80 years ago, today... December 7, 1941. “A date which will live in infamy...” I had just turned 10 years old.
I feel compelled to mark this day with all of you - not only because it moves me to reflection each year, but because it also provides a useful lens to which to view our own times.
I recognize I am part of a dying breed - those who are old enough to remember the attack on Pearl Harbor. It is, like your humble narrator, receding into a form of ancient history.
That is how the nature of life works. Big events happen and they mark the chapters in our lives. They unfold, in real time, and those of us who live through them do not know how the story will end.
And then time goes on, and new chapters are written. People pass away and new people are born. And with the circle of life a knowledge, the knowledge of personal experience, is lost forever.
There will be a time when people not-yet-born will look back at this pandemic or the previous administration and not understand the feelings that we have had living through these trying years. It will be something they read and note. They will think about it in a way we don’t. Unlike us, they will know what happened next. And that means they will never experience the pits of anxious anticipation that reside in so many of our stomachs.
To watch President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s speech from December 8, 1941 is to be transported back to those frightening times.
It is impossible to convey to people who did not live through Pearl Harbor what a complete shock it was, how news of the attack spread in an age before digital communication. Neighbors knocked on doors. The radios switched on and the breaking bulletins supplanted scheduled programming. The newspapers printed special editions. We were dazed. There was a rush to enlist in whatever effort would come, including from my father who would be deemed too old to serve.
The weeks that followed only added to the anxiety. People who lived through it will always remember a Christmas that felt like it could be the last before a cataclysmic fall. There was a very real belief that the world would succumb to the forces of fascism. Hitler was on the march in Europe and North Africa. And the Japanese were conquering East Asia and spreading across the Pacific. We expected them to steam through the Golden Gate and commence an attack on the U.S. mainland.
Even as American naval forces rallied in response to the decimating assault on Hawaii, the Japanese continued on the offensive. There were strings of victories, including the fall of the Philippines and the Battle of Savo Island, considered the worst naval defeat in American history.
My parents were brave, stoic people. But I could tell how precarious and fraught these months were. The look as my dad read the paper, the whisperings between he and my mother, the talk in the streets and with my gang of friends of what they were hearing at home. And the radio, almost always on - the syncopation of reports coming from around the globe transfixed me. I didn’t know it at the time, but they would also shape the rest of my life.
Perhaps it was living through those times, coming out of the Great Depression, and the knowledge of how dark a future can seem that has shaped my worldview. I often heard my dad calm my fears with his favorite words, “courage,” and “steady.” I try to remember what we had no choice but to face. I know how much pain ensued. I know that for many the war ended in death or dismemberment. I remember hearing of the concentration camps, the death marches, the fire bombings of hundreds of thousands of civilians.
Victory and justice are never assured. We cannot always count on happy endings. But successes are possible. Perseverance is necessary. And even when the future seems bleak, we should not succumb to pessimism. I think those who were forged in the times of Pearl Harbor and were able to see the war to victory were forever shaped by a spirit that from the soils of anguish can bloom seeds of hope.
I call upon those memories many times to return me to equilibrium. Especially on this day. December 7. A day that not only lives in infamy, but a day that also spawned a repudiation of despair.
Pearl Harbor Day, December 7, 1941
It was perfectly silent except for the raspy words coming from the small, brown Zenith radio behind the soda fountain. Several people, including Mr. Sanders, the druggist, were standing around the radio, listening intently.
I was 10 years old and in the fifth grade. We were living in Enid, Oklahoma. As we usually did on Sunday afternoon, a group of my friends and I had gone to a movie. In those days the movie theater was in downtown Enid, next to the drug store. After the movie, which cost a dime, we went to the drug store for a nickel coke. We used the drugstore phone to call a parent to pick us up.
On this day, as we trooped into the drug store instead of the usual greeting and a bit of teasing from Mr. Sanders, we were met with absolute silence. Everyone in the store was huddled around the small radio listening intently. What was happening? “Shhh,” someone said, “The Japs have bombed Pearl Harbor and we are in a war.”
In complete silence Mr. Sanders pointed us to the phone and handed us our cokes.
We had known about the war in Europe for nearly two years. We saw and heard the reports on the Newsreel at the movies each week. Some of us read the stories in the newspaper. The Germans, the Italians and the Japanese were “the enemy.” Now one of those enemies had bombed our ships. I did not know where Pearl Harbor was or what the impact of this action would have on us, but we all knew we were experiencing something monumental. I don’t remember who took us home, or what happened the rest of the day, except that everyone was either listening to the radio or talking about the events of the day and what would happen next.
The next day at school we listened on the school public address system as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) declared war and promised full support to our allies in Europe and Asia. I remember that we sat at attention, no one stirred, as we heard these words that would change our lives although none of us could imagine how war would affect us.
Soon we began to experience the impact on our own lives as fathers, brothers, uncles and friends registered for the draft and waited to be called to service. We saw mothers become “Rosie, the Riveter” as they joined the labor force to help the war effort.
We bought war stamps, saving them in a booklet until we had $18.75, enough to take to the Post Office to buy a war bond. Every Friday afternoon at school we could buy our stamps. The stamps came in 10, 25, or 50 cent denominations. There were also $1 and $5 stamps, but few school children had that much money. If we kept the bond for 10 years it would be worth $25. This was a way for all citizens to feel they were helping pay for the war.
We saved tin foil, rubber bands and cooking grease for the war effort. We learned to use ration stamps in addition to money to purchase meat, sugar, coffee, tires, shoes and other items that were in short supply because they were being used in the war effort. New tires for our cars were nonexistent and we tried many novel ideas to extend the life of the tires we had.
At that time women wore silk hosiery. The hose had a seam down the back and it was important to keep the seam straight. Since silk came from Japan there were no more silk hose to buy. The nylon which might have been used for hosiery was being used for parachutes to help the war effort. So, what was a woman to do? Cotton hose were ugly. One solution was a liquid make-up product that was applied to the legs. Attempts to draw straight “seams” down the back of the leg created some pretty obvious errors. Bare legs became socially acceptable.
Everyone sacrificed for the war effort. Mrs. Sutton, a staunch church member, saved some of her coffee and sugar rations for the church so church suppers would not be without coffee. Cigarettes were in short supply because so many were sent to the servicemen overseas. Lucky Strike cigarettes were sold in a bright green package. I am not sure why, but the Lucky Strike packages became white and the new advertising slogan was “Lucky Strike green has gone to war.” War heroes came in many shapes and forms.
I remember the posters that kept us all alert about our need to help the war effort. Rosie the Riveter was a heroine who learned to rivet and weld in order to keep factories open, especially if they were producing the machinery and weapons needed by our “boys in uniform.” Uncle Sam wanted YOU to join the service, but he also wanted YOU to buy war stamps and bonds to finance the war. “Loose lips sink ships.” reminded us not to talk about the places our loved ones were serving because “the enemy” might be listening and gain valuable information. This war belonged to all of us and everyone had sacrifices to make and responsibilities to fulfill.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the only president I knew. Hoover was the president when I was born in 1931, but FDR was elected in 1932 and served until his death on April 12, 1945. In the spring and summer of 1945, during my eighth grade year, the war was being won. The death of President Roosevelt was a memorable day and a sad one for the nation. I remember the announcement and the somber atmosphere. Harry Truman, the Vice-President, succeeded Roosevelt as president
Then, on May 8, 1945 the Allies declared V-E day, victory in Europe. The Germans had surrendered. That summer President Truman made a momentous decision: to use the atomic bomb in Japan. The first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6. I do not believe anyone understood the magnitude of this action nor the effect it would have on our future. More than 100,000 people died that day. Many more were disfigured. The atomic dust would continue to cause illness and death for years to come. On August 9 a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Shortly after these bombs were used the Japanese surrendered. September 2, 1945 was V-J day, victory in Japan. On the days that Germany, and then Japan, surrendered there were street parties in cities, towns and villages. I remember the streets of Fairview being filled with people shouting, waving flags, hugging each other and rejoicing. The war was over!
I just want to thank you for continuing to think and write and make sense of the world so articulately. These newsletters have been an unexpected pleasure. Once again, you’ve moved me, made me wish I had my mom and dad back so I could ask questions I never thought to ask while they were alive. Today, you were their representative, and I’m grateful.