Pearl Harbor Day

Our citizens were in shock upon hearing that our fleet had been attacked at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941. It happened on a Sunday early in the morning while most of our Naval personnel were still sleeping. In those days news was spread by radio so we were all hearing of this assault at different times of the day. If you ask anyone who was living during that time "what were you doing when you heard this news" you would get varying answers.

As for myself, I was a freshman in high school. Our family had just returned from Sunday worship service. My mother was busy in the kitchen preparing lunch. No doubt, my father had turned on the radio and that is how we learned that all of our lives would be changed forever. My mother said to me that I should get my journal and record this event. I said to her, "what should I say ?". She told me to write that I was electrified. I think I was more in a daze but if I did write that it has long been destroyed, probably in a flood which took everything stored in our basement.

In thinking about that day, I decided to call my sister in a distant town and ask her what she remembered. She said she remembered that when she heard this she was wiping down the stairway in our home. I am not sure why she was doing that on a Sunday but there must have been a good reason.

Next I called my brother who lives in Illinois. He remembered very well and told me he had been at Gunter Field in Alabama. He had joined the Army and had finished aviation school at another air base before going to Alabama. He said early in the morning around 4:00 or 5:00 his squadron leader burst into their barracks and woke everyone up and asked if all were there and accounted for. Someone said "all are up and accounted for sir". Then my brother began to laugh for half of the young men were "hung over" from Saturday night drinking and though accounted for they were definitely not "up". All of them were immediately put on alert and were scared to death, he said. At that point none of them knew if their base was to be attacked. As it turned out only the fleet was attacked and the results were heartbreaking for those at that Naval Base and elsewhere.

Though I do not remember my mother saying anything about my brother and any danger he could be in, I feel sure she was thinking about it. At that point only one of her sons was in the military, but before World War II was over, two other sons had served in the states. Bill, however spent years in the China, Burma, India theater of war in the jungles recovering airplane parts and repairing planes.

My parents were devout Christians who lived their faith and praying for their son and the other sons in this war was foremost in their minds. Since all mail leaving the war front was censured my mother devised a plan to keep up with where her son was. When he wrote home the first letter of each paragraph spelled out the name of the area where he was when he wrote that letter. That gave her some comfort to at least know where in the world her son was during those years.

That day in our history set in motion many, many changes for individuals and for our country as well. Food, gas,sugar, tires,and other products were rationed. Travel was curtailed. New industries were put in place and people migrated to larger cities where war preparation factories were located and jobs were available. Women began to work away from home, even in factories making war machines. Our culture was turned around and changed forever. Thus it is good to remember Pearl Harbor Day. We should never take our country for granted. Too many suffered and died for us to be cavalear regarding our freedom, for once lost it is not easily regained.