included retired Admiral William Standley, who was the former Chief of Naval Operations, retired Rear Admiral Joseph Reeves, retired Major General Frank McCoy and Brigadier General Joseph McNarney, who served with the Army Air Corps.49 Admiral James Richardson was expected to be one of the appointed; however, he was in hot water with FDR after telling the president it was a mistake to move the fleet from San Diego to Hawaii.50 Roberts had a distinguished career including his prosecution of Teapot Dome while he served as a federal attorney. Yet even with their careers of accomplishment, having been appointed by FDR, they were his men, beholden to him. “The membership of the Board satisfied Administration leaders in Congress, for it was announced that any Congressional action would be delayed until the Board had had any opportunity to study and act.”51

  At his press conference, announcing the board of inquiry, the president spent considerable time speculating about espionage activities in Honolulu prior to December 7. Roosevelt had met with General George Marshall and Secretary of War Henry Stimson as well as other military brass, just that day, to come up with the board; these men were described as “gloomy” when spotted leaving the Oval Office.52

  The move by FDR, however, did not satisfy those on the Hill who did not consider themselves “administration leaders,” but there was little they could do. Congressman Martin Dies, Democrat of Texas and Chairman of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, squawked that his own investigation into subversive Japanese elements operating in the United States had been shut down at the request of Roosevelt and Cordell Hull, the previous September.53 He said that “his committee had information which ‘clearly indicated a planned attack on Manila and Pearl Harbor.’”54

  Heading off a congressional probe was exactly what the administration and the military wanted. Two items of immediate concern to investigate would be (1) a fresh claim by Hull that he notified government officials in late November of his concerns that events in the Pacific would take a turn for the worse and (2) that, apparently, several radio stations in Hawaii had continued to broadcast in Japanese, even as the last planes were departing Oahu and headed back to the six Japanese carriers.55

  At the business and labor conference that had convened, FDR told both sides that all strikes must cease for the duration of the war. Even with the new laws on the book, there had been wildcats strikes around the country. He also called for round-the-clock production. The country, he said, has “got to do perfectly unheard of things.”56

  The longshoremen sent FDR a telegram pledging not to strike during the emergency.57 Yet what got everybody talking was the olive branch offered to the American Federation of Labor by the Congress of Industrial Organizations. Jaws dropped throughout the labor community. The two collective bargaining agents had been feuding for years, but because of the emergency, a slight thaw had developed in their previously frosty relations.

  Washington also announced an extension of the new tire ban, to be made permanent starting January 4. No new tires or tubes could be manufactured for civilian use; only to fill those orders coming in from the military.58 Additional articles appeared in the papers advising consumers how to protect their tires, how to make them last, and how to make effective repairs. More government directives were forthcoming about the whole matter of tires and tire maintenance.

  As the towns and cities of America struggled to perfect their blackouts and air-raid drills, advice was offered on protecting the family animals from falling bombs. The American Red Star Animal Relief organization sent out notices regarding horses, dogs, and cats. It informed owners that animals were important to morale and that there was no need to kill them, as many in England had done by the thousands with their own animals in the early days of the Blitz.59

  Inland waterways were not overlooked when it came to security. Officials in the Empire State instituted tight navigation polices over the St. Lawrence Seaway. New York City seemed to have outpaced the other cities w
hen it came to organizing its air-raid policies. First, the city worked with the newspapers to get the stories right once and for all, including the rules. Second, the drills were announced well ahead of time. “A test of the most powerful siren in the city, the steam-driven device on top of the Consolidated Edison Company’s plant at First Avenue . . . will be made at 4 o’clock this afternoon and will be followed at 4:15 p.m. by the testing of two of the seventy new ‘sirodrones’ acquired by the city this week for air-raid alarms.” Specific details followed, and the boxed item ran on the front of newspapers.60

  On the West Coast, the mystery plane puzzle had still not been solved, but as the days grew shorter, the issue of instituting a form of “daylight savings” was debated, especially in Los Angeles where the Board of Supervisors decided to implement it for the county. It would allow citizens to get to work and back home during daylight hours. Hollywood studios had already implemented their own work schedule, which began the workday sooner but ended it sooner too.61

  With FDR’s new authority under the War Powers Act granted him by Congress, some Americans may not have agreed altogether with the new policies, but they understood the sentiment of their Allies down under. The headline in the Christian Science Monitor said it all: “Australians Give up Liberty to Assure Defense of Liberty.” The story detailed how Aussie citizens were giving up all their basic rights for the war and doing so happily. “Australians have now been asked by their Government to throw their own freedom to the winds until victory has been won.”62

  The New York Times said Congress had conferred “on President Roosevelt almost unlimited powers to regulate the nation’s emergency effort at home.”63 President Roosevelt’s new agency for dealing with censorship said its mission was “partly mandatory, partly voluntary.”64 FDR announced the Censorship Bureau at a press conference, ironically, but he made no bones or apologies about the goals of the new agency. “It is necessary that prohibitions of some types of information contained in long existing statutes be rigidly enforced.” He also called on “a patriotic press and radio”; and the new head of the department, Byron Price, a former executive with the Associated Press, made clear his initial target was the U.S. Mail—specifically, letters written by private citizens going outside the country.65

  FDR appeared well, dressed in a gray tweed suit and black tie, but the dark circles under his eyes were noticeable to reporters. There was some light banter with a radio reporter over the rumor that Roosevelt had called the Japanese “dirty yellow bastards.” Roosevelt cautioned the reporter to be careful with his consonants, and everybody laughed. When asked, he said he felt “fit as a fiddle.”66 Only the president’s doctor knew that FDR was a very sick man. A longtime sufferer of polio, he was plagued with dangerously high blood pressure that went largely unaddressed. The toll of stress and illness were starting to show in his gray pallor and bouts of fatigue. To the rest of the world, though, he seemed as cheerful and vigorous as ever with his trademark cigarette holder stuck in his mouth at the usual jaunty angle. It was one of the greatest deceptions, in a war full of them.

  “When he traveled by car, he was lifted in and out of the back seat away from public view. News photographers understood that they were not to photograph the president sitting in his wheelchair or being carried, and when anyone violated that rule the Secret Service confiscated the film,” said David Brinkley.67 In the face of the new government crackdown on communications, the Justice Department announced that local officials had been going too far in arresting people under the Sedition Act and warned that in the future they must consult with Washington before moving ahead with any apprehensions.68

  At the same time, the final Selective Service Bill was passed by Congress. While all men ages eighteen to sixty-four would be registered, only men ages twenty-one to forty-five would be drafted. But eighteen-year-olds could enlist with their parents’ permission. The War Department estimated this new bill would produce an army of 8,000,000 men.69

  The administration was also moving ahead with a war council among the Allies, to better coordinate land, sea, and air offensive operations and counteroffenses against the Axis Powers. FDR hinted that what might be needed was an “Allied General Staff” to blend together the military leadership of all the countries opposing the Axis Powers. That evening he ate late and then worked into the night reviewing documents, talking on the phone, and issuing dispatches.70

  Bills were flying out of Congress. Money for the military, money for more military and defense related-housing, money for civil defense, “increasing the authorized tonnage of the Navy,” another granting the navy access to every shipyard in America, publicly owned—or not.71 A bill was offered to empower the government to take over the machinery in private plants, “an action now forbidden by the Property Seizure Act.”72 The government was now spending money at a rate of roughly $20 billion a year, with approximately 72 percent devoted to the military. With all the spending for the New Deal, Lend-Lease, and the war, the national debt soared to over $55 billion.73

  New regulations also flew out of Washington dealing with the weight of bicycles, the manufacture of new radios, and even one proposal to essentially nationalize all industry in America. The Treasury Department was looking at a plan “for centralized government control over the flow of capital and the financial conduct of industry.”74 Regardless, a new aviation company saw a bright horizon, and private stock purchases were offered in the Cessna Aircraft Co.

  The results of the public spending and the national will were already tangible. The B-17 “Flying Fortress”75 bomber had been developed only several years earlier, but North American Aviation and the Glenn Martin Aircraft Co., with plants in Tulsa and Kansas City, announced that two entirely new bombers would begin rolling off the assembly line in early January—only one month after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

  These two planes, the B-24 “Liberator” and the B-25 “Mitchell” were being fabricated entirely from automobile parts supplied by the Ford Motor Company, Chrysler, Goodyear, and the Fischer Auto Body Co.76 The thirty-one-day turnabout from peacetime manufacturing to an Arsenal of Democracy was no less than astonishing.

  American Exceptionalism was a wondrous thing.

  CHAPTER 18

  THE EIGHTEENTH OF DECEMBER

  Hawaii Army, Navy Chiefs Ousted; Nimitz Replaces Kimmel

  Los Angeles Times

  Japs in Borneo Peril Singapore

  Washington Post

  Rationing of Tires to Start on Jan. 4

  New York Times

  Jap Victim’s Father Tries to Join Navy

  Los Angeles Times

  Flag sales were up, but morale was down as it became known of the lonely and modest burials taking place daily near Pearl Harbor.

  The demand for American flags was nothing like it had been on the eve of America’s entrance into the First World War when sales skyrocketed 100 percent. In the days after Pearl Harbor, flag sales were up, by industry estimates, some 15 to 25 percent, which was impressive, yet also a bit less than expected.1 Because of the demand for cotton, muslin, wool, and silk for the military, flags were being made out of rayon, but even these synthetic flags were scarce. The bottom line: there was a pent up demand, just not much supply. Among those dealers who had stocked up before December 7, they had sold out in a matter of hours.

  In Hawaii, the young men who had fallen for that flag were buried. Each afternoon, on the island of Oahu, a group of marines trooped out to a grave site and fired a salute to yet another fallen American soldier or sailor. “A tight lipped group of six-foot marines in olive-drab uniforms raise their rifles and fire three volleys over the fresh earth as nightfall approaches fast. A bugle sounds taps.”2

  These forlorn memorials had begun on December 8 and had been going on for days. “They have been laid to rest on green hills overlooking the sea—there to remain until a peaceful time when the bodies might be returned to their native soil.”3 There were no family members, no politicians, no crowds. Only the
brief discharge of guns, the trumpet, and the murmured prayers by men of the cloth punctuated the silence.

  Nuuanu Cemetery was initially used for the first of the Pearl Harbor dead. The cemetery overlooked the sea. Then, when all the spaces had been taken, graves were dug on Red Hill, which overlooked Pearl Harbor. “Day after day, just before sunset, with simple dignity befitting the gallantry with which they died for their country, America’s finest have been buried at Honolulu.”4

  Each burial observance was accompanied by Navy Chaplain Captain William Maguire and a black-robed priest. The priest blessed the ground with “holy water,” and Maguire recited a committal prayer. On the decks of many of the navy vessels, Sunday church services were routine, some beginning at 8 a.m. None took place on December 7. Now prayers were offered every day. “Don’t say we buried with sorrow,” Captain Maguire said. “Say we buried with conviction. Our men died manfully and we will wipe out the treachery come what may. The spirit of these men lives on. I can feel it.”5

  Each grave was adorned with a floral bouquet, Hawaiian-style, all picked from nearby homes. “Each grave is marked and each body carefully identified for shipment back to the mainland after the war is fought and won—back to home towns.” Maguire said he was proud of the sacrifices of these sacred dead. He said, “And while all this heroism was going on, those Japs were still machine-gunning. . . .”6