THE U.S. AT WAR

Dec 7, 1941

It was Sunday midday, clear and sunny. Many a citizen was idly listening to the radio when the flash came that the Japanese had attacked Hawaii. In Topeka they were listening to The Spirit of '41 and napping on their sofas after dinner. In San Francisco they were listening to the news, Philharmonic and Strings in Swingtime.

Out on the Pacific the great drama of U.S. history was coming to a climax. There was an unanswered question: What would the people, the 132,000,000, say? Sometimes they just said, "Well, it's here." Terse, inadequate words gave outward signs of the unfinished emotions within.

The U.S. met the first days of war with incredulity and outrage, with a quick, harsh, nationwide outburst that swelled like the catalogue of some profane Whitman. It met them with a deepening sense of gravity and a slow, mounting anger. But the U.S. knew that its first words were not enough.

National Ordeal

The Government and People of the United States declared war on the Japanese Empire at 4:10 p.m. Monday, Dec. 8, 1941. At dawn the day before, the Japanese had attacked savagely all along the whole great U.S. island-bridge which stretches to the Orient. It was premeditated murder masked by a toothy smile.

Instantly on the news from Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt ordered the Army and Navy: "Fight Back!"

At noon next day the President sat back in the deep cushions of his big closed car, adjusted his big dark Navy cape. The gravel spattered from the driveway, the car moved off slowly around the south lawn, and up the long clear stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue toward the looming dome of the Capitol.

The President moved slowly into the House of Representatives. In the packed, still chamber stood the men & women of the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, the Cabinet. The heavy applause lingered, gradually began to break into cheers and rebel yells.

Mr. Roosevelt gripped the reading clerk's stand, flipped open his black, loose-leaf schoolboy's notebook. He took a long, steady look at the Congress and the battery of floodlights, and began to read.

"Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941--a date which will live in infamy--the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan."

The President left the House. Members began roaring impatiently: "Vote! Vote! Vote!" The Speaker gaveled for order. The Senate left.

The President had arrived at 12:12 p.m. At 1 p.m. exactly the Senate passed the declaration of war, 82-to-0. The House received with a whoop the identical Senate bill. The vote: 388-to-1. The lone dissenter was Miss Jeannette Rankin, Montana Republican, grey-haired pacifist who sat with a bewildered smile, muttering over & over that this might be a Roosevelt trick.

Tragedy at Honolulu

The Japs came in from the southeast over Diamond Head. Civilians' estimates of their numbers ranged from 50 to 150. They whined over Waikiki, over the candy-pink bulk of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. Some were big four-motored jobs, some dive-bombers, some pursuits. All that they met as they came in was a tiny private plane in which Lawyer Ray Buduick was out for a Sunday morning ride. They riddled the plane with machine-gun bullets, but the lawyer succeeded in landing. By the time he did, bombs were thudding all around the city. The first reported casualty was Robert Tyce, operator of a civilian airport near Honolulu, who was machine-gunned as he started to spin the propeller of a plane.

Torpedoes launched from bombers tore at the dreadnoughts in Pearl Harbor. Dive-bombers swooped down on the Army's Hickam and Wheeler Fields. All the way from Pacific Heights down to the center of town the planes soared, leaving a wake of destruction.

Obvious to onlookers on the Honolulu hills was the fact that Pearl Harbor was being hit hard. From the Navy's plane base on Ford Island (also known as Luke Field), in the middle of the harbor, clouds of smoke ascended. One citizen who was driving past the naval base saw the first bomb fall on Ford Island.

Said he: "It must have been a big one. I saw two planes dive over the mountains and down to the water and let loose torpedoes at a naval ship. This warship was attacked again & again. I also saw dive-bombers coming over in single file."

When the first ghastly day was over, Honolulu began to reckon up the score. It was one to make the U.S. Navy and Army shudder. Of the 200,000 inhabitants of Oahu, 1,500 were dead, 1,500 others injured. Washington called the naval damage "serious," admitted at least one "old" battleship and a destroyer had been sunk, other ships damaged at base. Meanwhile Japan took to the radio to boast that the U.S. had suffered an "annihilating blow." This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.