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Tuesday, December 07, 2004 Page: 12A
TThe year 1941 was showing telltale signs of America recovering from the
Depression era. True, there were more jobs to be had, but the pay was still at
low-level averages, and it wasn’t uncommon for both men and women to handle
more than one job. The talk was always about Nazi Germany and how dictator
Adolf Hitler was running amok in Europe with his patented new type of warfare
called “Blitzkrieg.”
The Nazi hordes gobbled up country after country, and it was then that the
world began to recognize the meaning of the concentration camps that enslaved
those averse to Nazism and those who didn’t meet the criteria of German
heredity. The news of that era came from a radio, the movies or the
newspapers, and it seemed the Tri-Partite of Germany, Italy and Japan was
closely knitted and suspicions presumed that at one time or another America
would have to come to the rescue of our British ally.
The thought of war was prevalent, especially among the young men and boys
of the era, and conscription was already in progress. Then when that fateful
day of Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, dawned, America found itself up to its necks in
what was documented as World War II with the Japanese attack at America’s
naval installation at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
The news blared from the radios about the onslaught and damage and deaths
as a result of the attack. It was, I believe, a typical December Sunday
afternoon, cold but sunny. While I was pumping gas at a local station, the
news of the Japanese attack blared with crisp undertones. Beginning high
school at the time, guys my age knew only too well that their civilian days
were numbered; for some, very numbered. Everyone who came in for gas that day
talked of nothing but Pearl Harbor, and some had relatives stationed there in
the military and no knowledge of their well-being.
In those days, it wasn’t easy to get prompt information, for America was on
a war footing, and the military classified just about everything. America was
indeed in a state of absolute shock. In school on a Monday Dec. 8, we were
allowed to listen to the president address a joint session of Congress in
which he asked for a declaration of war against the Empire of Japan for the
unprovoked attack.
Only one day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, some seniors were already on
their way to recruiting offices in Wilkes-Barre about four miles from their
schools. Not having the 8-cent fare to take the streetcar, they walked. The
foremost attitude was disbelief, outrage and determination to get even.
In my neighborhood, families had three, four or even five sons, and the
mothers, especially, were fearful that soon they, too, would be among those in
uniform. As if ordained, the young men of that time rallied around their flag
and country and became a serial number in the armed forces of their choosing.
Dec. 7, 1941, which President Roosevelt proclaimed in his address to the
Congress of the United States as “a date that will live in infamy,” will
never be forgotten by the men and women who were so mad they sought and
delivered their individual vengeance in not one theater of operations but two.
To this very day families who lost someone at Pearl Harbor still honor
those who lie at rest at their stations in Hawaii with memorial services and
tributes.
Bill Smith writes for and about veterans. Write to him c/o the Times
Leader, 15 N. Main St., Wilkes-Barre, PA 18711-0250.