Originally it was written as “a date which will live in world history”, But it was changed at the last second. I think it was a good move.
Also, love the work you did on the picture of the speech Norman! 
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Press Conference by Treasury Secretary Morgenthau
December 8, 1941
Q. Good afternoon, Mr. Secretary.
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: I hope we did not inundate you with too many regulations.
Q. Everything goes smoothly.
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: Who is president of the press room?
Q. Mr. Herman, but he is not here.
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: Everything go all right?
Q. I believe so, sir.
What did you think of the behavior of the government bond market today?
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: I was very pleased, very pleased.
Q. There has been no support, no open market support?
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: I understand there has not. The last I heard, not even a dollar.
BELL: That is right.
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: Not even a dollar natural market.
Q. It did decline a little, didn’t it?
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: Oh, yes, it is off a point and a fraction.
BELL: Back up at the close.
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: Bell says, “Up a little at the close.”
Q. The fact there was no support of the bond market today does not necessarily mean anything in the future, does it?
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: No. The Federal Reserve and ourselves are watching it day by day, but at least it took very good care of itself today when you consider we borrowed a billion and a half on Thursday; and I think it was good that we put in stiffer regulations on Thursday and I think we discouraged some people who wanted to get in on a quick ride.
Q. Mr. Secretary, can you tell us what the quick turn of events means to people in terms of taxes?
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: No, no.
Q. You think you will get your six percent limitation on profits now.
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: I still think – I have not had time to think about taxes. We have been so busy getting out regulations that it took everybody’s time.
Q. Aside from details of taxes, can you tell us whether they will speed up or have any influence at all on your program for taxes?
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: I can only imagine that the-- I think it makes it easier for the Treasury to get the taxes that we need, the revenue that we need. I am sure that people would be more willing to pay their money under war conditions than they would prior to yesterday.
Q. You imply in that, that stiffer taxes are necessary?
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: Let’s put it this way, I think that that will mean certainly greater expenditures for war purposes which will mean a corresponding increase in taxes.
Q. Mr. Secretary, what effect will this have on the Defense Savings campaign?
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: I don’t know of any except that we will certainly increase our efforts.
Q. Do you intend to change the name from “defense” to “war” savings?
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: You men helped me word that originally. We worked it out in a press conference.
Q. Conditions have changed.
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: But I say you boys helped me. I worked that out with the help of you men.
Q. Still “defense” isn’t it?
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: Yes.
Q. Everybody’s calling them “offensive” savings bonds.
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: I hope not.
Q. Did you hear what he said, that they called them “offensive” savings bonds? Somebody suggested just leaving out the word “defense.”
Q. How about the six percent limit now that the country is at war?
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: I am not going to get into details. I am not prepared.
Q. The general theory contained in that statement before the Banking Committee at that time, you still stand by that?
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: I am not going to depart from my plan. As far as I know, I think I will save my statement for the Ways and Means Committee.
Q. Any idea when that will come?
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: No, everybody has been pretty busy for the last twenty-four hours.
Q. Mr. Secretary, I understand that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York asked the banks and the life insurance companies not to liquidate any bonds at this time, government bonds, in order not to disturb the market. Was that at your behest?
Q. The bill is being signed. You can see the flashlights over at the White House.
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: I don’t think, in the first instance, any such instructions went from here and I gravely doubt if any instructions were given.
Q. You doubt it?
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: I know no such instructions were given, and I gravely doubt that any such request was made.
BELL: They did confer with those people this morning, and they may have made some suggestions.
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: I made no such request, and I talked to Mr. Sproul several times and he did not mention it. It was not necessary. Everybody knows what this means, and everybody we have come in contact with is more than willing to do his part and assume his responsibility.
Q. This policy of not throwing any support to the government bond market on the day on which we declared war with the United States, will that policy–
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: Declared war against Japan.
Q. That is right. There are two ways either to support the market or let it alone, and let it decline to its natural level. I remember at the outbreak of the war you particularly favored a natural market at that time.
That was in ’39.
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: Yes, we still do, and two things happened today, decision to leave all markets open worked out well. I mean, nobody has gotten excited, and no necessity to do anything in the government bond market, which I think, through the financial nerves of the country, shows they are in a very good condition.
Q. What was the other thing that happened, Mr. Secretary?
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: Nothing.
Q. You said there were two things: one was the decision to leave all markets open-- And the bond market.
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: I mean exchanges and the bond market.
Q. Did you reach this first decision to leave all exchanges open?
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: That was reached in consultation with the president and the Secretary of Agriculture and myself.
Q. I see Lt. Stevens is back. Any special significance to that?
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: I need a little help, a little extra help, and I asked them until we get over this time, if they would leave him here for a while.
Q. It has nothing to do with liaison between Navy and Treasury?
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: As a matter of fact, for background, actually what happened, I was about to step on a plane for a week’s holiday in Tucson and Stevens was with me, when I got a call from the president to come back. What I said was, “Having been with me, why don’t you stay on,” and this was the way it happened. I mean I was just about to get on the plane.
Q. Where does the House Ways and Senate Finance now stand with regard to taxes? In the exchange of letters between the president and Mr. Doughton they said the tax program had been temporarily deferred. Have you been given any other notice as to when they might take it up again?
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: No.
Q. Are you going to testify before the Senate on price control?
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: I have not been asked.
Q. The decision to leave the markets open, Mr. Secretary, that applied to the securities market too?
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: Securities market.
Q. Was the SEC represented at this conference?
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: No, Mr. Bell talked with Purcell, didn’t you?
BELL: Yes.
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: Last night, and I talked with Mr. Eccles last night.
Q. That for any length of time continuing under present conditions?
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: Just handling the situation for the moment, it has always been my recommendation when anybody gets excited, let’s leave the market open, and I am sure American horse sense will take care of the rest. So far that is proven – you might add, “horse sense and patriotism.” So far, I have not been disappointed. I suppose you should say “patriotism and horse sense.”
Q. Horse sense is a little rare.
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: They are both good qualities. I have not been disappointed.
Q. Doesn’t this thing confirm your utmost fears when you wanted to freeze Japanese assets and your hand was held when the horse had been stolen?
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: Let’s forget all about that, let’s forget all about that. We are facing a new situation.
Q. Would you say that from his point on there will be greater control of capital markets to the extent of being more careful where financing goes for other than defense needs?
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: Yes, but I don’t want to get the impression out that people always think, control and domination, and so forth – I think certainly that any business that needs capital should be encouraged to get it if it is in connection with defense needs, but I certainly think the various financial agencies will be on the lookout for anybody that is borrowing money for purposes other than defense. If you can write it that Washington steps in, and so forth–
Q. There is a lot of disposition under the present circumstances to expect leadership from Washington.
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: I think they will get it. If you can distinguish between leadership and control and the capitalistic system and so forth and so on.
Q. From SEC circles, Mr. Secretary, has come already, I think, in the form of a speech by Mr. Purcell, among others, something called a Capital Issues Committee. How do you stand on that, or do you stand on it?
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: We studied that in the summer of 1939, didn’t we?
BELL: Yes.
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: We started the first studies here in connection with SEC. I think we had studies here in June and July 1939.
Q. You know there was a Capital Issues Committee in the last war?
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: I know there was. Right now, everything seems to be working nicely on an informal basis, just by picking up the phone, and they have been very good in New York. They got together, the Federal Reserve Bank and the Stock Exchange; the whole thing worked beautifully. I think the governor of the Federal Reserve Bank slept here last night.
BELL: The president and the vice president of the Federal Reserve. At least they had a bed; whether they slept, I don’t know.
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: But everybody has a good feeling, good cooperation between Washington and New York. It has been fine.
Q. How about the Pacific coast, have you heard anything from out there?
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: No, but everything as I say, all along the line, banking and financial institutions, the cooperation has been one hundred percent.
Q. Would we expect shortly any financing, in view–
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: No change.
Q. You are sticking to your program of no new money issues in the near future?
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: Nothing has happened in the last couple of days to make me change my mind, but I want to be free to change. I don’t want you fellows to say, “You told us on December 8th you weren’t going to do anything,” but I am not thinking of doing anything.
Q. You say everything has worked nicely on a cooperative basis with regard to supervising capital markets. Will this be a good time to formalize that system and it might be possible we would have a committee?
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: It is working pretty well now over the telephone and sitting down with a fellow over the lunch table, and I personally prefer that to the formal method. If it has to be formal, I will, but right now, between Ball and myself and the telephone and having lunch together with some of these people, it is working very nicely, isn’t it, Dan?
BELL: Very nicely, very good.
SECRETARY MORGENTHAU: I want to thank you fellows for the nice way in which you handled all of our press releases last night.
U.S. State Department (December 8, 1941)
701.6111/1112
Remarks by the Ambassador of the Soviet Union
Washington, December 8, 1941
Mr. President: I have the honor to present you with the letter of credence accrediting me Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to you and also with the letter of recall of my predecessor.
I consider it my pleasing duty at the same time to reiterate and to emphasize my predecessors’ expressions of the friendship and high esteem which the peoples of the Soviet Union entertain for the American people and the unswerving desire of my government for the maintenance of the friendliest possible relations and closest cooperation with the Government of the United States of America. I am proud and happy that the honor of being the interpreter of these feelings and desires, belongs to me.
The Soviet Union has, like other countries, in its turn, been subjected to a treacherous attack by Nazi imperialist Germany and has, for over five months, been waging a determined struggle against the aggressor.
The peoples of the Soviet Union are happy in the realization that they are receiving from the American people not only their sympathy in this struggle, but also substantial material support, and it affords me keen pleasure to express to you, Mr. President, and to your people, the warm gratitude of my government and my country, for this generous support.
The fact that this aid is proffered and being increasingly extended testifies to the growing recognition by the American people of the terrible danger to all nations created by the fulfilment by Nazi Germany of the criminal program drawn up in advance by Hitler for the destruction of the political and economic independence of all countries, and the enslavement of their peoples.
The struggle against the aggression of Hitler and his imitators and against his voluntary and involuntary allies – a struggle in which all the liberties, all the spiritual, moral, cultural and political values, gained by humanity in the course of many centuries, are at stake, is becoming more and more the cause of all honest, liberty-loving, peace-loving people. While the heaviest blows and sacrifices in this struggle have fallen to the lot of the Soviet Union, the part played in it by the United States is becoming more and more prominent and active.
The successful outcome of this struggle in the shortest possible time will to a great extent depend on the coordination of the activities of its more energetic and powerful participants, on the timely and rational use of their resources, and last but not least on the maintenance among themselves of the utmost mutual understanding and confidence, which will be necessary not merely during the struggle itself, but also during the subsequent period.
I shall consider the extent to which I may be able to contribute to the creation of these conditions in the relations between our countries as the measure of the success of my mission. I feel confident, Mr. President, that I may rely upon your support and that of your government in the fulfilment of this mission.
My arrival in Washington coincided precisely with the moment in which American territory and American armed forces were subjected to attack from another state – an attack no less unexpected than that to which, five-and-a-half months ago, the Soviet Union was subjected. This event, arising from the present international situation, was brought about by the same forces and the same ideology which let loose sanguinary war in Europe and other continents. I must limit myself, at the present moment, Mr. President, to the assurance of the best wishes and warm sympathy of the people of the Soviet Union towards the American people in these days of their ordeal. I am convinced that the similar trial of the Soviet and American peoples will rivet still more strongly the bonds of friendship between them.
740.00116 European War 1939/465
The Greek Minister to the Secretary of State
Washington, December 8, 1941
3571
Mr. Secretary: Following my communication dated November 28, 1941, I have the honor to bring to your knowledge that information which has recently reached the Royal Hellenic Government confirms that from the Bulgarian point of view certain Greek and Yugoslav territories are now considered as forming an integral part of Bulgarian State having been virtually annexed to it. Thus King Boris in his speech at the opening session of Sobranye on October 28, 1941, expressing his satisfaction that the foreign policy followed by Bulgaria has yielded the best results for her added:
Thanks to our cooperation with Axis the two Provinces of Macedonia and Thrace have now returned within the frontiers of the Bulgarian Motherland. In this area of the European cooperation under the direction of the Axis powers and their two great leaders truth has been crowned with victory.
These statements by the Bulgarian King which in themselves leave no doubt as to the Bulgarian intentions are supplemented by reports telegraphed from Sofia and widely published by the Turkish press without being denied or refuted by the Bulgarian Legation at Ankara. These reports stated that the Bulgarian Government have decided to proceed to the repopulation of the territories recently restored to Bulgaria and that they intend to see to the establishment of Bulgarian populations in these areas. A decision was recently taken by the Bulgarian Cabinet on the matter and a relative decree stipulates that all real property whether urban or rural as well as all movable property belonging either to Bulgarians who emigrated as the result of the last war or to Greeks who left Thrace during the recent military operations there shall be placed at the disposal of Bulgarian nationals who will settle in Thrace. The decree also adds that Bulgarian peasants to be established there shall enjoy several privileges and that their dwelling places and agricultural implements will be granted to them free. The Bulgarian Premier himself, Mr. Filoff, in an interview with the correspondent of the Borser Zeitung stated:
A big plan of colonization of the Aegean Sea provinces is under consideration and that 1,000 Bulgarian families are shortly to be settled there. To these settlers will be granted all useful facilities, immunity from taxes and loans for acquiring agricultural machines. By a successful solution of this problem of colonization the first step towards the assimilation of these Provinces by the Mother Country will be effected.
The above constituting real confessions of the mainly responsible quarters in Bulgaria give a glimpse of the cynical character of the measures taken by the Bulgarian Government. These aim at a forcible Bulgarization of these recently annexed Greek Provinces hitherto inhabited by an unmixed Greek population who are now suffering the most inhuman and exterminating outrages at the hands of the rapacious Bulgarian hordes.
Accept [etc.]
C. DIAMANTOPOULOS
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The Pittsburgh Press (December 8, 1941)
U.S. DECLARES WAR!
1,500 die in Hawaii; fleets clash
Tokyo claims sinking of 2 American battleships; Manila bombed
By Joe Alex Morris, United Press war editor
The map above indicates where Japan struck at the United States and Britain in blows from the Hawaiian Islands to Malaya. The U.S. Navy is striking back in a major battle west of Hawaii as the British battle Jap troops on the beaches between Singapore and the Thai border.
The United States and Britain smashed back at Japan today on a 6,000-mile Pacific war front that flamed from Hawaii’s coral beaches to the jungle shores of Malaya and Thailand.
The American battle fleet was reported challenging the Japanese striking force which raided Hawaii with heavy loss of life and naval damage. A great naval engagement was rumored in the waters west of America’s Pacific Gibraltar.
The White House announced that 1,500 persons were killed in the Japanese attack on the Hawaiian island of Oahu yesterday.
Germany announced that the drive to capture Moscow had been abandoned “for this winter” because of the severe Russian weather.
Here is the picture of the war in the Pacific:
LONDON: Prime Minister Winston Churchill carries Britain into war against Japan with a formal declaration before Parliament.
TOKYO: Japanese naval command claims sinking of battleships USS Oklahoma and USS West Virginia; damage to four other battleships; damage to four heavy cruisers; heavy destruction of American planes; probable sinking of U.S. aircraft carrier (rumored to be USS Langley); capture of “many” enemy ships; sinking of minesweeper USS Penguin at Guam.
HAWAII: White House reports 3,000 casualties, including 1,500 fatalities, in Japanese air attack; loss of “old” U.S. battleship and destroyer.
WASHINGTON: U.S. battle fleet is carrying out sweeping operations and has destroyed “a number of” Japanese submarines and planes, it is announced. Congress declares war.
THAILAND: Apparently caves in to the Japanese with little or no fight; Tokyo claims Japanese troops moving into the country under “agreement” reached with the Bangkok government; Japanese reported swarming into southern Thailand in preparation for drive on Singapore.
SINGAPORE: British battle Japanese landing forces which have established series of beachheads along eastern coast; Royal Air Force heavily engaged.
MANILA: Waves of Japanese bombers attack key points in Philippines, including U.S. Army base at Fort Stotsenburg, Davao and the vicinity of Baguio. Japanese landings rumored but not confirmed.
CHUNGKING: China moves to declare war on Germany and Italy as well as to formalize the long-existing state of war with Japan.
CHINA: Japanese attack Hongkong twice by air; take over Shanghai International Settlement; occupy Tientsin British concession and intern 200 U.S. Marines.
PACIFIC ISLES: Japanese attack American islands of Guam and Wake, capture of Wake reported; attack British island of Nauru; Japanese naval squadron reported off Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean.
AUSTRALIA & DUTCH EAST INDIES: All armed forces on the alert; no Japanese attacks yet reported.
BERLIN & ROME: Indicate Germany and Italy will join their Axis partner in war against the United States but no tangible action yet.
Japanese imperial forces, said to have suffered severe losses of airplanes and several warships, were in action on these fronts:
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A major naval battle was reported west of Hawaii, with the U.S. fleet attempting to destroy enemy warships and airplanes that blasted Pearl Harbor Naval Base and Honolulu.
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A fierce land battle was in progress on the northeast coast of the Malay States where British defense forces attacked. Japanese troops landed on the beaches despite severe air bombing and machine-gun fire.
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About 30,000 Japanese troops in 60 vessels, escorted by warships, were believed to have landed on the Malay coast.
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Japanese invasion forces bombed and shelled Bangkok, crashed into Thailand by land and sea, and were reported in a British broadcast to have forced that government to capitulate. The occupation of Thailand would open the way for Japanese drives on Burma and the Burma Road supply route to China and would set up a base for a drive southward against Singapore.
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Waves of Japanese bombers battered northern, central and southern areas of the Philippine Islands, reportedly causing several hundred casualties.
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The great British naval base at Singapore was attacked from the air, with 60 persons reported killed and 133 injured.
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A Japanese landing in North (British) Borneo was reported repulsed with heavy casualties, according to London dispatches, but the same notice heard that the American island of Guam had been attacked from all sides and that aerial bombardment had started several big fires.
Australia and the Dutch East Indies joined in the war on Japan, but there were increasing hints from Berlin that the conflict would become an outright Axis battle against the Allied powers. A Nazi spokesman said that an important statement might be forthcoming later and the Berlin press hinted that Germany would aid Japan. There was still no word of the position of the Soviet Union.
On the Chinese coast, the Japanese attacked Hongkong by air and by land and conquered the International Settlement at Shanghai after sinking the British gunboat HMS Peterel and seizing the gunboat USS Wake. U.S. Marines at Peking and Tientsin were disarmed and interned.
The Emperor of Japan, “seated on the throne of a line unbroken for ages eternal,” declared war on the United States and Great Britain on the grounds that the Allied powers had threatened the existence of the Japanese Empire and the “new order” in East Asia. On the outcome of this struggle, he said, Japan’s rule would rise or fall.
But even before the declaration of war was known, Japanese forces were attacking in blitz fashion.
The first blow fell on the Hawaiian Islands. Japanese four-motored bombers, dive bombers and torpedo planes flashed across the mountains of Oahu Island and swooped down on U.S. warships in the Pearl Harbor Naval Base, the Gibraltar of the Pacific.
Honolulu, target of Japanese bombers
The picture shows part of Honolulu’s extensive waterfront, near Pearl Harbor, both targets of Japanese air attacks. The White House reported a heavy loss of life in Honolulu.
Honolulu was bombed and furious air attacks were launched on Hickam Airfield, Ford Island in the center of Pearl Harbor Air Base and nearby military barracks, while torpedo planes with the red symbol of the Rising Sun on their wings slashed repeatedly at warships in the harbor. More than 100 and possibly close to 200 American airplanes were reported destroyed or damaged, but official sources declined to confirm those reports.
A U.S. Army transport carrying lumber was sunk by a Japanese submarine 1,300 miles west of California, two oil tankers were reported afire at Pearl Harbor and fear was felt for three big American liners – the President Pierce (converted into the Army transport USS Hugh L. Scott), the President Coolidge and the President Harrison. All three were in the war zone in which Japanese warships and submarines were operating and fear was expressed that they had been seized or possibly attacked.
The American fleet, steaming out of Pearl Harbor, was believed to have struck back at the attacking airplanes and the warships on which they were based and some reports – so far unverified – said that a Japanese aircraft carrier, four submarines and at least six bombers had been destroyed.
Heavy gunfire was heard west of Honolulu and both American and Japanese sources reported a major naval battle was believed to be in progress.
In the Philippines, the Japanese Air Fleet struck at Davao, on Mindanao Island, where the greatest Japanese population is centered, and at Baguio, 12 miles north of Manila, on the west central coast of the island of Luzon. Five deaths were listed, but reports that the Japanese population on Mindanao had seized control of the island lacked confirmation.
American defense forces, including airplane squadrons, went into action from bases in the Philippines.
The pattern of the Japanese assault – a blitzkrieg-type series of smashes at rear-line bases over a vast sea area – began to take shape more clearly this morning as British bases nearer to Japan were attacked.
The aerial and naval blows at Oahu Island, the center of American defense in the Hawaiian Islands, had been launched at a distance of about 3,500 miles from Japan and probably 1,800 miles from the nearest Japanese bases in the mandated Marshall Islands. As a result, the assault was regarded to some extent as a suicide raid designed to knock out as much as possible of the main American base and the fleet’s striking power.
Attacks in the Malay States and Thailand, however, were of a sustained nature and carried out by large expeditionary forces assigned to occupy Thailand and attack the British naval base at Singapore, where a strong British fleet, including the 35,000-ton battleship HMS Prince of Wales, arrived last week.
Japanese aerial squadrons raided Singapore and there were some claims that two British cruisers had been knocked out. A British communique, however, said only that slight damage was caused. There were “a few” civilian casualties.
On the northeast coast of the Malay States, however, the Japanese landed from transports despite heavy British air attacks. Some of the landing parties were repulsed, but a British communiquée issued in Singapore said that fighting was in progress on the beaches near Kota Bharu, an important railroad town toward which the Japanese were attempting to fight their way. The British said they had sunk some of the Japanese ships and scored a direct hit on a barge filled with Japanese soldiers in the Kelantan River.
Reported by a Domei News Agency broadcast from Tokyo, a Japanese communique said that Singapore had been “severely” bombed and that the landing operations had been carried out successfully.
Ten Japanese ships in the Gulf of Siam, off Bangkok, were bombed by the British, but later reports said that Bangkok had been bombed by air and shelled by Japanese ships off the coast.
Still another sector of the widespread battlefront was active along the China coast.
At Hongkong, Japanese airplanes attacked the main British defense sector while Japanese troops on the Chinese mainland began an assault on the land defenses. The aerial bombardment of Hongkong was described as heavy.
Britain’s defenses at Hongkong had been described as exceptionally good and it was believed that the island could hold out for some time.
Northward at Shanghai, Japanese guns along the Whangpoo River opened fire as Japanese marines took over the famous waterfront, including all big commercial establishments, in the International Settlement. The British gunboat HMS Peterel went down in flames after her 63-year-old master, Lt. Cmdr. Polkinghorn, opened fire with two machine guns on the Japanese. He was reported lost.
At Tientsin, 63 U.S. Marines were said to have been disarmed and interned.
In the Far North, there was no word as to developments around Vladivostok or the American bases on the Aleutian Islands, extending westward from Alaska, but it was believed likely that the Japanese would act, now or later, to prevent the United States from using any bases on Soviet soil for attacks on Japan. Vladivostok would be the best base for air raids on Tokyo.
No word had come from the Soviet Union in regard to the new war front in the Pacific, although Japanese newspapers had charged last week that the Russian government had joined the “pro-United States” front and boosted its Siberian frontier army to 840,000 men.
Elsewhere throughout the world, the new war front overshadowed the great conflict in North Africa and in Russia, where the Red Army said it had routed the Germans with thousands of casualties on the Mozhaysk sector before Moscow and were gaining ground in an attempt to entrap enemy forces near Tikhvin, southeast of Leningrad. Axis troops were reported forced back 75 miles west of Rostov.
On the diplomatic front, declarations of war against Japan were issued by Canada, the refugee Dutch government and Costa Rica, as Britain went through the formalities of carrying out Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s pledge to join the United States “within the hour” of war with Japan.
In the Dutch East Indies, the governor general proclaimed war on Japan and mobilized all frontier areas while the Dutch Air Fleet joined with the British in fighting Japanese attacks in the Singapore area.
In the Canal Zone, U.S. authorities took urgent precautions against danger to the Panama Canal. All Japanese nationals were being rounded up and it was understood that Italians and Germans would also be arrested.
The fighter planes and anti-aircraft batteries of Pearl Harbor and environs dropped at least six of the Japanese planes. Four Japanese submarines were known to have been sunk.
A Japanese war communique heard by NBC described the attack on Hawaii as a “great success.”
Secretary of State Cordell Hull issued a statement which asserted that “Japan has made a treacherous and utterly unprovoked attack upon the United States” at a time when its representatives were discussing peace.
Washington was on a war footing. Throughout the country, Army and Navy personnel were ordered to their posts and aircraft observers were called to duty to man coastal observation points along the Southern California coast.
Japs seize U.S. vessel, sink British gunboat
By Robert P. Martin, United Press staff writer
SHANGHAI, China (UP) – The British gunboat HMS Peterel sank in the Whangpoo River off the Shanghai waterfront under blasting Japanese fire today and the communications ship USS Wake, its crew overwhelmed as it lay at anchor, was captured.
Lt. Cmdr. John Polkinghorn, 63, commander of the Peterel, was believed, with most of his crew, to have gone down with his ship.
The Peterel opened fire, under odds it knew were hopeless, when the Japanese ordered it to surrender.
The Wake had no chance to fire. The Japanese, in a sudden attack as they took over the waterfront of the International Settlement off which the two tiny gunboats were anchored, boarded it and forced its surrender.
May have sunk liner
American service officers here expressed belief that the Japanese had probably sunk or seized the American liner President Harrison, which was believed to have been somewhere off the mouth of the Yangtze River in the Shanghai area, on its way to Ching Wang Tao in the north to pick up 203 Marines, awaiting evacuation December 10.
It was forecast that the Marines would be interred, the first American prisoners of the Pacific war.
Japanese marines marched out along the International Settlement waterfront, the control of which Japan had long sought, as the Japanese gunboats opened fire on the Peterel.
They strung field telephones along the waterfront as a Japanese destroyer drew up to a dock.
Shanghai banks closed
The American radio station broadcast orders from the U.S. consulate to Americans not to move about the settlement.
The Municipal Council announced that Japanese authorities had asked them to continue their administration for the moment, but to keep banks closed “for a few days.”
Japanese planes flew over Shanghai, dropping leaflets which announced a state of war with the United States and Great Britain.
The leaflets said:
Therefore, Japanese Army and Navy detachments as from today have been sent to the International Settlement to suppress hostile activity and maintain peace and order.
They promised that the Japanese would respect life and property, “including enemy nationals.”
Nazis to join Japs in war against U.S., Berlin hints
By Joseph W. Grigg, United Press staff correspondent
BERLIN, Germany (UP) – An authorized spokesman said today that German relations with the United States were “no longer of any importance” and the press hinted that Germany might aid Japan under the Axis alliance.
Authorized sources said close contact had been maintained between Berlin and Tokyo for the past few days.
These sources refused any comment whether Germany would intervene under the Tripartite Pact, but said a more explicit statement of German-U.S. relations would possibly be available later today.
Called ‘paradoxical’
Asked whether the outbreak of hostilities between Japan and the United States affected relations between Germany and the United States, the spokesman said “it is paradoxical and ridiculous to ask such a question.”
The official news agency, in a dispatch from Tokyo, quoted Japanese Premier Hideki Tojo: “I am happy that the alliance with Germany and Japan is growing ever closer.”
The newspaper BZ am Mittag was the first to suggest that the Axis agreement might be invoked. It recalled an address by Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop November 26 in which he said Mr. Roosevelt would be guilty in any war between the United States and “Europe or Asia.”
It said:
That is still true. The responsibility for this war and all its consequences falls upon Roosevelt. It is true for Europe, it is true for the Far East, it is true for the whole world conflagration.
It said Japan “stands in the strong, insuperable front of young peoples that assures its victory and future.”
Article Three of the treaty provides that signatories shall “reciprocally support one another with all political, economic and military means in the event that one of the three contracting powers is attacked by a power presently uninvolved in the European war or the Sino-Japanese conflict.”
Condemns Roosevelt
The official news agency said:
The war incendiary Roosevelt finally has achieved his goal by also setting the Far East aflame. Next to Churchill, he is the most responsible person who kindled this war.
For years, he has endeavored to hatch a war of Jews and plutocrats against the German Reich born of the Fuehrer’s revolution, and, conscious of his goal, he worked through his agents and middlemen to extend this battle to other countries and other portions of the earth.
The unholy role of Roosevelt’s confidants has become amply clear from German documentary publications. It was he who backed Poland to challenge the Reich. He gave England and France promises of aid. After he broke his election promises by perjury, he permitted the American people to take over the financial burdens of the English war.
Roosevelt sent his special envoy Donovan [Col. William Donovan] to the capitals of the southeast [the Balkans] at the beginning of this year and talked these countries into their unconsidered attitude. Moved by blind hate against Adolf Hitler, he sent arms and material to British assembling areas and finally gave his fleet shooting orders against German warships.
Now the war which Roosevelt chased so long like one possessed has also flamed up in the Pacific. Dollar imperialism has won over the clear reason on wide circles of North American people.
The newspaper Voelkischer Beobachter issued a special edition and carried a similar criticism of Mr. Roosevelt. It said:
This time, the peoples of the earth do not need to wait for history’s verdict in order to know those to blame for the new World War. It is a certainty that without Roosevelt’s intervention, the war in Europe today would have been over a long time ago. Roosevelt attempted to encircle Japan the same as he worked on the encirclement of Germany before 1939. He employed the unworthy weapon of blockade against Japan just as against the young powers of Europe.
The newspaper Zwoelf Uhr termed the new war “a capital crime of the greatest warmonger of all times who thereby crowns his truly-not-small number of crimes.”
It accused Mr. Roosevelt of leading a world imperialistic movement and asserted that Jewry had now declared war against “all the young nations of the globe.”
“The blood of millions sticks to his [Roosevelt’s] fingers,” it said.
The war news was reported first by the German radio, which blamed the conflict on “war agitation by the American President Roosevelt which had been continuously increasing in past weeks.”
Four Philippine towns bombed
Jap planes also attack big Army airfield
While Manila, the capital, thus far has escaped bombardment, other Philippine cities on the map were all reported bombed by Japanese planes today.
MANILA, Philippines (UP) – Japanese airplanes bombed five widely separated points in the Philippines today.
Naval authorities said they had no confirmation of reports that the Japanese had effected troop landings in the Philippines, including reports of the dropping of parachute troops in Japanese-peopled areas.
Japanese planes attacked Baguio, “winter capital” of the Philippines on Luzon Island (125 miles north of Manila); Davao, chief Japanese-colonized center (on Mindanao to the south); Tarlac, 70 miles north of Manila; Clark Field, the great Army air base, and Aparri, chief port of northern Luzon.
Army Maj. LeGrande Diller, aide to Lt. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, commander-in-chief of U.S. forces in the Far East, announced the bombings of Baguio, Davao and Tarlac.
He said 24 Japanese planes bombed Davao at 6:30 a.m. (5:30 p.m. Sunday ET) and others attacked Baguio at 7 a.m.
The Manila correspondent of CBS reported today that two raids by high-flying Japanese planes on Philippine points caused at least 200 casualties. Japanese losses in planes were reported high. The correspondent said Japanese planes also dropped leaflets promising to “liberate” the Filipinos.
Navy officers denied reports that an aircraft carrier had been damaged.
There were other reports that the aircraft tender USS Langley had been damaged.
The Manila Herald, reporting the damaging of an aircraft tender in Malalag Bay, said 13 Japanese planes bombed the area and American planes shot down one of them.
The Manila Bulletin reported the Japanese had bombed Fort Stotsenburg, the second largest fort in the islands, 60 miles north of Manila, at 12:30 p.m. and that pursuit planes from nearby Clark Field had taken off to engage them. The bulletin reported some barracks were afire at the fort.
A Manila Herald dispatch reported a second Japanese air raid on Davao City.
An NBC broadcaster reported from Manila that several persons were killed in the bombing of Davao and that Clark Field, the biggest Army air base in the Philippines, and Camp Ord, 100 miles north of Manila, had been bombed.
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3,000 Hawaiian toll admitted
Battleship, destroyer, many U.S. planes lost
WASHINGTON (UP) – Casualties on the Hawaiian island of Oahu in yesterday’s Japanese air attack will amount to about 3,000, including about 1,500 fatalities, the White House announced today.
The maximum casualties for any one 24-hour period in London in the heavy air raids were about 1,200 – 450 killed and 750 injured. That would indicate that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor which resulted in 1,500 killed was exceptionally intense or else the bombs landed on barracks or some other place where many persons were concentrated.
The White House confirmed the loss in Pearl Harbor of “one old battleship” and a destroyer, which was blown up.
Several other American ships were damaged and a large number of Army and Navy airplanes on Hawaiian fields were put out of commission, the White House disclosed.
The Japanese radio heard in New York claimed today that Japanese naval forces have sunk two U.S. battleships – the 20,000-ton USS Oklahoma and the 32,600-ton USS West Virginia – and an aircraft carrier and damaged four other U.S. battleships, four heavy cruisers and inflicted other widespread losses on U.S. sea forces.
The White House also reported that American operations against Japan were being carried out on a large scale, already resulting in the destruction of “a number of Japanese planes and submarines.”
The White House statement said:
American operations against the Japanese attacking force in the neighborhood of the Hawaiian Islands are still continuing. A number of Japanese planes and submarines have been destroyed.
The damage caused to our forces in Oahu in yesterday’s attack appears more serious than at first believed.
In Pearl Harbor itself, one old battleship has capsized and several other ships have been seriously damaged.
One destroyer was blown up. Several other small ships were seriously hurt. Army and Navy fields were bombed with the resulting destruction of several hangars. A large number of planes were put out of commission.
A number of bombers arrived safely from San Francisco during the engagement – while it was underway. Reinforcements of planes are being rushed and repair work is underway on the ships, planes and ground facilities.
Guam, Wake and Midway Islands and Hong Kong have been attacked. Details of these attacks are lacking.
Two hundred Marines – all that remain in China – have been interned by the Japanese near Tientsin.
The Bill of Rights –
U.S. freedoms 150 years old
First Amendment pledges free speech, worship
The war with Japan today placed greater emphasis on the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Bill of Rights, which is being observed for 12 days beginning today.
Strong public demand caused Congress to submit to the states in 1789 proposals to amend the Constitution. On December 15, 1791, the ratification of the first 10 amendments, commonly known as the “Bill of Rights,” was voted by the last state necessary to meet the requirements for amendment.
During the next two weeks, The Press each day will print an installment of the Bill of Rights “primer” prepared by the Pittsburgh Board of Public Education. Here’s the first installment:
First Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
These Constitutional rights mean you are free:
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To speak whatever you wish, subject only to the limitations of truth, of fairness to others, and of ordinary decency.
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To write, print, publish, or circulate whatever you wish, subject to the same limitations.
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To worship God according to the dictates of your own heart, without interference by other individuals or by officers of the government.
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To assemble to public meeting to discuss peaceably community problems and the public welfare.
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To request your government without fear of reprisal to relieve injustice or correct conditions believed unsatisfactory.
Mexican border closed
SAN DIEGO, California – U.S. officers at the Mexican border last night were reported detaining all Japanese attempting to enter or leave the United States, no matter what identification or other papers they possess, according to U.S. Consul Gerald Mokme at Tijuana, Mexico.
Army, relatives jam telegraph as war comes
Some wire congressman, others try war zones
Americans of all kinds – politically-minded Americans, business-like Americans and alarmed Americans – gave telegraph offices a busy time once war broke out.
The business-like Armed Forces clogged the wires with calls cancelling leaves.
Worried relatives tried to communicate with Hawaii and the Philippines and some, it was reported, even telegraphed relatives in California to leave the coast and come East.
And politically-minded Americans phoned or wired to the nearest Congressman.
The Polish-American Civil League of Allegheny County announced a telegram it sent to Pennsylvania’s two senators and the county’s four representatives:
By unanimous vote of our 81st General Assembly at the Fort Pitt Hotel on Sunday, we advise the following – American honor demands a declaration of war against the treacherous Japanese. We expect Congress and the Senate to act without a single dissenting vote.
“This is the worst night I’ve had since Hitler invaded Austria,” one telegraph operator.
Frisco calls an emergency
Police on every block in Japantown
SAN FRANCISCO, California (UP) – Mayor Angelo J. Rossi last night proclaimed a state of emergency in San Francisco and the Civil Defense Council ordered its members to take all proper steps to protect the lives and property of San Francisco citizens.
The police department placed a heavy police guard in San Francisco’s Japanese colony centered on California, Geary and Post Streets near the Fillmore District.
The police department said:
Japantown is under strict surveillance. We have patrolmen in every block as a precautionary measure to disperse any crowds and direct traffic. So far there has been no excitement.
Army and Navy observers from stations in Northern California met in the mayor’s office to formulate a far-reaching setup of civilian defense and air-raid warning system at this militarily strategic harbor city.
New Orleans crowd boos Jap consulate
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana – A crowd of approximately 300 booed employees of the Japanese consulate yesterday, while papers were being burned by consular employees in the backyard.
Two Japanese boys and a colored chauffeur could be seen burning papers in two large wire baskets. A 24-hour police guard earlier was placed around the consulate.
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Japs, U.S. both have 12 battleships plying Pacific
Combined fleets of Dutch, British and America superior to foe’s
USS Oklahoma, which was reported set afire by Japanese bombs.
USS West Virginia, reported sunk in radio broadcasts.
WASHINGTON (UP) – Here is a picture of U.S. naval power in the Pacific: The United States is believed to have at least 12 battleships in its Pacific Fleet. Highest estimates give Japan the same number.
Great Britain has two battleships in Singapore which may operate with the Americans in event of joint U.S.-British action against Japan. Japan, on the other hand, may already have acquired use of the German battleship Tirpitz.
Japan, on October 10, had ten battleships built and eight building. Two of these eight are presumed completed and in service. These two – the Nisshin and the Takamatsu – are comparable in battle strength to the newest American battleships – USS Washington and USS North Carolina, all carrying 16-inch guns. The Japanese vessels are reported to be about 40,000 tons apiece, or some 5,000 tons heavier than the USS Washington or USS North Carolina.
Eight aircraft carriers
The other ten battleships of the Japanese fleet are deemed of equal strength to the remaining American battleships.
It is not known exactly how many American ships are in the Pacific, but four battleship divisions, each containing three battleships, are attached to the Pacific Fleet.
The Japanese are credited with eight aircraft carriers built and two building, against a total of seven American carriers built and 11 building. Even the most modern Japanese aircraft carriers are capable of carrying only a fraction as many planes as U.S. carriers.
The five newest Japanese carriers carry 45 planes each, as maximum, while the seven American ships in service carry more than 80 planes each.
Cruisers 46-37
The Japanese are credited with 46 cruisers built and 10 building, whereas the United States has 37 built and 54 building.
The United States now has 170 destroyers built as against Japan’s 125, and is now rushing 192 more towards completion. The Japanese are building 73 more. Japan has 71 submarines, with seven known to be building.
Naval experts cautioned that Japan’s figures on naval building are likely to be inexact inasmuch as she has been secretly constructing warships for some time.
British, Dutch to help
America’s naval strength in the Pacific would exceed Japan’s still further with British and Dutch units.
The Navy has a strong striking force in the Fleet Marine Force, composed of two triangular “streamlined divisions” of highly trained Marines equipped with tanks, planes, armored vehicles, infantry shock troops, and even parachutists. Marine Corps strength was 2,568 officers and 43,180 men.
Trading Act invoked
WASHINGTON – Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. last night invoked vital provisions of the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 to prevent any commerce or communication with Japan or her allies.
Burch: Jap’s attack follows plan U.S. expected
Narrow, shallow harbor entrance puts fleet in danger
By Wendel Burch, United Press staff writer
The following dispatch by the former UP Bureau manager in Honolulu evaluates the strategic phases of the opening Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and Guam.
(UP) – Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States’ great naval and air base in Honolulu, and adjoining Hickam Field, the United States’ largest bomber base outside the continent, followed a pattern long anticipated by the American high command.
For years, Army, Navy, and Air Corps officers have organized Hawaii’s defenses against every conceivable form of attack.
The immediate Japanese objective clearly was to knock out vital installations at Pearl Harbor, and ruin Hickam Field’s vast runways and hangars. This would serve first to immobilize the U.S. fleet and its greatest adjunct – the long-range Navy and Army bombers quartered at Pearl Harbor and Hickman. If the bombers are crippled in their operations, the Japanese fleet will have immediately easier going.
Aimed at confusion
Secondly, the Japanese undoubtedly hoped to produce great confusion in Honolulu. The first bomb possibly was a signal to “fifth columnists” to attempt sabotage. There are about 175,000 persons of Japanese ancestry in the Hawaiian Islands’ 410,000 population. Of this number, scarcely a fourth may be aliens and dual citizens, and the vast majority will be utterly loyal to the United States.
The task of “rounding up” known anti-Americans necessarily may produce a great task for the Army and Marine forces. The longer this confusion and internal type of attack can be prolonged, the greater will be Japan’s chances of upsetting American battle plans.
Pearl Harbor, despite its tremendous defenses, has some vulnerable points to bombing attack. The great oil shortage tanks adjoining the main base probably were a prime object of Japanese “suicide bombings.” First reports indicate that some direct hits may have been scored in this area. Construction of underground tanks has been underway on the island of Oahu for months, and it is likely that vital reserves are safe from attacks such as the Japanese have made.
Narrow entrance
The entrance to Pearl Harbor is narrow – and shallow. One ship down cross-wise in that channel may bottle up major ships for hours. News that the fleet has already left the harbor would indicate that the Navy command is taking no chances on such an immediate development.
The drydock facilities at Pearl Harbor, the most important part of the base, adjoin the central harbor. If any direct hit is scored on the main dock or its companion on which construction was started a few years ago, a serious repair problem may be created.
Ford Island, mentioned as one target of the first Japanese bombers, is the home of giant consolidated “PBY” two- and four-motored bombers.
Hickam Field immediately adjoins Pearl Harbor to the east. Millions of dollars have been rushed into improvement of this establishment. In size, the field may be compared to LaGuardia Airport in New York City.
Scout, attack and reconnaissance planes are mainly based at Schofield Barracks, the central Army post on a plateau overlooking Pearl Harbor, situated some 25 miles from Honolulu to the northwest.
On the island of Maui, 90 miles from Oahu to the southeast; Hawaii – some 200 miles south of Oahu, and Kauai, 80 miles northwest, additional Army and Navy air bases exist. An often used anchorage for the main fleet during battle maneuvers has been Lahaina Roads, just off Maui.
FBI is ready
WASHINGTON – The FBI announced last night that it is “completely mobilized and ready” to deal with Japanese espionage and sabotage.
WAR BULLETINS!
100 casualties reported in Jap raid
MANILA, Philippines – Press dispatches reported that 100 to 200 troops, 60 of them Americans, were killed or injured today when Japanese warplanes raided Iba, on the west coast of the island of Luzon, north of the Olongapo Naval Base.
Haiti declares war on Japan
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Haiti declared war on Japan today.
Honduras declares war
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – The Congress of Honduras, by a unanimous vote, declared war on Japan today and ordered martial law for the duration of the war.
Cuba’s Cabinet votes for war
HAVANA, Cuba – The Cuban Cabinet, at a special session today, voted to ask Congress to declare war on Japan. Premier Carlos Saladrigas said the Cabinet would henceforth be “in permanent session.”
Netherlands at war
LONDON, England – Queen Wilhelmina said today the Kingdom of the Netherlands considers itself at war with Japan and puts all of its military and power resources at disposal of the common war effort.
RAF bombs Jap transports
SINGAPORE – Royal Air Force planes today carried out intensive bombing attacks on Japanese transports attempting to land troops along the northern Malayan coast.
Hong Kong beats off raiders
HONG KONG – Two air raids by Japanese planes on Hong Kong were beaten off by anti-aircraft fire today and damage was not important, a British command communique said.
U.S. move to evacuate Grew
WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Cordell Hull told his press conference today that the State Department is seeking to repatriate Ambassador Joseph C. Grew and his staff from Tokyo, as well as other American nationals in Japanese territory.
Japs seize U.S. Marines
LONDON, England – Radio Rome reported today that the Japanese had taken 63 U.S. Marines prisoner in the Tientsin area of China.
British tell Japs to report
LONDON, England – Japanese nationals in Britain who are more than 16 years old have been asked to report as soon as possible to the nearest police station with their registration certificates so that the certificates can be endorsed, the Home Office announced today.
Navy requests blackout
LOS ANGELES, California – Naval authorities early today requested that the Long Beach and San Pedro Harbors be blacked out. The Navy asked that all non-essential lights be turned off, including those at vital industries such as oil plants, wherever possible. Autos and trucks were asked to use only dim lights.
Japs seize British concession
LONDON, England – The British concession at Tientsin, North China, has been occupied by Japanese troops, according to an official German news agency broadcast heard by the United Press listening post.
Japan pledges ‘safety’
LONDON, England – The Japanese radio said today that Tomokazu Hori, spokesman for the Japanese Information Bureau, had announced every possible precaution would be taken to ensure the safety of U.S. and British nationals in Japan. Hori said Japan’s treatment of enemy nationals would be affected by the treatment accorded Japanese nationals by the United States and Britain.
China to declare war
CHUNGKING, China – Chinese Foreign Minister Quo Tai-chi today said China has decided to declare war against Germany and Italy as well as Japan, against which the Chungking regime has never made a formal declaration.
Hong Kong blockaded, Japs say
NEW YORK – The Japanese Navy is completely blockading the British Crown colony in Hong Kong, the Japanese Domei News Agency said today in a broadcast heard by the United Press.
Japan claim pact with Thailand
NEW YORK – The Japanese official radio claimed today that an “agreement” was reached with Thailand at 12:30 p.m. (10:30 p.m. Sunday ET) to allow passage of Japanese troops through that country. The broadcast was heard by the United Press. Japanese headquarters reported that troops started to enter Thailand this afternoon, Radio Tokyo reported.
Air-sea battle reported
NEW YORK – The United Press today heard Radio Vichy broadcast Tokyo reports that a great air-sea battle was in progress off the Philippine coast.
Japs again raid Philippines
LONDON, England – The German radio quoted Japanese Imperial Headquarters today as reporting that Japanese fighter planes made a strong attack on the “most important points” of the Philippines today, inflicting severe damage. No Japanese planes were damaged in the raids, Tokyo asserted.
Japanese troopships hit
SAN FRANCISCO, California – The Singapore radio heard by the United Press here today reported that two American-built Hudson bombers operating off the northern Malayan coast had scored direct hits on two Japanese troopships and another Hudson bomber had scored a direct hit on a barge loaded with Japanese soldiers.
U.S. seizes 736 Japs
WASHINGTON – Attorney General Francis Biddle announced today that FBI agents had seized 736 Japanese nationals in the United States and in the Hawaiian Islands last night.
Mandated islands attacked
NEW YORK – Japanese forces in the Western Pacific have attacked the Australian-mandated Ellice and Ocean Islands, both of which are rich in phosphate deposits, according to a British broadcast heard by NBC. The islands are northeast of Australia.
Rome sees Axis at war with U.S.
NEW YORK – CBS today quoted the Rome radio as saying that Japan’s declaration of war against the United States involves “the existence of a state of war between the two Axis powers and the United States.”
The Manila correspondent of NBC quoted the Tokyo radio as saying Germany will shortly follow Japan in a declaration of war against the United States.
Japs declare defensive zone
BERLIN, Germany – All waters around Japan have been declared a defensive zone by the Japanese Navy, the official German news agency reported from Tokyo today.
Thailand studies Jap ‘proposal’
BANGKOK, Thailand – The Thai cabinet has been in session since 2 a.m. (2 p.m. Sunday ET) studying “Japanese proposals;” it is understood the British have presented “a counterproposal.”
First Lady going to coast
WASHINGTON – Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, an assistant director of the Office of Civilian Defense, will leave for the Pacific Coast by airplane tonight to assist emergency civilian-defense work. The extent of her stay will be determined by the necessities of the situation.
Australia enters war
NEW YORK – Premier John Curtin has announced that Australia is at war with Japan, according to an Australian radio broadcast heard by CBS. NBC said Australia’s decision was taken at an extraordinary cabinet meeting in Melbourne.
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Senate’s vote unanimous; House ballots 388-1 – victory pledged
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer
BULLETIN
NEW YORK – An NBC correspondent in Manila reported today that “Manila is now under Japanese air bombardment.”
The Japanese attacked Fort William McKinley, just outside Manila, and Nichols Field on the outskirts of the city, he reported. Another attack was attempted against the RCA transmitter, he said.
TELEPHOTO: President Roosevelt delivers war message
President Roosevelt is pictured here as he delivered his momentous message to a joint session of Congress today, sketching briefly the extent of Japanese attacks and asking the House and Senate to declare that a state of war existed. In the background are Vice President Henry A. Wallace (left) and Speaker Sam Rayburn. To the right is the president’s son, Capt. James Roosevelt. (ACME Telephoto)
WASHINGTON (UP) – Congress today proclaimed the existence of a state of war between the United States and the Japanese Empire 33 minutes after the dramatic moment when President Roosevelt stood before a joint session to pledge that we will triumph – “so help us God.”
Democracy was proving its right to a place in the sun with a split-second shiftover to all-out war.
The Senate acted first, adopting the resolution by a unanimous roll call vote of 82-0, within 21 minutes after the president had concluded his address to a joint session of both houses.
The final House vote was announced as 388-1. The lone negative vote was cast by Rep. Jeannette Rankin, R-Montana, who also voted against entry into World War I.
The resolution now has to be signed by Speaker Sam Rayburn and Vice President Wallace before it is sent to the president at the White House. His signature will place the United States formally at war against the Japanese Empire, already an accomplished fact.
The resolutions were before both houses within 15 minutes of the time Mr. Roosevelt ended his seven-minute, 500-word extraordinary message.
There was a half second of uncertainty in the House when Rep. Rankin objected to unanimous consent for immediate consideration of the war resolution.
Speaker Sam Rayburn brushed the objection aside. It was she who in the small hours of April 6, 1917, faltered, wept, and finally voted “no” against a similar resolution aimed at Germany.
When the clerk came to her name on the roll call today, she voted “no” again.
A chorus of hisses and boos greeted her vote, the first cast against the war resolution.
Rep. Harold Knutson, R-Minnesota, who also voted against American entry into World War I in 1917, said today this nation “has no choice but to declare war on Japan.”
“I do not see that we have any other notice,” Mr. Knutson told reporters. “They declared war on us.”
Miss Rankin and Mr. Knutson are the only present members of the House who voted against war in 1917.
Only Miss Rankin and Rep. Clare Hoffman, R-Michigan, had remained seated when the House gave a standing ovation in response to Roosevelt’s solemn statement:
I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.
In a staccato of short sentences, the president told where the Japanese had hit yesterday throughout the Pacific area and how their representatives here had at the same time been continuing deceptive and false negotiations for maintenance of peace. And he said, simply, that he had ordered “all measures to be taken for our defense.”
The president said grimly:
Always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.
Under parliamentary procedure, one chamber must approve the resolution adopted by the other. Since the Senate acted first, its version was substituted by the House for the House resolution which differed in a few minor words.
Emery L. Frazier, legislative clerk of the Senate and a former member of the Kentucky Legislature, took the resolution over to the House after the Senate passed it.
The Senate received the resolution back from the House at 1:37 p.m. EST while Mr. Connally was debating the necessity for strict anti-strike legislation with Sen. James E. Murray, D-Montana. Mr. Murray asserted that strict legislation was unnecessary.
Just as he finished, House Reading Clerk Alney E. Chaffee entered the door and with a stiff bow announced that the House had passed a resolution declaring the “existence of a state of war with Japan.”
“There is the answer to the Senator’s convention,” Mr. Connally said.
The resolution was laid on the table for a while as Mr. Connally and Mr. Murray continued their debate.
Just before adjourning at 2:05 p.m. until noon tomorrow, the Senate gave consent for Vice President Wallace to sign the historic resolution after the session. He planned to do so in a ceremony in his office after Speaker Rayburn signs for the House.
Chairman Tom Connally, D-Texas, of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee introduced the war resolution in the Senate at 12:50 p.m. He asked for its immediate consideration, but Sen. Arthur H. Vandenberg, R-Michigan, asked him to suspend the request so he could comment upon the resolution.
Mr. Vandenberg told the Senate that “when war comes to us… I stand with the Commander-in-Chief, notwithstanding past differences on foreign policy.”
He said that “there can be no shadow of doubt as to our answer to Japan,” and added that, “you [Japan] have unsheathed the sword and by it you shall die.”
When Mr. Vandenberg concluded, the Senate roll call on the Connally resolution was taken.
Democratic leader John W. McCormack, D-Massachusetts, introduced the resolution in the House.
He moved immediately for a suspension of the rules and passage of the resolution.
Miss Rankin rose and said, “I object.”
“This is no unanimous-consent request,” Speaker Sam Rayburn said. “No objection is in order.”
McCormack then yielded himself 20 seconds in which he demanded immediate action on the resolution.
House Republican leader Joseph W. Martin Jr., R-Massachusetts, then obtained the floor.
Cry ‘vote, vote’
Cries of “vote, vote” went up from the Democratic side.
Mr. Martin said he hoped there would not be a dissenting vote cast on the war resolution.
Mr. Martin said:
Our nation is today in the gravest crisis since its establishment as a Republic. All we hold precious and sacred is being challenged by a ruthless, unscrupulous, arrogant foe.
Our ships have been sunk, our planes destroyed, many lives lost, cities and towns under the American flag have been ruthlessly bombed.
We are compelled by this treacherous attack to go to war.
There can be no peace until the enemy is made to pay in full measure for his dastardly crimes.
More cries of “vote, vote” when Mr. Martin concluded.
‘Won’t be long’
“It won’t be long,” said Mr. Rayburn. “Let us keep order.”
The cries concluded, however, when Mr. Martin yielded three minutes to Rep. Hamilton Fish, R-New York, who said the time for action had come.
Mr. Fish said:
There can be only one answer to the treacherous attack of the Japanese, and that is war to final victory, cost what it may in blood, treasure, and tears.
He added:
The Japanese have gone stark, raving mad, and have by their unprovoked attack committed military, naval, and national suicide.
I shall at the proper time volunteer my services as an officer in a combat division, as I did in the last war, preferably with colored troops.
There is no sacrifice too great that I will not make in defense of America and to help annihilate these war-mad Japanese devils.
‘Sit down’
Miss Rankin was standing, seeking recognition, when Mr. Fish concluded.
“Sit down, sister,” someone called.
Mr. Rayburn ignored her and Mr. McCormack yielded to Rep. Sol Bloom, D-New York, and Rep. Luther A. Johnson, D-Texas.
Date to ‘live in infamy’
Mr. Roosevelt promised, in his seven-minute, 500-word address, that we would never forget the treacherous manner of the onslaught and that, before we are through, Japan will be powerless to offend so again.
He said:
Yesterday, December 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, preceded by the escorting Senate-House Committee, went into the House chamber, supported by his son, James, who wore his uniform of a Marine captain. He was greeted by a thundering ovation after he was presented to the assemblage by Speaker Sam Rayburn.
The ovation swelled in volume as the president reached the speaker’s stand and a rebel yell went up from the Democratic side.
War plea cheered wildly
The chamber was jammed. Members of Congress and spectators listened gravely and quietly as the president began his speech at 12:33 p.m.
But there was wild cheering when the president reached the point in his brief state paper asking for a declaration that a state of war exists.
The president did not mention Germany and Italy – Japan’s Axis partners in Europe.
Await further news
Congressional leaders had awaited the president’s message to decide whether to formulate a declaration of war only against Japan, or against Germany and Italy as well.
The president was apparently awaiting further information as to what Germany and Italy will do.
The president spoke to a tense, hushed joint session of both houses less than two hours after he had announced, through his secretary, 3,000 American casualties in the Japanese assault on the island of Oahu in the Hawaiian group. Of those casualties, 1,500 were estimated to have been killed.
Sink Jap subs
U.S. counteraction, the White House announced, has accounted for a “number” of Japanese warplanes and submarines. The Japanese toll of American warships in Pearl Harbor was one unidentified battleship which had capsized and one destroyer, which had exploded. Numerous American planes were destroyed and other warships damaged.
Meanwhile, at a press conference, Secretary of State Hull told reporters that, at the time of his meeting with the Japanese ambassadors yesterday, he heard rumors of a Japanese attack on Hawaii, but had not obtained confirmation.
He said he did not wait to check the rumors but received the envoys on their own representation that they wished to visit him.
The White House reported that one old battleship capsized in the attack on Pearl Harbor, one destroyer was blown up and “several other American ships were damaged.”
Jap subs sunk
It declared that American countermeasures had accounted for “a number of Japanese planes and submarines.”
The president was particularly gratified this morning over the mounting reaction of the country expressed to the White House in hundreds of telegrams and telephone calls.
Express ‘horror’
Secretary Stephen Early told a press conference that the tremendous volume of messages to the president “all express horror at this attack and pledge full loyalty to the president and the government.”
The messages came from governors, mayors, religious leaders, heads of civic movements, newspaper editors and radio broadcasters, many offering their personal services.
Assemble casualty lists
Even as the American armed forces in the mid-Pacific and the Far East defended this country with their lives and blood against the Japanese blitzkrieg, the War and Navy Departments were assembling data for the first casualty lists.
There already were scattered reports throughout the country that relatives of dead or missing men had received private notification of the sacrifice.
Congress, meanwhile, moved on other fronts to speed every facility for the successful prosecution of the war. The House Military Affairs Committee scheduled a meeting for tomorrow to repeal legislation restricting the use of selectees and National Guardsmen to the Western Hemisphere and U.S. possessions.
The action would remove any doubt as to the authority of the president to do away with that prohibition. There had been some belief that he would dispense with it during actual war.
Scores treachery
Symbolic of the unity which had swept a determined nation overnight was the comment of Rep. William G. Stratton, R-Illinois, who hitherto has opposed President Roosevelt’s foreign policy.
He said:
There can be no question as to the stand that will be taken by every true American. This treacherous attack on the United States by Japan will be met and avenged by a united and aroused people. We will not be satisfied merely with victory – Japan must be destroyed as a military power.
To get what he asks for
Congressional leaders said the president would get whatever he asked for today. One high-ranking Democrat said, “It would be difficult to prevent Congress from declaring war today.”
Fighting actually began yesterday. By sundown in the Far East, it extended over a sweeping Pacific area of thousands of square miles from the Asian mainland to a point east of Hawaii where a lumber-laden American transport was torpedoed and sunk between those islands and the American continent.
The president had already ordered our Armed Forces to strike back and the war was on – declared or not.
Police shooed crowds away from the immediately vicinity of the White House. But in Lafayette Park, just across Pennsylvania Avenue, some hundreds gathered and then sang “America” and “God Bless America” as the conferees streamed out of the mansion. There had been a moment of excitement earlier in the day when crowds assembled around the Japanese embassy in Massachusetts Avenue where attaches were firing papers in big packages each equipped with a fuse and powder charge. But there was no violence there and none elsewhere in Washington in the first hours of our active participation in World War II.
Fitting neatly into the spectacular pattern of yesterday’s events was Japan’s final diplomatic move here, a request for an appointment with Secretary of State Hull. The hour was fixed at 1 p.m., just 25 minutes before the bombers zoomed low over Pearl Harbor. Ambassador Kichisaburo Nomura and special envoy Saburo Kurusu actually reached the State Department more than an hour later and some 40 minutes after bombs fell on Hawaii. They delivered their government’s reply to Hull’s November 26 statement of basic principles for peace in the Pacific, a reply which rejected the principles, accused the United States of seeking to extend the war, and so enraged Mr. Hull that he blasted at Nomura that the note from Tokyo was a concoction of “infamous falsehoods and distortions.”
Discloses documents
The State Department immediately made public the American statement of basic principles, the Japanese reply and Mr. Roosevelt’s Saturday peace proposal directed to Emperor Hirohito. There was speculation here whether the president’s message ever reached the Emperor at all.
Mr. Hull is expected to send to Congress today “a white paper” containing a chronological history of U.S.-Japanese relations which preceded yesterday’s attacks. This is customary procedure preceding a formal declaration of war.
Plainclothesmen were sent to the British embassy. British Ambassador Lord Halifax cancelled all engagements and was in constant communication with the White House and London.
The president considered declaring martial law in Manila. This would place the Army in supreme control there.
Chinese Ambassador Hu Shih spent 40 minutes with Mr. Roosevelt. He said the Japanese attack was “sheer madness.”
Playwright Robert Sherwood, who has helped the president to prepare some of his most important papers, was being flown here from New York by special plane. With him were Vice President Henry A. Wallace, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins and Postmaster General Frank Walker.
Not ‘knocked out’
White House conferees, who last night heard the worst straight from the lips of the president, came out acknowledging the force of the Japanese attack, but assuring all comers that we are not being “knocked out” in the Pacific.
Far from it. The U.S. Navy and Air Force are believed to be counterattacking and naval sources said we could carry the war directly to Japan by air.
Those conferees were solemn men as they emerged into night. White House police guards surrounded the mansion. It was no pocket pistol guard, either, but big, brawny bluecoats who had rifles and Thompson submachine guns in the crooks of their arms. This was no night for prowlers at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue or elsewhere in Washington because the Army was on guard too.
Streetlights dimmed at 12:48 a.m. today in a semi-blackout and District of Columbia officials called on all citizens to use nightlights.
Gen. Robert E. Wood, chairman of the America First Committee, climbed out of an airplane on LaGuardia Airport, New York, last night and said, “We will support the war.”
The national board of directors of the America First Committee in Chicago simultaneously urged its members to give full support “to the war effort of this country until the conflict with Japan is brought to a successful conclusion.”
Jap Embassy draws crowd
Staff members remain in Washington building
WASHINGTON (UP) – The handsome Japanese Embassy was converted into a dormitory for staff members today while curious crowds stared at the building housing the emissaries of America’s first avowed enemy in 23 years.
Japanese diplomats and newspapermen preferred to remain in the building, despite lack of bedding.
Hiroichi Takagi, the embassy’s third secretary, said over the telephone that he and his associates considered themselves “out of jobs because we were working for peace and that has ended.”
His first news of the changed situation, he said, was from press-association tickers.
Envoy called tired
Takagi said Ambassador Kichisaburo Nomura appeared to be extremely tired but was otherwise all right. Concern over his health had been expressed by those who thought the action of Japan’s militarists, men he has tried to keep in check, must have been a great shock to him.
The United States sent prompt protection to the embassy and the State Department said protection would be supplied to all diplomatic personnel of Japan in the United States.
But before the police officers arrived, the Japanese staff, on short-sleeves despite the cold weather, had begun the burning of embassy papers. The boxes were equipped with fuses and powder which, when a light was applied, quickly reduced the papers to ashes.
Burned on lawn
Grates of the lawn were used for the burning. An embassy attache wisecracked to photographers, “There go my love letters.”
A crowd gathered and the driveway gates in Massachusetts Avenue were swung shut. There were a few boos for arriving Japanese officials, hastily reporting to the embassy after hearing the news, but the crowd was orderly.
There is expected to be difficulty in arranging safe conducts for Japanese officials to their homeland.
Under international law, the diplomats are entitled to the full protection of the United States while in this country and by custom, they are accorded safe conduct by all belligerents through whose countries they might pass.
Liner en route
The Japanese passenger liner Tatsuta Maru is reportedly at sea en route to the United States and might be used for the return of Japanese diplomats. But they may not be permitted to leave until satisfactory arrangements are made for Ambassador Joseph C. Grew and his staff to leave Tokyo.
There will be efforts to arrange transfers of Japanese newspapermen in the United States and American newspapermen in Tokyo.
Japan’s island position may make the matter difficult and a protracted period of negotiations was expected. The exchanges might be made at some neutral ports in the Pacific in another few weeks.
Men ordered back
SAN FRANCISCO, California – The 12th Naval District headquarters last night ordered all men attached to ships at Mare Island Navy Yard to report to their posts immediately.
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Arnold youth dies in battle
First Pittsburgh District victim of Japs
Pvt. George G. Leslie, 20, USAC, killed yesterday in the Japanese attack on the Hawaiian Islands.
The Pittsburgh District’s first casualty of the war in the Pacific was announced by the War Department today.
The parents of Pvt. George G. Leslie, 20, an enlisted man in the U.S. Army Air Forces, were informed that their son had been killed in the Japanese attack on the Hawaiian Islands.
The following message was sent to Mr. and Mrs. George S. Leslie, of Arnold:
Your son, Pvt. George G. Leslie, died at approximately 10 a.m. Hawaiian Time, December 7, a battle casualty, from gunshot wounds. Any other information will reach you from the War Department.
Pvt. Leslie, who is survived by a brother and two sisters, enlisted in the Air Corps last April and was taking personnel management training in Hawaii. He was a graduate of Arnold High School.
Casualty list
By the United Press
The first U.S. casualties in the Japanese attacks were revealed today in word sent to the parents of the victims by the Navy Department.
An official list of casualties is expected to be issued in Washington later.
The dead:
- 1st Lt. Hans Christiansen, 21, Woodland, California.
- 2nd Lt. George A. Whiteman, 21, Sedalia, Missouri.
- Pvt. George C. Leslie, 20, Arnold, Pennsylvania.
- Pvt. Robert Niedzwiecki, 22, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
- Pvt. Dean W. Cebert, 23, Galesburg, Illinois.
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LIFE (December 8, 1941)
MacArthur of the Far East
If war should come, he leads the Army that will fight Japan
By Clare Boothe
Today, when the thunderclouds of war are so low and thick over the Pacific that visiting Mr. Kurusu hardly dares sneeze for fear of precipitating the cloudburst, it is difficult to remember that in 1935, a Japanese-American conflict was no more than a gray little puff over Manchukuo. Men who saw it there and predicted its prodigious growth were accused of being alarmists. In that year in Washington, handsome Gen. Douglas MacArthur retired as a top soldier of Uncle Sam’s Army and, according to TIME, “packed his elegant duffel” and sailed for the Philippines. Nobody much cared why.
In 1935, the barometer of U.S. isolationism was rising rapidly toward its all-time 1939 peak. Public opinion on the Philippines – when there was any – was for “pulling out.” The Filipinos were to have “complete independence” in 1946. It was to protect this glorious independence that President Quezon, with the approval of Franklin Roosevelt, borrowed Douglas MacArthur, who thought he knew a way to do it. Advertising the newly arrived general as “America’s best professional talent,” Quezon promptly dubbed MacArthur “Field Marshal of the Philippines” and assigned to him the task of making those defenseless islands impregnable to attack – by 1946.
Appointed Field Marshal of the Philippine Army in 1936, his job was to revamp, modernize and enlarge the native army. Here he reviews some Filipino troops in ceremony at Manila.
Some people were quick to suggest that either MacArthur was being sold a bill of goods by a busted government, or that MacArthur would bust Quezon selling him a bill of goods, since, they claimed, not even the U.S. Army and Navy units there, together with the Philippine Army, could hope to defend the Philippines. Left-wingers squawked that MacArthur intended to help his old pal Quezon “establish a dictatorship in the Philippines under the protection of American-sponsored soldiers…”
Washington society, after its first snickers over MacArthur’s wonderfully high-sounding title of “Field Marshal,” settled comfortably back to forgetting again about the Philippines – and MacArthur. And even when Americans began to think about the Philippines again this year, they didn’t think of MacArthur. For after all he was only in charge of some half-trained Filipinos, and other U.S. generals and admirals were out there commanding U.S. troops.
And then suddenly one day – the day was July 26, 1941 – the President of the United States dropped a bombshell in the Pacific by appointing Douglas MacArthur to be commanding general of all the U.S. Armed Forces in the Far East, called USAFFE. MacArthur quit being a field marshal and took rank as Lieutenant General USA – next in rank only to Chief of Staff George Marshall in Washington. At the same time, President Roosevelt (1) summoned the Army of the Philippine Commonwealth to the U.S. colors and (2) rushed out to MacArthur one of the biggest forces of bombers and superbombers the U.S. has so far been able to assemble anywhere outside the hemisphere.
With his new staff, MacArthur (seated) posed for this picture after President Roosevelt made him Far East commander last July. He felt like ‘an old dog in a new uniform.’ At left of MacArthur is Gen. R. K. Sutherland, his able chief of staff.
When President Roosevelt chose Douglas MacArthur to be head fighting man in the Far East, he wrote a new chapter head in the history of World War II. Reading the news in the Netherlands Indies, Dutch Chief of Staff Hein ter Poorten must have sighed in sudden relief. In Singapore, weary old Sir Robert Brooke-Popham, air marshal and military commander of Great Britain’s Far Eastern Forces, no doubt snored peacefully for the first night in a long year. In Chungking, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek may have murmured, after four long years of war, “America wakes at last!”
For the Allied powers sensed that in Tokyo this chapter head would cause many a fan-tooth naval jaw to drop and many a military bandy leg to buckle. The warlords of Tokyo knew that MacArthur was not only one of America’s ablest World War I field soldiers, he was also a man who, both before and since 1918, had thoroughly understood the vital importance of the Philippines to Asia and America.
In MacArthur’s luxurious penthouse on top of the Manila Hotel, in the early summer of 1939, an officer then in the U.S. Philippine Department and the field marshal were having a long and painful heart-to-heart talk. As author of the ambitious Ten-Year Military Plan, as perhaps the only American military proponent of the theory that the Philippines could hold their own in any immediate scramble for them, MacArthur sensed that in the telescopic eyes of history, he was already “on the spot.” Pacing in his accustomed leonine style among the tropical potted palms that line like sentinels the penthouse parapets, he faced the unhappy facts: The original brave impetus of the inauguration of the Philippine Commonwealth that had first inspired President Quezon in 1935 to arm his borning nation was rapidly being lost. The $8,000,000-a-year military budget promised him for the building of an army had been steadily whittled. There was political sniping at him from socialistic groups within the country. There was overt pressure to liquidate him by pork-barrel Filipino politicos who wanted more and more money for “public works.” There was pressure from Tokyo to dismiss him. Tokyo constantly reassured the Quezon administration of “friendly intentions,” which were in jeopardy only because of “that leading Japanophobe,” Field Marshal MacArthur. Above all, there was the apathy of Washington and the American public. All these were conspiring to sabotage Gen. MacArthur’s plans.
According to the Philippine Department officer’s report, Field Marshal MacArthur burst into language as colorful as the sunset over Mariveles Mountain. He damned military myopia at home and abroad, and flatly predicted that, if it were not remedied, the Philippines must drop like an overripe plum into the Japanese basket.
The officer asked the field marshal, “Well, what do you care?” thinking, perhaps with a touch of envy, that this 59-year-old retired general had already enjoyed all the honors and excitements that can ever come a soldier’s way: “Personally, you’ve done the best you could.”
MacArthur, with a wife and characteristically dramatic sweep of the arm that embraced not only Manila Bay and its Gibraltar, fortified Corregidor, but the wide China Sea and the entire Malay Archipelago beyond, is supposed to have replied:
Personally – I must not fail! Too much of the world’s future depends upon success here. These islands may not be the door to the control of the Pacific, they may not be even the lock to the door. But they are surely the key to the lock that opens the door – for America. I dare not allow that key to be lost!
MacArthur’s language is sometimes rhetorical but his behavior is usually realistic. From the day he landed in the islands to organize their defense, he had in fact proceeded as though he had seen in a crystal ball the Japanese landing at Hainan. The problem that faced him was technically complex: it was to build in a peaceful agricultural nation of 16,000,000 people an effective modern military machine, to create, literally from scratch, a respectable army, well clothed, provisioned, equipped and housed, as well as a much bigger potential civilian army which could be called swiftly into being at the threat of attack on the Islands. MacArthur worked persistently toward this goal. And last July, it was a pleasant surprise to the American people to learn that by the spring of 1942, the Philippine government would be able to contribute to the United States 125,000 well-trained and fairly well-equipped Filipino soldiers. He had, in addition, founded at Baguio a military academy modeled in miniature on his beloved West Point. He had also informed the nucleus of an air force, turning out 150 Filipino pilots trained by the same rigid methods in force at Randolph or Kelly Field.
Trained in U.S. methods, like the use of pontoon bridges (above), Philippine Army has approximately 1,600 regulars, 125,000 reserves.
American games, like basketball and this intercompany bowling tournament, are played by the Filipino Army which has been Americanized under Field Marshal MacArthur.
In the days of appeasement, all of this received scant recognition. Some Americans living in Manila were even wont to refer derogatorily to MacArthur as “the Napoleon of Luzon.” To many of Manila’s Pacific Appeasers, sitting on fan-cooled porches of the Polo Club and Army and Navy Club, perspiring gently over their iced gimlets, the field marshal and his sweating “little Native Army” may well have seemed opéra bouffe. But MacArthur knew that the Filipino is one of the toughest soldiers on earth. At the turn of the century, it took 100,000 American troops two years to quell the badly equipped, poorly organized Filipino insurgents. And if his equipment was pitiful, the fault was certainly not his. At home, the U.S. Army itself didn’t have the stuff.
By creating his “little Native Army,” the field marshal had rendered an outstanding service to the Philippines and to the USA. MacArthur induced in the Filipinos an active desire to defend the Philippines – which for years it hardly seemed likely an isolationist USA would even in a pinch do for them. He infected them with his own courage and vaulting optimism and won their hard loyalty, and by so doing helped to keep them from sinking, in apathy or terror, into the arms of Japanese diplomats. The president’s appointment was not only a recognition of heretofore publicly unrecognized services to American prestige in the Orient. It was also a notification to the world that in this area of Axis marauding, the U.S. meant business.
‘He’s a hell-to-breakfast baby’
In days of “international amity,” democratic peoples tend to accord professional soldiers the same degree of social respect extended to local fire chiefs. The People’s Army runs down, and the people run down their army. But when the winds of war begin to blow, the people look about them to see who and where their fighting men are. They ask of one another urgently: “Say, have we got any good generals?”
MacArthur’s record might be summarized by the remark of an AEF private made in 1918: “He’s a hell-to-breakfast baby, long and lean, who can spit nickels and chase Germans as well as any doughboy in the Rainbow.”
At West Point in 1903, he graduated with highest scholastic rating attained in 25 years. He was also on the baseball team.
MacArthur graduated as second lieutenant of engineers at the head of the West Point Class of 1903, in which stiff competition had been provided by Ulysses Grant III, grandson of the Civil War general. He piled up the highest scholastic record made at the Point in 25 years and, as a plebe, in spite of the race with Grant for top honors, found time to break another West Point record by getting “engaged” to eight girls at one, seven having been the previous cadet record. MacArthur denies this story, saying he was at noontime aware of having been so “heavily engaged by the enemy.”
As youngest Superintendent of West Point in the Academy’s history, MacArthur was visited by Edward, Prince of Wales, in 1920.
After a spectacular performance as commander of the Rainbow Division in France, in 1919 he was appointed superintendent of West Point, the youngest man ever to hold that position. In 1925, he became the youngest active major general in the Army, and when, in 1930, Hoover made him chief of staff, he was still a military prodigy: youngest chief of staff the country had ever had, the only one to be reappointed for an additional year, and thus the one who held that top-flight Army job longest. Coincidentally, at the age of 50, he was the youngest living U.S. four-star general, a rank therefore held only by Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Pershing, Bliss, March and Summerall.
Like George Washington, who wrote to his mother, “I heard the bullets whistle, and believe me there is something charming in the sound,” MacArthur is a lover of the art of war. This was perhaps childhood condition. He says his earliest recollection is the sound of Army bugles.
He was born January 26, 1880 on his father’s post at Little Rock Barracks, Arkansas, and he claims to remember his mother and a company sergeant protecting him, at the age of 4, from Indians with bows and arrows raiding his father’s Army barracks in New Mexico. As a young boy, MacArthur gobbled up with his breakfast porridge much melodramatic lore of the Civil War, as well as many a sound professional lecture on Civil War tactics and strategy. His father, Gen. Arthur MacArthur, was a Wisconsinite of Scotch ancestry, who in 1861 had joined the 24th Wisconsin Infantry in the Army of the Union as a lieutenant, emerged with four wounds as a colonel (“The Boy Colonel of the West”) and, by that time himself in love with the art of war, decided to remain in the Army. MacArthur Sr. saw action in the Philippines during 1898-1901: in 1900, he was made commander of the Philippine Division.
His father, Gen. Arthur MacArthur, resembled Theodore Roosevelt in looks. Like his son, he headed U.S. Army in the Philippines.
Long before Douglas MacArthur ever dreamed of being a general, much less a field marshal, Father MacArthur was minding his Ps and Qs – Philippines and Quezon – in the Pacific. It was to Gen. Arthur MacArthur that a young Filipino insurgent major surrendered his sword in 1901. Thirty-five years later, this same Filipino, Manuel Quezon, now 1st president of the Philippines, gave the general’s son the gold baton of a Philippine field marshal.
His father’s death was stranger than fiction
In 1900, Gen. Arthur MacArthur was appointed military governor of the Philippines. Almost before the guns stopped firing on the Insurrectos, Arthur MacArthur had begun installing a system of education, law and justice for the Islands. He was perhaps entirely responsible for the fact that Filipinos enjoy that basic right of all free men: the writ of habeas corpus. He also advocated (40 years ago) military training for the Filipinos. The organization of the famous Philippine Scouts of today – the fightingest men in the Pacific – was founded by him.
The circumstances of Lt. Gen. Arthur MacArthur’s death in 1912 outdo in drama anything that even his son has achieved. Against doctor’s orders, he had insisted on attending in Milwaukee the 50th Annual Reunion of his regiment of the Grand Army of the Republic. There, in the banquet hall, he was called upon to make a speech, and minted the platform to deliver what he began prophetically by saying was to be his last tribute to his old comrades in arms. As he reached his fiery peroration, his voice suddenly faltered, he swayed – and he dropped dead. There was a shocked silence in the hall. Then his old adjutant, who stood beside him, took the tattered and blood-stained flag of the regiment, cast it over the dead general – and, piling drama on drama, himself fell lifeless over his beloved chief’s body.
His mother, shown with a photograph of her son, died in 1935 at the age of 82, after medicine flown to Manila failed to save her life.
In the years between his own first service in the Philippines in 1903, and the days of America’s entrance into the World War, the rise of Douglas MacArthur up the military ladder was steady if not spectacular. In 1914, Douglas MacArthur was with Gen. Funston in Veracruz. Disguised as a “Mexican bum,” he reconnoitered voluntarily behind the Mexican lines to locate three available locomotives for his general. He located them. But what he remembers with most pleasure about this incident was that his “liaison” behind the enemy lines was a helpful young German Legation official named Franz von Papen.
During the Mexican campaign, MacArthur (arrow) was a captain. Disguised as a ‘bum,’ he captured locomotives behind the lines.
In World War, he fought alongside French (above), in 1918 became the commander of 42nd (‘Rainbow’) Division which he named.
MacArthur has been called “the D’Artagnan of the AEF,” “the Beau Brummel of the Army,” “the Disraeli of Chiefs of Staff,” “the Buck Private’s Gary Cooper.” One World War reporter in a flight of patriotic fancy wrote: “You could tell he was a soldier, even in a fur coat or a bathing suit.”
Currently MacArthur, dressed in a bathing suit and standing by the blue-tiled swimming pool of the Manila Hotel, might not look obstreperously “military.” White-skinned and lean, his shoulders are narrow and sloping. His nervous hands are small. His hair, once black and thick, is now black and thin, and combed from left ear to right, across the top of a narrow forehead. His face is intellectual, aesthetic, rather than martial. But whether MacArthur in bathing trunks looks like a movie fan’s idea of a warrior is not important. In sharkskin or shorts, khaki or cutaway, MacArthur has a soldier’s courage. It has been written into the record in the form of two World War wound stripes, 13 decorations for gallantry under fire, and seven citations.
His penthouse apartment on top of Manila Hotel overlooks poll in which he swims. His living room is lined with books and autographed photographs of famous soldiers.
While the doughboys were singing in the bloody trenches,
The General got the Croix de Guerre, parley-voo
The General got the Croix de Guerre,
The so-and-so was never there, Hinky-dinky-parley-voo.
…the men of the 42nd Division knew that their Gen. MacArthur was very much there. Wearing an overseas cap instead of the safer (and regulation) steel helmet, “the Fiery Arkansan” was reckless to the point of accompanying his troops on raids into enemy trenches. On one such occasion, he escorted an unwilling German officer back across no man’s land with the aid of nothing more than a riding crop.
His immediate commander, Gen. Menoher, wrote Gen. Pershing:
The contributions made to our military establishment by this General Officer have already had far-reaching effects. He has stood for the actual physical command of large bodies of troops in battle – not for a day but for day’s duration, and I believe has actually commanded larger bodies of troops on the battle line than any other officer in our Army, with, in each instance, conspicuous success.
His eloquence astounds listeners
MacArthur’s gift of words, his flair of dramatizing incidents, as well as his sound military understanding, stood the young officer in good stead as press relations officer on the General Staff in 1915. After World War I, his instinctive preference for ten-dollar words delivered in a million-dollar manner developed rapidly into a penchant for oratory and he speedily became the most effective and spectacular speaker and writer the Army had. Rumor in the Philippines has it that his reports from 1936-41 to the War Department made such good reading by contrast with duller reports that in simple gratitude for a few literate hours he got command of the USAFFE. His knowledge of military history is profound and his memory of that prodigious sort that gives a man’s subordinates the creeps, so accurately can he quote, days later, a report, a record, a book, a conversation. In conversation, the general is positively pyrotechnic. Changing at will from a mellifluous melodramatic whisper to a fiery snort, from brutal fact to flight of sheer rodomontade, he uses phrases like “We must foil the enemy,” “We stand on the eve of a great battle,” “We must not spill our precious blood on foreign soil in vain, in vain!” Intelligent listeners, however, rarely fail to perceive that beneath this baroque façade of rhetoric, MacArthur’s ideas generally make shattering sense. His eloquence – and his wisdom – reached a peak during the years from 1930 to 1935 when he was chief of staff. Winston Churchill’s compilation of his own unheeded warnings to the Empire, While England Slept, could be, if not matched in literary style, surely surpassed in military value by a compilation of MacArthur’s warnings to the Senate, the Congress, the public, while America was not only sleeping, but snoring.
He returned to Philippines for the second time in 1925 when, like his father, he was the commander of Philippine Division.
As Army chief of staff from 1930 to 1935, MacArthur saw much of Roosevelt and Secretary of War Dern (above). ‘It is undefended riches which provoke war,’ he warned.
In 1930, everywhere in the Western world, even in Germany, military ardor was at a low ebb. Nevertheless from 1930-35, as U.S. chief of staff, he repeatedly and eloquently warned private Senate or congressional committees, the president, the State Department and the public, that American defenses had fallen into an abysmal state of obsolescence and disrepair, and that projected economies would deliver them a death blow. Long before Goering or Goebbels had become words with which to frighten naughty children, at West Point graduation exercises, MacArthur was bitterly counseling against “retrenchment which cripples national defense and ceases to be economy.” He said that unless “an effort is made to curb or combat the unabashed and unsound propaganda of the peace cranks… a score of nations will soon be ready for the sack of America.”
He visited Europe in 1931 as chief of the U.S. general staff. Here he is shown while visiting the Tomb of the Polish Unknown Soldier.
He was kissed by Maginot, builder of line, in French ceremony (1931).
MacArthur foresaw not only the inevitability of war, he also foresaw the kind of highly mechanized war it would be, and projected in exact specification after specification the sort of equipment and training a nation would need to win such a war. With Cassandra-like insistency, he warned Congress that the next war would be mobile warfare. He pled unceasingly for a giant air force, for tanks, trucks and motorized columns.
With national pacifism rampant, the typical reaction to MacArthur’s preparedness campaign was that of a wag who suggested that his eagerness to motorize the Army was due to the well-known fact that the general, from his cadet days, has always hated to ride a horse. MacArthur, however, backed by President Roosevelt, managed to do some Army modernizing. He fought for and achieved the General Headquarters Air Force.
The Bonus Army collides with MacArthur
MacArthur has always been too colorful and controversial a figure not to have acquired some enemies. He has been accused of being a swaggerer, swashbuckler and a backslapper; dictatorial, self-opinionated, austere, obstinate and aggressive. He has been criticized for his long matinee-idol cigarette holders (which in later years he has abandoned for Corona Coronas), for his sartorial effects when in mufti and the plum-colored ties he wears when in khaki (he promoted the introduction of the open-jacket and soft collar into the Army), for the consciously rakish tilt at which he wears his heavily-brassed hat. The late Floyd Gibbons wrote that it was “just the tilt which permitted his personality to emerge, without violating Army regulations.”
Even in the muck and grime of the French front, MacArthur always managed to look as though he were on dress parade, often wearing Errol Flynnish black turtleneck sweaters which did not show trench mud. One colleague remembers that in France, when he climbed over a barbed-wire fence in a raid and returned with a rent in the seat of his britches, even the tear seemed either slyly or luckily contrived to expose one thigh and half a rump, rather than the whole of man’s most ridiculous aspect. MacArthur’s detractors also like to dwell upon the only incident in his whole career which seems to reflect discredit upon him: “the only time,” according to a brother West Pointer, “Doug ever took his finger off his number.” This was the inglorious “Victory of Anacostia Flats” in 1932 when, on horseback at the head of his troops, Four-Star General MacArthur drove the ragged Bonus Army out of Washington.
After ‘Victory of Anacostia Flats’ when he evicted the Bonus Army from Washington in 1932, he drank coffee with tired troops.
The true story of the eviction of the Bonus Marchers has never been written. MacArthur could, if he would, write it but neither at that time, nor since, has he ever publicly sought to defend himself, or “pass the buck” to Hoover. A true record would show that at no time did Hoover consult MacArthur about the eviction, nor was there any military precedent by which MacArthur could “advise” Hoover. It was at the urgent direct request of the “City Fathers,” the District of Columbia commissioners, to President Hoover – and over the previous advice of Gen. MacArthur, who had strongly urged against the use of force – that the president was obliged to call out the troops. The Bonus Marchers, claimed the City Fathers, had not only become a public nuisance, but their ranks were being daily swelled by organized communist groups of demonstrators and street brawlers, and they had gotten entirely out of the hands of Glassford’s local police force. When Secretary of War Hurley told Gen. MacArthur that, following the demand of the City Fathers to restore public order, a telephone call had come from the White House, he coupled this brief information with a military order to “act at once to clear them out.” MacArthur did not pause to weigh any political scruples he may have had, nor even to point out that a soldier is supposed to have none. That the ensuing action was accomplished without a shot fired by MacArthur’s troops, although there were two dead, 55 injured, is something MacArthur is still proud of.
During the actual eviction, although it had been prearranged with MacArthur that he and Walter W. Waters, the Bonus Army leader, would keep in touch, so “no one would be hurt,” Waters had been “shoved out,” evicted himself – by the communist elements in his own “army.” MacArthur says no orders existed, or were given, to burn the Bonus Marchers’ shacks, and in his army, he says coldly: “Nobody acts without orders.”
He lays this to the organized demonstrators in the Bonus Army… Having lost contact with Waters, MacArthur did not see him again until two years later when his orderly announced to the chief of staff, “There’s a bum outside, but he says he’s an old soldier.” MacArthur, whose standing order was never to close his door to any old soldier, said, “Show him in.”
Waters entered, down-and-out and hungry. MacArthur found a job for him.
Most criticism of MacArthur boils down to the accusation that he is “ambitious.” Those who envy him have accused him of political wire-pulling and putting pressure on friends in high places. One friend of MacArthur in a “high place” was certainly Newton D. Baker, to whom MacArthur undoubtedly owes more than to any other man – except his father. But the only “pressure” MacArthur used on Newton Baker was the impact which his brilliance and organizational ability made on the World War secretary.
Reaching France ‘fastest with the moistest’
When Baker made Maj. MacArthur a colonel, and entrusted to him, as chief of staff, the formation of the famous 42nd, or Rainbow, Division, he was not deceived in the young officer’s ability. The word Rainbow was of MacArthur’s own coining: as a description of a division drawn from every state in the country, it instantly caught the popular imagination. Formed at Camp Mills, Long Island, in August 1917, the Rainbow arrived in France in October 1917, one of the first American divisions to land on French soil. But anxious though MacArthur was to get there first – and despite the fact that he was being raced by Gen. Edward’s New England 26th Division – MacArthur refused to embark until his division was completely equipped for a long, hard winter in the trenches. In fact, so well was he equipped that he had to cough up equipment to the not-nearly-so-well-turned-out 26th Division.
Another “friend in a high place” was MacArthur’s belligerently Republican multimillionaire father-in-law, Edward T. Stotesbury. In 1922, while MacArthur was superintendent of West Point, he met and married that old tycoon’s only stepdaughter, socialite Louise Cromwell, sister of politico-playboy James (“Doris Duke”) Cromwell. Seven years of being married into the upper reaches of the social register may well have given MacArthur some of the social ease more often found among European soldiers than American ones. But it is hard to prove that the Stotesbury influence helped rather than hurt his career. And the fact remains that it was a good year after Louise Cromwell divorced him amicably in 1929 in Reno that Herbert Hoover made him chief of staff. And the Stotesburian era was an echo from the economic grave when Franklin Roosevelt reappointed him for an additional year in 1934. He has been accused of trying to wangle his own reappointment for a second tour. It was precedent-busting Franklin Roosevelt himself who wanted to keep MacArthur. Apparently, even in those days, President Roosevelt did not entirely believe in the Dämmerung of World War heroes. After MacArthur’s retirement as chief of staff to what, so far as the U.S. was concerned, looked like military obscurity, made doubly obscure by his leaving for the Philippines, Roosevelt still continued to muse nostalgically over his departed soldier. The president was quoted as having said, “I must always find a way to keep MacArthur close to me. If we ever have another AEF, he’s the man to take it over…”
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‘The Knights of MacArthur’s Round Table’
Today at the general’s headquarters, in the steamy tropical heat, hardly stirred by lazy propeller-bladed fans, the lights burn long and late. And when they are turned out, the general carried away a fat briefcase of “homework,” the contents of which he digests while pacing up and down in his bedroom and bathroom, much to the annoyance of tenants on the floor beneath. In his headquarters, surrounded by his new and locally created staff of nine, called by Filipino wits the Knights of MacArthur’s Round Table, he works feverishly over plans for hospitalization, supplies, barracks, transportation, depots, for the combined Filipino and American forces. It is no secret that U.S. white troops have been quadrupled since the MacArthur appointment; that tanks by the dozens have rolled off ships and clanged up Manila boulevards on many a moonless midnight in the last rainy season; that at least nine Flying Fortresses have zoomed to roost at Clark Field, and that a great bomber command is being built up at Philippine airfields. The general’s long-cherished plans for the defense of the islands are daily being implemented. There are constant conferences with Four-Star Adm. Hart, with American military missions en route to Chungking and Moscow, with bomber-commuting Brooke-Popham from Singapore, and with President Quezon and High Commissioner Sayre, ironing out difficulties that arise between civilian and military needs and interests. And there are maneuvers at strategic “invasion points” on Luzon, at Forts Stotsenburg and McKinley. Gen. MacArthur has already begun his long-planned “war games” in the Philippines.
Strategy of the Pacific was recently discussed in Manila by Quezon (left), MacArthur (in the background) and Air Chief Marshal Brooke-Popham, British C-in-C at Singapore.
MacArthur lives in a big, showy, air-conditioned apartment in top of the five-story Manila Hotel. For an aspiring politician it would be a fine place to throw parties for visiting firemen and local bigwigs, but the general, when he entertains, entertains unobtrusively and choosily. Only good friends, Filipino and American, know his great living room, lined with rich books and personally inscribed photographs of most of the famous soldiers of his times, in wide, rich silver frames, or have dined at his great mahogany table, heavy with old-fashioned silverware. An omnivorous reader, his other pleasure is attending the Manila movies with his wife.
Jean Faircloth MacArthur is the general’s second wife. They were married in 1937.
Arthur MacArthur, the general’s only son, is 3 and is going to be a soldier too.
The second Mrs. MacArthur, the former Jean Faircloth of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, whom he met in Manila in 1935, is a small, attractive woman many years his junior. To the casual observer, the MacArthurs’ married manners are a trifle Victorian. She calls him, not “Douglas,” but always, with soft Dixie infliction, “General.” He calls her, with kingly courtesy, “Ma’am.” They have a sturdy, handsome 3-year-old son, named after his grandfather, Arthur MacArthur, whose Chinese amah has strangely bequeathed him a British accent. But the general says, whether little MacArthur says “bawth” or “bath,” he’s still going to be an American soldier.
One wonders if MacArthur, the crystal gazer, can look into his own future as clearly as he has his son’s – and his country’s. At 61, he is leaner in fiber and tougher in spirit than most Army men ten years his junior, and he could spot the average politician 15 or 20. Come peace, he may well be forced into that innocuous desuetude democracies reserve for their professional soldiers. But come war…?
Today, Gen. MacArthur at his headquarters of the Army of the Far East stands on the ramparts of an old Spanish fort looking out over Manila Bay where 43 years ago Dewey said so quietly: “You may fire when ready, Gridley.” That shell raised the American flag over an outpost 6,000 miles from American shores. It still waves there. But for how long? Will the Japanese try to land at the strategic spots on Luzon, Subic, Lingayen, Batangas Bay, or will their Navy try to force that tight little rock of Corregidor in the harbor? Will this island of Luzon then become a great theater of war, and Gen. MacArthur the outstanding khaki-clad figure in it? Or will peace descend upon the Pacific while the U.S. plunges into the war across the Atlantic? But come war and greater renown, or come peace and obscurity, leaving the general on this last rung of the military ladder he has climbed swiftly, but not unlaboriously, the world knows it can truly be said of him what an old sergeant said to a recruit he was instructing when he heard of MacArthur’s retirement from the U.S. Army in 1937, “Son, there goes a soldier.”
Meanwhile, the American flag, a pretty object, still snaps in the wind over the barbed-wire-fenced headquarters of the USAFFE.
Fort Drum at the narrow entrance to Manila Bay has a cage mast similar to a battleship’s, which is equipped with searchlights and fire-control platform for its 14-inch guns.
On Corregidor, Filipinos man a 12-inch gun with range of 16 miles. Another 12-incher is visible in the background. Island fortress has underground food, water and shell stores.
The Pittsburgh Press (December 8, 1941)
Clapper: Japan doomed
By Raymond Clapper
WASHINGTON – Americans can be proud today. We can be proud that we tried to the bitter end to avoid war.
In the face of advancing savagery, the government of the United States continued to labor for peace. We tried to throw our moral weight against aggression and for the protection of all nations and for equal opportunity. We can be proud that we continued to do this until Japan struck.
Twelve hours before Japanese planes appeared over Honolulu, President Roosevelt appealed personally to the Emperor of Japan to join him in a peaceful adjustment. Even as the news of the attack was flashed to Washington, Secretary Hull was talking with the two Japanese representatives in his office. We were shot at while still in the act of seeking peace.
A strong nation can take pride in that, and in the record of patience and fair dealing. We can be proud of President Roosevelt and Secretary Hull, and of their cool and steady loyalty to those basic principles that must, after the last drop of blood has been spilled, rise again to guide nations. Our efforts were made, and that no American gun fired before we were attacked. Only today have we put on the uniform of war.
Japan’s attack united U.S.
Japan has made our decision for us. This nation hates war so deeply, is so convinced of its futility as a method of adjusting differences, that we could not take the initiative. Within the last few days, I have heard diplomats, who have participated in some of the Far Eastern discussions, express doubt that the United States would go to war even if Thailand were attacked by Japan. It would have been easy for Japan to avoid war with the United States.
But now all of our doubts, all of our reluctances, all of our hesitations have been swept away for us. Practically every leading isolationist has already been heard from. Their answer to the attack on Honolulu is that we must fight. Wheeler and Taft and McNary, leader of the Senate Republicans, have taken their stand with the government. Japan has united this country for war. Congress will very soon register the unity of this nation.
This is suicide for Japan. A desperate fourth-rate nation, the spoiled little gangster of the Orient will have to be exterminated as a power. Japan has asked for it and now she will get it.
Victory must bring new era
Japan could have joined the United States and Great Britain as one of three controlling sea powers of the globe. Her geography and economic situation made that her logical course. Japan can live only by sea trade. But she has chosen to war with the two other sea powers. She preferred to take her chances with armed force just as Germany has done.
Japan chose to live by the sword and she will die by the sword. Japan will be blasted, bombed, burned, starved. Her people will suffer ghastly tortures. A nation which had possibilities of becoming one of the rulers of the world will be reduced to a pitiful huddling people on a poor little group of islands.
The modern world can no longer tolerate the anarchy of conquest by force. The two nations most addicted to this barbarism are Germany and Japan. They must be disarmed. Force must be hereafter kept in the hands of nations that will use it to bring about a peaceful world.
We will come out of this war with fighting strength the like of which has never been seen. We will have plenty of it for our protection. I hope we will use it also in cooperation with other nations so that no power can again commit such an assault against the peace as Japan has just been guilty of.
This war must be fought until Japanese military strength is exterminated.
But more than that must come out of it. Our victory must be used to bring about a new era of benevolent force which will secure for all men and women and their children a new kind of peace in which the human race can progress toward that happier life which science and industry have made possible.
America can open that door.
Los Angeles mans anti-aircraft guns
LOS ANGELES, California (UP) – All aircraft observation posts and anti-aircraft guns were ordered immediately manned by observers in an order issued last night by Brig. Gen. William O. Ryan, commanding general of the 4th Interceptor Command, which has jurisdiction over the southwestern portion of the United States.
The statement said:
To chief observers of all observation posts AWS:
You are directed to activate your observation posts immediately and to see that the posts are fully manned at all times.
By order BG WILLIAM O. RYAN
Commanding General
4th Interceptor Command
Declarations of war
By the United Press
Declarations of war since Japan’s attack on the United States:
- United States on Japan.
- Japan on the United States and Great Britain.
- Great Britain on Japan.
- Nicaragua on Japan.
- Canada on Japan.
- The Netherlands on Japan.
- Honduras on Japan.
- Costa Rica on Japan.
- Manchukuo on the United States.
- Free France on Japan.
- Haiti on Japan.
- Belgian government-in-exile on Japan.
Imminent declarations:
- South Africa on Japan.
- Australia on Japan.
- Chungking on Japan and the Axis.
- Cuba on Japan.
This war different; not started in April
Active entrance in World War II marks the first time since the War of 1812 with Britain that the United States has begun a war in any month other than April.
Starting dates for the six previous wars were:
- Revolution – April 19, 1775
- War of 1812 – June 18, 1812
- War with Mexico – April 15, 1846
- Civil War – April 15, 1861
- War with Spain – April 21, 1898
- World War I – April 6, 1917
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Isolationists change views as Japs attack
Wheeler: Bombs mean war and we’ll have to see it through
By John R. Beal, United Press staff writer
WASHINGTON (UP) – Isolationist sentiment in Congress disappeared today almost without a trace.
The men who have fought President Roosevelt’s foreign policy joined his supporters in calling for war in answer to Japan’s attack.
Sen. Burton K. Wheeler, D-Montana, spearhead of congressional opposition to President Roosevelt, said the Japanese bombs dropped at Pearl Harbor “mean war and we’ll have to see it through.”
Sen. Gerald P. Nye, D-North Dakota, said in a speech at Pittsburgh that “if the facts are presented, there is only one thing for Congress to do – declare war.”
Mr. Nye, however, was critical of administration conduct of the negotiations with Japan, accusing the government of “doing its utmost to provoke a quarrel” with her.
Party lines erased
But most members of the non-interventionist bloc put aside recriminations as out of place now that attack has come to the United States. One after another, wherever the news reached them, those who have been associated with opposition to the government’s program of aid “short of war” urged that the nation use its resources to the utmost to defend itself.
Party lines were declared erased for the duration of the war. Senate Republican leader Charles L. McNary of Oregon said as he left last night’s White House conference that “the Republicans will go along on whatever is done.”
House Republican leader Joseph W. Martin Jr. of Massachusetts added that the minority members of the House “naturally resent the cowardly attack by Japan and will support the president in his effort to maintain the integrity of the United States.”
Attack aids unity
The consensus was that the method of Japan’s attack amounted to invasion and could not have brought greater instant unity to the nation than if it had been calculated for this purpose.
This is how some of the outstanding congressional foreign policy opponents reacted to the Japanese bombings:
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Chairman David I. Walsh, D-Massachusetts, of the Senate Naval Affairs Committee said:
The unexpected and unprovoked attacks upon United States territory and ships and the formal declaration of war by Japan leave Congress no choice but to take speedy and decisive measures to defend our country. We must promptly meet the challenge with all our resources and all our courage, and place our faith in God to protect us in this hour of national peril.
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Rep. Hamilton Fish, R-New York, one of the bitterest of the President’s opponents, said he intended to appeal in the House for complete support from all factions.
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Sen. Robert A. Taft, R-Ohio, said, “Undivided and unlimited prosecution of the war must show that no one can safely attack the American people.”
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Sen. Arthur H. Vandenberg, R-Michigan, called for “a victorious war with every resource at our command.”
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After America was at war –
America Firsters jeer President as Nye and others conceal awful truth
Army colonel ejected as he tried to tell of Jap attack
By Adam Smyser
(SHS) – The Japanese attack edged dramatically into a three-hour meeting of the America First Committee yesterday, but even when the strained session ended, the audience was still applauding declarations for peace.
The America Firsters hardened to hecklers by this time – even booed a colonel in the U.S. Army (wearing civilian clothes) out of their meeting when he tried to break the news of the Japanese attack, and it was a full hour later that they finally heard the news in a brief note read by Sen. Gerald P. Nye, one of the isolationist leaders.
The weird meeting started in the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Hall at 3 p.m. EST, just early enough for the audience of 2,800 not to have heard radio flashes of the attacks on Hawaii.
But the full retinue of speakers knew the truth – newsmen had rushed up to them with press-association and radio flashes and had quizzed them for reactions that were guarded and cautious.
“If Japan attacked, there is nothing left for Congress to do but declare war,” Sen. Nye said, adding that, “It wouldn’t change my non-interventionist opinions materially on the European war.”
When the meeting started, the audience was still unaware that the United States had been attacked.
American flags waved from all corners of the hall. “NO WAR,” said a sign on the speaker’s podium. And on the wall over the heads of the speakers, in strong red letters, was Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
With no hint of the startling news, the meeting proceeded on its strained way.
Through choral selections by the Bellevue Methodist Church choir; an invocation by Rev. John McKavney of St. John The Evangelist Church; an appeal by Attorney John B. Gordon, Pittsburgh America First chairman, not to be afraid to stand for peace, “This is America. All shades of opinion are entitled to be heard.”
Irene Castle McLaughlin, dancing widow of dancing Vernon Castle, knew the startling news when she took the stand for her first America First talk, but she didn’t mention it.
While she spoke – telling of her husband who was killed in World War I and of a son she doesn’t want to sacrifice in another war – a U.S. colonel, Enrique Urrutia Jr., and his wife walked into the meeting.
Col. Urrutia, executive officer of the Pittsburgh military reserve area, had heard of the Japanese attack before he started out on a Sunday stroll. He sat inquiringly through the talk of Mrs. McLaughlin and through the opening remarks of the next speaker, ex-State Sen. C. Hale Sipe, D-Freeport.
When Mr. Sipe wound up a denunciation of Stalin and Harry Hopkins with the dramatically intoned statement that “the chief warmonger in the United States is the president of the United States,” the audience broke into wild applause and Col. Urrutia exploded.
He bounced up from his seat:
Mr. Speaker, please, can I ask a question? I wonder if the audience knows that Japan has attacked us and that Manila and Pearl Harbor have been bombed by the Japanese.
The boos and jeers that America First is accustomed to give to those who interrupt drowned out most of his words.
“Get out, you don’t belong here,” the crowd shouted.
Police and ushers hustled down the aisle to the colonel, who was not in uniform.
He told them he was an Army colonel. They told him to get out. Outside, he showed them his credentials and they changed their attitude. He left anyway, after explaining that his wife and he merely had been on their daily walk and dropped in on the meeting out of curiosity.
Before he left, the colonel exploded once more: “This is a meeting of traitors.”
But that had happened in the lobby and the audience for the most part was still ignorant of the amazing news the speakers kept to themselves.
Ex-Sen. Sipe went on with his talk, still blasting the interventionist leaders. He called Wendell Willkie “the mouthpiece of Roosevelt” and Secretary of War Henry Stimson, he said, “sleeps at Cabinet meetings.”
America First passed its collection baskets, asking for a dollar from each person. Frank T. Stockdale, treasurer of the Pittsburgh chapter of America First, said, “If it had not been for the America First Committee, we would be in the war at this time.”
When Sen. Nye, the featured speaker, finally got a chance to talk, the meeting was almost two hours old. It was 4:50 p.m. (and for two hours previously, the speakers knew that America had been attacked).
Wild cheering greeted his announcement that, “Never, never, never again must America let herself be made such a monkey of as she was 25 years ago.”
Newsmen who knew what had happened kept asking themselves what he would say of the Japanese attack. The answer seemed like “nothing.”
The isolationist senator hit at the church for denouncing war six years ago and condoning it now. He called The Chicago Tribune’s story of a five-million-man AEF an “accurate revelation.”
He said:
Crush Hitler if you will, but what will you have destroyed? You will have destroyed a result, not a cause. We went forth and crucified Kaiserism and got Hitlerism.
He lampooned the national debt, said America was fighting Britain’s war, quoted figures to show Britain had suffered fewer casualties than any of its important allies and hit at the American draft.
Finally – at 5:20 p.m. – a reporter walked to the stage with a note for the senator. It told of the Japanese declaration of war.
The senator looked at it, took off his glasses, nodded his head, and kept on with his peace speech. He seemed frustrated.
He laughed at the U.S. destroyer-base deal, talked about Canadian hog prices and said:
We are scared to death that if the British Navy falls, we are done for. The only navy on earth that we have ever had to prepare against is that same British Navy. May God forbid the day that ever finds us placing dependence on any other nation than our own.
Then he veered toward Japan.
He talked of British propaganda in the last war. The English propagandists concluded, he said, that “perhaps the only way we can get the United States on our side in the next war is to make certain that Japan is against Britain.”
“You have seen,” he told the audience, “a studied effort to pick war with Japan.”
He paused, and then picked up the note.
Mr. Nye said:
I have the worst news that I have had in 20 years to report this afternoon. The Japanese imperial government at 4 p.m. announced a state of war between it and the United States and Britain.
The audience was stunned.
Only one voice was heard: “Throw the president out!” The senator said, “I am going to withhold any comment until I can find out what this is all about.”
He switched to a talk on the USS Greer torpedoing, which he said was provoked by the United States. He said President Roosevelt had misled the American people into believing it was unprovoked.
He shouted:
I don’t know what I may be privileged to say to do tomorrow. But today I can say it and I am going to say it – THAT IS CHEATING!
The audience broke into applause and it cheered again as he said that “Christianity and intervention are as completely opposite as anything under God.”
Crowds buzzed up to talk to the senator after the closing services.
A newspaperman cornered him first: “Do you think Britain will help us now, Senator?”
“Yes,” said Sen. Nye. “The same way she helped Poland and Czechoslovakia.”
“That was a wonderful talk, Senator,” said the smiling friends. “Will there be printed copies of it available?” “I want to congratulate you, Senator.”
It looked as though it was going to take the Monday newspapers to prove the jolting truth – America was at war.
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Nye says Roosevelt ‘cheats’ U.S.
(UP) – Five hours after Japan declared war upon the United States, Sen. Gerald P. Nye, R-North Dakota, chief senatorial isolationist, told a Pittsburgh audience President Roosevelt’s address on the Greer incident was “cheating.”
The utterance was made last night before more than 600 persons in the First Baptist Church, Bellefield Avenue, after he had been introduced by its pastor, Rev. Dr. Bernard C. Clausen.
‘Why, he’s pro-Nazi’
In closing his talk, however, Sen. Nye left off from his blasting of Roosevelt and the policies which the speaker said had led us to war by saying that if the facts are as presented, there is but one thing for Congress to do: Declare war against Japan.
Not once was there a protesting note struck while Sen. Nye spoke. Afterward, when he had retired to Rev. Dr. Clausen’s study preparatory to leaving for Washington with his wife by train, many of those leaving the church were outspoken in their comment.
“Why, he’s pro-Nazi,” one woman was heard to exclaim. Another remarked, “He should be ashamed of himself, in times like these.”
‘Never such betrayal’
Sen. Nye said:
The president told you the Greer was attacked. He said the Greer was on the way to Iceland with mail for our sons. That was cheating. Write to your senator and have him send you a copy of this letter, of Adm. Stark, which shows the Greer, informed by a British airplane, hunted down the submarine until it fired twice blindly.
I feel I have the right to say this without injuring my country. This country has been doing the utmost to provoke a quarrel with Japan. Negotiations for peace? At every turn our negotiators denied the Japanese representatives a chance to “save their face.” They wouldn’t give them a chance to agree with the U.S.
If we were bluffing, then our hands have been called. Now we have war there and it will be only a backdoor to war elsewhere. There never has been such betrayal; there never has been such cheating to accomplish what has been accomplished in the last two years.
Sen. Nye mentioned how, years ago, a young Under Secretary of the Navy, referred to war with Japan as preposterous. “Unthought of; both sides would drop from exhaustion and it would be folly,” Sen. Nye quoted the writer as saying. Then he said, “That writer was Franklin Roosevelt.”
Jap attacks rile isolationist senator
(UP) – Passing through Pittsburgh today on the way to Washington, Sen. Bennett Champ Clark, D-Missouri, was so riled by the Japanese attacks that he could not eat his breakfast.
The Missouri senator’s previous appearance in Pittsburgh was as a speaker at a rally of the America First Committee broken up by a heckler who insisted on questioning the isolationist.
With Sen. Clark today were Sen. Clyde M. Reed, R-Kansas, and Rep. Clinton P. Anderson, D-New Mexico. They arrived at County Airport and after a brief stopover, flew to Washington.
Planes guard Canal
PANAMA CITY, Panama – Dozens of deadly P-40 pursuit planes droned back and forth across the Isthmus of Panama today, protecting the Panama Canal from attack. Coastal batteries are ready to go into action at a moment’s notice.
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America First asks support of war
CHICAGO, Illinois – The national board of directors of the America First Committee today urged its members to give full support “to the war effort of this country until the conflict with Japan is brought to a successful conclusion.”
The America First statement was issued by Clay Judson, a national director, after it had been approved by all other executive heads of the committee.
The statement:
Today the military forces of Japan have without warning attacked this nation and the Japanese government has formally declared war upon us. This must be followed by a similar declaration on the part of the United States and by all-out hostility.
The America First Committee urges all those who have subscribed to its principles to give their support to the war effort of this country until the conflict with Japan is brought to a successful conclusion.
In this war, the America First Committee pledges its aid to the President as commander in chief of the armed forces of the United States.
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U.S. urges relatives to withhold inquiries
WASHINGTON (UP) – The Navy and War Departments today received numerous inquiries from all over the country as to casualties in the Japanese attacks, particularly in the Hawaiian Islands area.
The Navy advised against sending of individual inquiries at this time. It said casualties would be announced and families notified as quickly as information is received.
1,600,000 men now serving in U.S. Army
WASHINGTON (UP) – The outbreak of hostilities in the Pacific finds the United States with an Army of 1,600,000 men as compared with only 200,000 at the outset of World War I.
The 1941 Army consists of Regulars, Selectees, National Guardsmen and Reserves. About one-third of the 1917 Army consisted of National Guardsmen.
The Army has more than 3,600 combat planes on hand, according to testimony before a congressional committee November 18 by Gen. George C. Marshall, the Chief of Staff.
In addition, the Air Corps program is being stepped up rapidly from 54 to 84 groups. This involves training about 30,000 pilots and 110,000 mechanics and technicians annually.
Military planes are believed rolling off the production lines at a rate of more than 2,000 a month, but many of these have been diverted to Britain, Russia and China.
House-approved legislation provides for an Army of more than two million. This can be expanded rapidly since draft machinery has long since been in motion, whereas, during World War I, the draft was put into operation after the conflict began.
Before the close of World War I, more than 2,800,000 were inducted under the draft out of a total of 24,234,021 registrants. The peak of the U.S. World War armed strength – the Army, Navy and Marine Corps – was 4,800,000.
‘Save our Republic’ slogan appears on Tribune now
CHICAGO, Illinois (UP) – The Chicago Tribune, outspoken foe of the Roosevelt administration and voice of isolationism, today replaced Stephen Decatur’s famous slogan “Our Country, Right or Wrong” on its masthead.
After breaking with President Roosevelt, the Tribune had replaced the words of Decatur with “Save our Republic.”
In a front-page editorial, the Tribune asserted that war had been forced upon America by “an insane clique of Japanese militarists.”
The editorial said:
America faces war through no volition of any American. Recriminations are useless and we doubt they will be indulged in. Certainly not by us… all of us from this day forth have but one task. That is to strike with all our might to protect and preserve the American freedom that we all hold dear.
Editorial: War!
It came, not by attack from Europe as so many feared, but in the Pacific, which most Americans believed impossible.
Japan has attacked us without cause. The United States was still pleading for peace, still offering Japan honorable friendship, when she struck without warning.
The bombing of Hawaii, the torpedoing of ships on this side of the Pacific, were not acts of irresponsible commanders or even the result of some sudden decision by the Tokyo government. The orders must have been issued, and confirmed by the Mikado, many days ago to permit the aircraft carriers and submarines to reach these battle stations so many thousands of miles away.
Thus, the treachery was complete. It was premeditated. It was carried out while the United States government, in patience and good faith, listened to long professions of friendship masking her plans for surprise attack.
So be it.
The Japanese found us slow to wrath. They will yet find us mighty in wrath. They found us unwilling to strike the first blow. They will yet find us striking the last blow.
They have played us for suckers. So, we have seemed to them – for did we not supply them with the steel, oil, and other war materials to fight us?
Yes, we paid that price for peace. And we lost.
But in the losing, we gained something which Japan lacks – something essential to give a peaceful and democratic people the will to fight and the will to win. That essential is clear proof to Americans that their nation is not the aggressor but the defender.
Japan has provided that proof. The attack on Hawaii united America in a common horror and in a common resolve – a unity as grim and complete as if Japan had struck individually at 130,000,000 Americans.
She has thereby eliminated our chief dangers – indifference and division. Whatever the initial military and naval gains from her betrayal, they are insignificant beside the defense spirit and untapped power which she has heedlessly provoked.
As this newspaper for many months has called for concentration on Pacific defense, for all-out preparedness, for an end of strikes as usual, business as usual, luxury as usual, so today we repeat those now-too-obvious necessities.
The losses suffered in the battle of Hawaii will not have been in vain if they turn Americans from fears of Atlantic invasion in some distant future to the Pacific reality ignored so long. At last, we may stop underestimating the Japanese. Hitler is attacking, indeed; but through the Japanese, as he has so long tried to do.
We must fight with everything we have. It will not be easy. But the greater our concentration and the greater our sacrifice, the sooner the victory.
America salutes the president, who fought so nobly for Pacific peace, and who now leads us in the just cause of self-defense. America salutes the armed forces, who have never lost a war.
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Stokes: ‘Attack that couldn’t come’ stuns, shocks Washington
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer
WASHINGTON (UP) – Washington was waked rudely from its Sunday afternoon doze by a crisp, excited voice over the radio: “White House says Japs attack Pearl Harbor.”
It was identified as a press-association flash.
Here was something out of Jules Verne or Conan Doyle remembered from boyhood vaguely, those lurid and fanciful tales that tickled the youthful imagination pleasantly because even a boy knew they could never come true.
It was true.
The radio bubbled on. Swarms of Japanese planes over Hawaii, Hickam Airfield bombed, American soldiers killed, row on row of American airplanes damaged on the ground, an Army transport torpedoed in the mid-Pacific, rumors of battleships sunk – it was stunning, shocking the senses.
For there on the divan lay the Sunday rotogravure sections with pictures of Hawaii in the sunlight, and dancing waves, and white-coated orchestras and pretty girls.
Nightmare is reality
The radio talked on, repeating press-association flashes and bulletins, and the nightmare became a reality as you heard of President Roosevelt conferring with hastily assembled officials, of Secretary Hull telling off the Japanese in words that were strong enough but must have been revised considerably for publication, considering the Tennessee statesman’s capacity for cussing.
Newspaper correspondents who have been covering the Japanese story had been idling outside Secretary Hull’s office in the early afternoon, waiting for the conference with the Japanese ambassadors to break up. A photographer came up and asked a reporter if he had heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor.
“Don’t kid me, brother.”
“But it’s true. I just heard it over the radio in the janitor’s office.”
Thus came the news to the State Department.
Japs prove reticent
Out at the Japanese Embassy, they were burning papers, in plain view, so that photographers could see and take pictures. But once this ceremony was over, the Japs slammed their door. A telegraph messenger, in uniform, innocently rang the bell, and a figure looked out and slammed the door in his face.
A few moments later, assembled reporters saw a hand come from the door and stick up a message. They walked up to see it. It was in Japanese.
A Japanese newspaperman interpreted it. It said: “Anybody having business with the Embassy, use the side door.”
Wisecracks are few
As the news spread, reporters converged on the White House. The press room was jamful of newspaper and radio men. Broadcasting apparatus was soon attached, and the voices reading bulletins rose above the babel. There were few wisecracks.
Every so often the word came that Steve Early, the president’s press secretary, had an announcement, and the men and women tumbled out of the press room and into Steve Early’s office, where that ex-newspaperman – who had seen the other war in the Navy Department at the right hand of Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt – now coolly gave out the latest bulletins.
Lights bloomed from every window at the White House and in the executive offices. Crowds gathered along the White House fence, peering in.
War was upon us.
There was no song
At night, the Cabinet appeared for the conference with the president in his upstairs study. One by one the limousines rolled up, and one by one the Cabinet members alighted and walked up the steps, grim-faced, through an aisle between two lines of newspapermen anxiously seeking a word, studying expressions.
They were followed by congressional leaders.
It was like the nights, so many years ago it seems now, when Depression gripped the land, and banks were crashing, and some of these same men were in and out of the White House trying to get hold of a domestic crisis.
But then there was lightness, for the troubles that beset us were familiar home troubles, and newspaper correspondents stood on the porch and raised raucous voices in song, while waiting.
There was no song last night.
Interceptors are ready
SEATTLE, Washington – The 2nd Interceptor Command, covering states west of the Dakotas and north of California, late yesterday announced a state of alert for regular personnel.
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The theater of war in Far East where United States battles Japan
This Jap aircraft carrier may be at bottom of the Pacific now
This is the Japanese aircraft carrier Kaga which may have been the one which launched the planes that attacked Hawaii yesterday. A Jap carrier was reported sunk after the attack.
Rush to colors is on here; many volunteers too old
Recruiting offices crowded throughout night – scores phone they’re ready to fight
There wasn’t any rolling of the drums, there wasn’t any martial music blaring across the Golden Triangle today, but the rush to the colors was on.
The “Johnny” of 1941, grim and determined like the “Johnny” of 1917, was out to get his gun.
Into the smoke-darkened Old Post Office Building, in Smithfield Street, out of the factory and off the farm, the volunteers streamed to the offices of the Army, the Navy and the Marines.
Some were too old. They were turned down, temporarily.
But most were young and if their bodies were good and strong, they were accepted.
The Navy and Marine recruiting stations opened last night, as Pittsburgh was absorbing the first shock of the news that the Japanese have attacked.
12 volunteer by phone
Between 11:30 p.m. and 3 a.m. EST, 35 men applied for enlistment at the Marine headquarters, 12 of them by telephone.
The number grew with time. Some were told to come back later for physical examinations, others were rejected pending clarification from Washington on the status of older men.
But among those volunteering were:
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A 45-year-old World War I veteran, married and the father of three, who said he was again ready to make the “sacrifice.”
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A Jewish businessman, 50, who declared he was “ready to quit business and join up.”
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An ex-Marine who appeared with his wife. She said she was willing to let him go.
Eleven youths offered their services to the Navy within a few hours after the Navy office opened. By midmorning, the Navy headquarters was crowded with 25-30 young men, filling out application blanks or being examined by physicians. As each man left the office, there was another ready to step in.
Four young men were in a “crap” game when they heard the news that Japan had declared war. They drove at once to the recruiting station and offered to “join up.”
Negro first to enroll
Robert W. Taylor, 20, a Negro, of 1101 Webster Ave., was the first to enroll. “I wouldn’t mind going tonight and get it over with.”
Another quartet was out rising, listening to the war broadcasts. Instead of driving home, they drove straight for the Navy headquarters.
Another volunteer, George McGregor, 22, of 132 E Locust Way, Homestead, an employee of the Mesta Machine Company, said, “I like my job, but this war is more important, I think.”
The Army recruiting station began receiving enlistments at 8 a.m.
100 apply to Army
In the first two hours, more than a hundred men had applied. Many of them were married. Many were over the age limit of 35.
These men were not being accepted. Clarification of their status is expected shortly from Washington, but in the meantime, the usual Army conditions of accepting single men between 18 and 35 were being observed.
The big push was on in full without much hullabaloo.
No tub-thumping, no shouting, no wisecracks – just an air of quiet, grim determination on the part of the youths and oldsters who were reporting to do their bit.
We’ll lick ‘em attitude
America has been attacked. We’ll fight. We’ll lick ‘em. That was the attitude.
Like George C. Gerhold, of 100 S 12th St., who makes $68 a month working on a WPA sewing project.
Mr. Gerhold was in World War I with the 28th Infantry Division. He fought in the Argonne and on the Meuse.
Ready to fight again
And this morning, reporting to 1st Sgt. William E. Wickert at the Marine Recruiting Office, he was ready to fight again.
Married? Yes. Any children? Yes, three, with two of them married.
How did he feel about enlisting?
“Well, Japan has declared war and as an American, I would like to help give it back to them,” he said. “The men in Hawaii and the Philippines are sacrificing their lives for us. I feel I should sacrifice something.”
Above Marine age limit
But Mr. Gerhold was disappointed. He is 45, well above the Marine age limit. So, the sergeant told him to come back. He said, “Maybe later, we can take you.”
To Sgt. Wickert also came Louis Cardell of 222 Conniston Ave.
Mr. Cardell is a mounted traffic policeman. His beat is on Smithfield Street, near the Old Post Office Building. He is a veteran of the AEF. He has a son, Louis W., in the Marines, now serving on an aircraft carrier.
He wanted to get in the same branch of service.
The answer was “No.” He’s too old. But he may keep trying.
Another officer tries
Another policeman who tried to join up was Officer William Heagy, 1252 Juniata St. His son, William Jr., enlisted in the Navy last week and was sent to Newport.
Stanley J. Ivanisin, 18, of 3164 Brighton Rd., North Side, was sitting at home listening to the radio. He decided to enlist. He reported to Navy Recruiter E. L. Tisue. He was told he didn’t have a chance because of his eyes.
A man told the Marine recruiter that he had lung adhesions and had only “two or three years to live.”
“I haven’t got much more time,” he said. “So, I’d like to fight the Japs if you’ll take me.”
Loss of battleship first in U.S. history
By the United Press
The loss of a U.S. battleship at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, officially announced as “capsized,” marked the first time in history that the U.S. Navy has suffered such a blow.
No dreadnought-class ship had been lost previously. The USS Maine, blown up in Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898, was an “ironclad” of only 6,682 tons.
The largest warship lost during World War I was the cruiser USS San Diego (15,400 tons), sunk by a mine off Fire Island, New York, on July 10, 1918.
Japs ordered to stay here
None can leave country, Morgenthau orders
WASHINGTON (UP) – Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau last night issued instructions barring all Japanese nationals from leaving the country until the Treasury can be assured there has been no violation of the order “freezing” Japanese assets.
Simultaneously, he revoked all outstanding general and specific licenses authorizing withdrawal of “frozen” funds by Japanese, and other financial transactions in the United States by Japan and her nationals.
The original freezing order, issued by the president on July 25, placed in “temporary custody” approximately $130 million of Japanese assets.
The effect of last night’s action is to place an immediate and complete stoppage on all financial and business dealings, as well as trade transactions in which Japan or her nationals have any interests.
Two Japanese aliens seized in Philadelphia
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (UP) – Two Japanese aliens, one a defense plant employee, were seized at railroad stations today as police and FBI agents opened an anti-sabotage drive in this important industrial area.
Detectives said the Motokichi Koda, 54, a non-citizen employed by a chemical firm, had been turned over to the FBI. The name of the other man was not disclosed.
Japanese were requested to remain in their homes as precautions were taken to protect vital industries and shipyards in this area which hold defense contracts totaling more than $2.5 billion.
Army, Navy and Marine recruiting offices reported an unprecedented rush of volunteers.
Missouri restricts Japs
JEFFERSON CITY, Missouri – Gov. Forrest C. Donnell yesterday ordered “home custody” for all Japanese nationals in Missouri.
Jap leader arrested
SACRAMENTO, California – R. Sato, leader of the Japanese colony here and branch manager of a Japanese vernacular daily paper, was arrested here last night by the FBI as an “enemy alien” and ordered held indefinitely.
Hoover urges all-out fight against Japanese
PAOLI, Pennsylvania (UP) – Former President Herbert Hoover took the stand today that the United States “must fight with everything we have.”
On a visit to the home of former Republican National Committee Chairman John D. M. Hamilton, Mr. Hoover said, “American soil has been treacherously attacked by Japan. It was forced upon us. We must fight with everything we have.”
Biddle: ‘We’re ready’
DETROIT, Michigan – Attorney General Francis Biddle said last night that the Justice Department has been expecting an outbreak in the Far East and “was never better prepared for emergency legislation and immediate control of subversive forces in this country.”
Evacuation is discussed
PHOENIX, Arizona – Preparations to handle possible evacuation of civilians from Los Angeles and other Pacific Coast cities were discussed yesterday at an Arizona Civilian Defense Coordinating Council meeting called by Gov. Sidney P. Osborn.
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Britain opens war on Japan
Churchill warns that foe is powerful
By Edward W. Beattie, United Press staff writer
LONDON, England (UP) – Great Britain today made formal declaration of war against Japan.
The announcement was made to an emergency session of parliament by Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
The session convened at 3 p.m. (9 a.m. EST) and Mr. Churchill immediately announced Britain’s action, fulfilling his pledge of just a month ago that Britain would stand beside the United States if war came to the Pacific.
Mr. Churchill warned against any tendency to underestimate Japan’s military and naval strength. His speech to the House of Commons lacked the famous invective which he hurled against Italy when Premier Benito Mussolini brought his nation into the war at the darkest hour of the Allied cause.
Formally aligning Britain beside the United States, the prime minister emphasized that the war which has now spread over two hemispheres is an indivisible and interdependent conflict.
The session of Commons lasted only a half hour. It was a business-like, undramatic meeting.
Britain’s note to Japan announcing her declaration of war was couched in language stronger than that employed by Mr. Churchill in Commons.
It charged that “this wanton act of unprovoked aggression was committed in flagrant violation of international law.”
Mrs. Churchill sat in the distinguished strangers’ gallery of the House as her husband spoke. She wore a bandeau on which was printed the slogan: “Go… Go… Go…”
“It remains,” said Mr. Churchill, “for the two great democracies to face the task with whatever strength God may give them.”
Each time he mentioned China or Gen. Chiang Kai-shek, the House cheered.
Mr. Churchill disclosed that last night he had talked by trans-Atlantic radiotelephone with President Roosevelt.
Meanwhile, the Netherlands government-in-exile here announced that it considered that a state of war existed between the Netherlands and Japan.
Instructions were sent at once to Netherlands East Indies authorities on their course, and similar orders were sent to Netherlands authorities at Curacao and in the Netherlands West Indies and Dutch Guiana.
Japanese in the Netherlands East Indies were ordered interned.
2 Latin nations enter Jap war
Costa Rica and Nicaragua act immediately
By the United Press
Two Latin American republics – Costa Rica and Nicaragua – declared war on Japan last night and it was indicated that several others would follow suit.
An emergency Cabinet meeting was called in Havana. Observers recalled that President Fulgencio Batista announced recently that Cuba would follow the United States in any declaration of war against Japan.
President Alfredo Baldomir, in a nationwide broadcast, called upon Uruguay to abandon neutrality. Uruguay has always been the chief advocate in South America of complete defense cooperation with the United States.
Foreign Minister Ezequiel Padilla of Mexico, after a conference with President Manuel Avila Camacho, angrily condemned Japan’s “aggression.” Informed sources said a Mexican declaration of war was “not impossible.”
Strategically-located Panama ordered the arrest of all Japanese nationals.
Emergency Cabinet meetings were held in Peru, Colombia and the Dominican Republic, and Foreign Minister Juan B. Rossett of Chile discussed the crisis with Acting President Jeronimo Mendez.
U.S. Ambassador Jefferson Caffery conferred with Brazilian Chancellor Oswaldo Aranha.
Acting President Ramon S. Castillo of traditionally-neutral Argentina said his country will “maintain absolute neutrality.”
The American Ambassador to Buenos Aires, Norman Armour, was told by French Minister Enrique Ruiz-Guinazu that Argentina will take no measures until the position of the United States is made clear.
Soviet policy in war secret
Russians refuse to reveal stand in Pacific
By A. T. Steele
KUIBYSHEV, USSR (Dec. 6, delayed) – It is idle to speculate on what line of action the Soviet government will take in event Japan begins an American war. Russians are not saying nor is it at all certain that they have definitely made up their minds.
Of this much, however, we can be reasonably sure – that the Soviet government would prefer peace in the Pacific. Russia wishes to concentrate all her energies on the defeat of Hitler and she needs American and British supplies with which to accomplish that purpose. War between Japan and the United States would jeopardize and possibly reduce this all-important flow of war materials just when it is beginning to assume important proportions. Nor is it certain that war in the Pacific – even if Russia took no part – would enable the Russians substantially to lower their vigilance along their Pacific frontiers.
So far during this latest Japanese-American crisis, the Soviet government has taken no action which would give the Japanese or anybody else a clue as to its policy in event of a Japanese-American showdown. Its attitude toward the Pacific dispute has so far been one of meticulous detachment. However, the Japanese cannot fail to be taking note of the difficulties which their Axis brethren – the Nazis – are encountering in their Russian campaign.
Those Japanese who have always contended that ultimate German victory in the present World War is a foregone conclusion have been given food for very serious thought in the jarring Rostov reverse and in the slow pace of the German drive toward Moscow.
Monahan: Those masters of mayhem, the Three Stooges; discuss their art
By Kaspar Monahan
Curly Howard and Larry Fine were playing gin-rummy rather half-heartedly in their dressing room when I interrupted their game. Moe Howard, the other third of the Three Stooges, wasn’t there, so Curly and Larry began to denounce him.
“All he does,” said Curly, gingerly rubbing his clipped iron skull, “is stay awake nights thinking up new ways of hurting us. And him my brother, too.”
Larry said, “Look at this,” and I looked and saw a big lump on his left jaw right near the ear. He said his jaw was always swollen that way.
“And our poor noses,” they exclaimed in unison. “They’re always sore.”
Curly had a deep scar on one cheek, more of sadistic Moe’s work.
“But it’s even worse in picture,” Curly went on. “That’s when we really get battered. Each of us lost a tooth in one picture – even Moe, and it served him right. And we get ribs busted, too.”
Moe came in, glaring menacingly at his two victims, and they yelled insults at him, seeing as how I stood between them and him. Moe made that threatening gesture – two fingers pointing, and they cringed and subsided.
“These bums squawking to you about the way I smack ‘em around?” Moe yelled. “Hah – look at the way I suffer. Look at this mitt, would you?”
I looked and saw the knuckles were swollen.
Then Larry, the one with the wild mop of hair, pointed to a growing bald spot. For year after year Moe has been digging his fists into Larry’s hair pulling it out in tufts and sometimes it doesn’t grow back.
“But we’re not worried,” said Curly of the clipped sconce. “When all of Larry’s hair is gone, why I’ll let mine grow and he can take over my role and I’ll take his.”
“I get mine clipped once a week – with a No. 1 clipper. That gets it close to the skull.”
All three then discussed their respective hairdos. Moe shook his head and down tumbled his black locks, forming a circle close to his eyebrows and giving him the appearance of a zombie. He will shoot any barber whose shears slip and spoil that circular outline.
“Lots of money has been won or lost on whether I wear a toupee or not,” Moe said.
Larry said he always had arguments with barbers who insist on cutting his mop of curls.
Curly declared that he has been cutting his hair right down to the bone so long that if he lets it grow for more than a week, he can’t stand it.
Moe demonstrated just how he stabs at the eyes of his coworkers and yet doesn’t blind them.
“I been doing it for years and I haven’t put out an eye, yet,” he said proudly. It’s a delicate maneuver – Moe’s arm darts out, the two fingers striking Curly to Larry just under the eyebrows, the thumb colliding with the nose. That’s why their noses are always sore.
“And you can’t pull your punches,” he said. “Audiences would detect it at once.”
The more enthusiastic the audience, the more Larry and Curly suffer, for Moe then really goes to work on them.
They’ll yell “Give it to ‘em, Moe” – and Moe was never one to let an audience down.
“How long,” I asked, “can you fellows keep on with this business of maiming one another?”
“I don’t know,” replied Larry gloomily, “but if it can stick it out 10 years more, I’ll be surprised,” and he rubbed his sore jaw and sore nose.
Moe and Curly said they’d buy ranches some day and retire. Meanwhile the Three Stooges are making eight pictures a year. In the studios they really take punishment as each scene of mayhem must be “shot” four or five times. In a recent comedy Moe said he got hit with a 60-pound pie which knocked him silly.
Now he’s taking vitamin (ABDG) pills to keep up his strength.
“I’m taking vitamin pills, too,” chirped Curly, “to build me up.”
He weighs 215 pounds.
His sturdy build and the public’s belief that he is immune to pain, often results in offstage tortures for poor Curly…
Once while strolling along the Atlantic City Boardwalk, drinking in the beauties of the ocean, Curly reeled from a heavy blow. An overgrown youngster, walking with his mamma, just up and cracked Curly with a cane – and the kid shrieked and mamma giggled.
“I’d a murdered him if he had been half an inch taller,” growled Curly.
On another occasion, a big, tall girl – a stranger – in a crowded elevator swung from the heels and cuffed Curly on the jaw. And she laughed and all present laughed – except Curly.
Came the call for the next show – and Moe, Curly and Larry appeared before the Stanley footlights on the stage and Moe began to slap them around and poke his fingers at their eyes. Five times they did it Saturday and other days they murder one another only four times. Wotta life!
Must pay well, though. For instance, Curly is paying an ex-wife $130 weekly alimony, and he isn’t missing any meals.
Opening tonight: “Arsenic and Old Lace”, with Erich von Stroheim, Effie Shannon and Laura Hope Crews, at the Nixon.
Comic air wife has real task
Portland Hoffa is Allen Stenog, partner
By Si Steinhauser
Being the wife of a Jack Benny, a Fred Allen, a Fibber McGee, or a George Burns pays, but it also requires a ability to put up with crazy schedules and to keeping a household on even keel.
Mary Livingstone has little to do with Jack’s program plans. She sees the script only at first rehearsal time. Between broadcasts and rehearsals, therefore she can devote all of her time to their little adopted daughter, Joanie, whom she has built up from a sickly cross-eyed baby to a healthy, beautiful and lovable child. She draws a $1,000 weekly paycheck for her part on the program and Jack asks no questions. Her household clothing and jewelry expenses are all out of Jack’s wallet. In spite of that Mary is a fragile soul, who frequently faints from nervous exhaustion. This in spite of her laughing on the air.
Gracie Allen is a serious housewife who would leave the air at a moment’s notice and devote all of her time to their two adopted children if George would say the word but he’s smart enough to know that Gracie is the show.
Molly McGee (Mrs. Jim Jordan) is the modest housewife and mother she portrays on the air. Her husband is head man of Encino, California, and they live in an average home in a family neighborhood where neighbors are real folks. She maintains a lively interest in their two children and is her husband’s partner off the air as well as on. Together they shared the hard knocks of vaudeville. Together they are enjoying their good breaks, which they so richly deserve.
Being the merry wife of Fred Allen is something else, again. Tiny Portland Hoffa is a Mrs. Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde, of necessity. From Monday to the following Sunday the life of the Allens (John F. Sullivans on their bank books) follows a methodical arrangement geared to split-second timing of a radio hour.
Monday, they conclude breakfast and walk to their first rehearsal. They have no car. After rehearsal Fred joins his staff in script-cutting and revisions while Portland does her marketing. The script her husband cuts was typed by her after he had written it in pencil without capital letters or punctuation.
Time of their evening meal depends entirely on how long Fred talks over the script with his associates. While the maid burns, the meal may do likewise, awaiting Fred’s late arrival. Portland’s sister Latone is always a Monday night dinner guest. The two women attend a movie while Fred continues work on his script. When the women return home, they bring armloads of newspapers and Fred cans them until around 3 in the morning for news and program ideas.
Tuesdays Fred goes to a gymnasium until 2 in the afternoon, while Portland goes shopping and visits her beauty parlor, in anticipation of the Wednesday broadcast. The Allens dine alone, attend a movie and try to retire early to be fit for the next day’s ordeal.
Wednesday, they get an early start and by noon are deep in rehearsal. Around 4, Portland returns to their modest apartment for a nap. Fred keeps on worrying and working and by 7 is all steamed up for the broadcast at 9. Script has been cut word by word to keep in running time.
There is no dinner on Wednesday. A bowl of soup and dish of ice cream in a Radio City café is their menu.
Comes the 9 o’clock broadcast, Fred’s business of signing autographs, a rush to a café for dinner which Portland orders while Fred reads the evening papers. If there is time left, Fred spins yarns for his associates and one inevitable guest is Harry Von Zell, Fred’s former announcer who comes over from the Eddie Cantor program to “get away from it all.” At midnight there is a repeat broadcast.
Thursdays the Allens sleep until noon, then answer fan mail, in person. Fred types these letters, again without capital letters or punctuation. Portland knits, just now for British war relief. They have dinner at Portland’s sister Latone’s home and after dinner Fred goes to work laying first plans for the following Wednesday’s broadcast.
Friday is Fred’s gymnasium day again. It is also Portland’s “day off” and Fred’s day for business conferences but they meet for dinner, always outside their home, then go to a theater or a boxing bout.
Saturday, Portland’s sister is again their dinner guest at their home. The day winds up with the two sisters at typewriters working on scripts which Fred pencils.
Sunday is no day of rest. It is a day of preparing scripts, with only time out for church. Portland prepares light meals, has the night off till 12, a midnight movie with Fred and home. Then begins the week’s schedule all over again without change.
Dick Stabile and his orchestra are broadcasting from Frank Dalley’s (he owns the famous Meadowbrook) Valley Dale in Columbus.
Tonight’s (KQV at 9) Radio Forum will launch a drive for salary adjustments for postal employees. James M. Mead, D-New York, and Rep. Robert Ramspeck, D-Georgia, will speak.
Lowell Thomas is scheduled for his regular 6:45 broadcast but he’ll also appear a half-hour earlier to present Santa Claus to the KDKA audience.
The Garrison-Montgomery lightweight fight is a 10:30 KQV listing.
Actor Sandy Strouse is Alan Reed’s stand-in for “Shadow” rehearsals on Wednesday while Reed appears on the stage in “Hope for a Harvest.”
The Institute of Radio Engineers meets at Mellon Institute tonight to hear R. T. Griffith, transmission engineer of the Bell Telephone Company, discuss “Wire Transmission of Radio Programs.” An informal dinner at the King Edward will precede the meeting.
Raymond Clapper speaks at Carnegie Music Hall tomorrow night on “What’s Ahead in American Affairs.” He will broadcast his 10:30 news discussion over KQV to the network.
Judith Anderson has been the only woman to star on “Inner Sanctum.”
Radio actresses Adelaide Klein of “Meet Mr. Meek” and Irene Winston of Joan Blaine’s valiant lady cast are rehearsing parts in “Brooklyn, U.S.A.,” a stage play about “Murder, Inc.”
Are the girls going mean?
Franchot Tone will enact “Men in White” on KDKA’s 7:30 “Cavalcade of America.”
Gladys Swarthout and Felix Knight share vocal honors on tonight’s (KQV at 9:30) “For America We Sign” treasury hour.
Lewis W. Douglas, former director of the federal budget, will reply to Herbert Hoover’s “defeatist attitude” over WJAS tomorrow night at 10:15 when he discusses “An Answer to Herbert Hoover – We Can Lick Hitler.”
Joan Blaine has just been assigned the lead in Edna Ferber’s “So Big” to be broadcast, January 12, over WJAS.
KDKA will present recordings of what went on in the recruiting offices and civilian defense headquarters at 6:15 tonight.
At 10:30, the station will present Ross Loeffler, chairman of the Air Raid Precautions Committee and Capt. Ralph Flynn, chief air raid warden of Pennsylvania.
Red Cross extends aid
WASHINGTON – The American Red Cross today extended aid to civilian victims of the Japanese hostilities. Problems of first aid and evacuation of civilians were met by chapters in Manila and Honolulu.
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SECRETARY OF STATE CONDEMNS TREACHERY IN SURPRISE JAP ASSAULT
Calls earlier steps to keep ‘peace’ false
Severing of relations by Tokyo timed to follow opening of attack
WASHINGTON (UP) – Japan’s plans to break off diplomatic negotiations here at the very moment Japanese planes were attacking the United States were shown today in a reconstruction of the final events in America’s efforts to preserve peace.
It was doubtful if Japan’s diplomatic representatives here knew of the exact action which Japan’s armed forces would take, but when they received their instructions from Tokyo, they must have known some decisive step was at hand.
Secretary of State Cordell Hull, releasing the documents which played a part in the final collapse of the U.S.-Japanese negotiations, said, “It is now apparent to the whole world that Japan in its recent professions of a desire for peace has been infamously false and fraudulent.”
Asked appointment
The Japanese asked at 1 p.m. EST yesterday for an appointment with Mr. Hull. That was 25 minutes before the attack on Hawaii. When they arrived at the State Department, it was 2:05 p.m., 40 minutes after the bombing had begun.
The timing was dictated by Tokyo because the decoding and translating of the lengthy document presented to Mr. Hull in rejecting American proposals for a peaceful agreement required several hours and could not have been judged so neatly.
The document, branded by Mr. Hull as “crowded with infamous falsehoods and distortions,” not only rejected the American statement of basic principles but accused the United States of conspiring for “extension of the war,” and charged that the United States, Great Britain and other powers were attempting to strengthen their position in the Far East at the expense of Japan.
The 70-year-old Mr. Hull, his peaceful efforts collapsing in the face of Japan’s refusal to negotiate further, told Ambassador Kichisaburo Nomura in a burst of indignation:
I must say that in all my conversations with you during the last nine months, I never uttered one word of untruth. This is borne out absolutely by the record. In all my 50 years of public service, I have never seen a document that was more crowded with infamous falsehoods and distortion – on a scale so huge that I never imagined until today that any government on this planet was capable of uttering them.
The State Department and White House made public during the day President Roosevelt’s unprecedented peace appeal sent Saturday to Emperor Hirohito, the text of the Hull memorandum to the Japanese on November 26, and the Japanese reply. The president’s message may never have been received by the emperor.
Urged troop withdrawal
In it, Mr. Roosevelt urged the withdrawal of Japanese forces from Indochina and promised in return to attempt to obtain assurances that no other power would invade that French colony, now completely dominated by Japanese forces. The president said that a withdrawal of the Japanese from Indochina “would result in the assurance of peace throughout the whole of the South Pacific area.”
The Hull document of November 26 offered Japan a tentative agreement based on four basic American political principles and five basic economic principles. It went on to propose:
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Conclusion of a multilateral non-aggression pact between the United States, Japan, Britain, China, the Netherlands, the Soviet Union and Thailand.
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An agreement among the same powers for respect and protection for the territorial integrity of French Indochina.
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Withdrawal of all military, naval, air and police forces of Japan from China and Indochina.
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Neither the United States nor Japan to support any regime in China other than the national government located at Chungking.
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Surrender of extraterritorial rights of Japan and the United States in China and efforts to obtain similar action by Britain and other powers.
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Negotiations for a trade agreement between the United States and Japan, based upon reciprocal most-favored-nation treatment and binding raw silk on the American free list.
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Removal of freezing restrictions on both sides.
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Stabilization of the dollar-yen rate with equal allocation of funds by Japan and the United States.
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Japanese withdrawal from the Axis.
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Efforts to influence other governments to adoption of the basic American political and economic principles.
Those principles as outlined in the Hull document as basis to the American position were:
POLITICAL:
- Inviolability of territorial integrity and sovereignty of all nations.
- Non-interference in internal affairs of other countries.
- Equality of commercial opportunity and treatment.
- Reliance upon peaceful processes for settlement of controversies.
ECONOMIC:
- Non-discrimination in international commercial relations.
- Abolition of excessive trade restrictions.
- Non-discriminatory access by all nations to raw material supplies.
- Protection of interests of consuming countries and populations.
- Establishment of financial arrangements to help essential enterprises.
Japan replied that some of the items – those favoring Japan commercially and the one regarding abolition of extraterritoriality – were acceptable, but that Japan could not accept the proposal in its entirety.
The Japanese reply revealed some of the background on which the negotiations abruptly ended. However, since Hull denounced the document as filled with falsehoods, the accuracy of their interpretations was subject to question.
The Japanese note said that the Premier of Japan, Prince Konoye, last August offered to meet President Roosevelt for a discussion of problems, but that the American government insisted the meeting should take place after an agreement had been reached on fundamental questions.
The Japanese also referred to American offers to “introduce” peace moves between China and Japan and of withdrawal of those offers. They mentioned a compromise proposal presented by Japan as recently as November 20, one which made no essential concessions.
Japs to stay indoors
NEW YORK (Dec. 7) – Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, Civilian Defense Director, announced tonight he had ordered all Japanese nationals in New York City to “remain in their homes” until their status is established by the federal government.
H. O. Thompson: Fanatical Japs plan for march through all U.S.
Tokyo war theory is aimed at uniting all yellow peoples against whites; religion enlisted as ally to suicidal attack program
By H. O. Thompson, United Press staff writer
H. O. Thompson of the UP Washington staff returned a few months ago from Japan. In the following dispatch, he tells of the strategy planned by Japan in the event of war against the United States.
WASHINGTON (UP) – Japan’s war against the United States started in accordance with long-standing plans for fanatical attacks designed to knock out strategic American outposts quickly.
And it will be a racial war, aimed at uniting all yellow peoples against the whites – part of Japan’s movement to drive all Occidentals out of the Far East.
Japan has plenty of young zealots in uniform who would consider it an honor to die for their emperor in suicidal attacks on strongly held positions. They have an almost maniacal belief in the ability of what they call the spirit of Japan to meet and conquer overwhelming odds.
Discuss grandiose plans
Some of these men members of the Army and Navy were not reticent in talking of their grandiose plans with me in Tokyo.
Books have been written and published in Japan advocating various methods of prosecuting a war against the United States.
The central thesis was for lightning surprise attacks upon American outposts, even at the risk of complete annihilation of the attacking forces.
Hawaii, Manila and the Panama Canal were mentioned as the first points of contact for such tactics.
And along with armed attacks, Japan will undertake a tremendous effort through propaganda, terrorism and force to unite all Oriental peoples. The beginnings of that movement occurred years ago and have been going on steadily throughout the China war, which began in 1937.
Superiority preached
The usual method of operating it is through the Buddhist organization which preaches superiority of the Orientals. Priests of the militaristic Zen sect followed up the Armies in China with evangelistic methods designed to impose Japanese training on the Chinese and to also create a common front against the white races.
The Chinese have been told that the great powers of America and Britain are interested only in exploiting the resources of their rich country and should be driven from the Orient.
Toshio Shiratori, former Japanese Ambassador to Italy and an ardent Axis supporter, told me that during the war with China and during the period when Japan was buying heavily off oil and scrap iron from the United States, Japan was storing more than half of what she obtained.
He claimed that Japan after four years of warfare was much stronger than when the China hostilities began.
Quick victory is aim
That may have been true last year, but the months of economic blockading of Japan undoubtedly have weakened her to the point of desperation. A quick victory would be her only hope.
Japan was the originator of the undeclared war. Her fleets were steaming toward Russian positions in Manchuria in 1904 and actually attacked Port Arthur before a declaration of war was made.
The plans for Japanese conquest of the United States, considered highly fantastic by all but the Japanese, envision the capture of Hawaii and attacks from there upon our West Coast. Occupation of California, Oregon and Washington would come in another year, according to some plans which actually have appeared in print in Japan. Then those plans envisaged another digging-in process and eventual attacks upon Chicago, New York and the Eastern Seaboard.
U.S. censors military data
Order affects information valuable to enemy
WASHINGTON (UP) – The government today censored publication of military information in this country and all cable and radio messages originating in the United States and her outlying possessions.
The Army, Navy, Federal Communications Commission, Treasury and Post Office Departments suppressed information that might be of value to the enemy.
The Navy and FCC said the control over cable and radio communications is censorship. The Army called the limitation on publication of military information “restriction,” rather than “censorship.”
Espionage Act enforced
Secret Service agents were ordered to take press credentials from Japanese newspaper correspondents immediately.
The War Department enforced the 1917 Espionage Act which prohibits publication of secret military information.
Brig. Gen. Alexander Surles, head of Army Public Relations, further warned that “irresponsible” news reporting would not be tolerated.
FCC Chairman James Lawrence Fly and the Defense Communications Board prohibited amateur radio stations operating except under special government license.
Most pilots grounded
The Civil Aeronautics Authority grounded all except a few private airplane pilots and urged police to guard airports, aircraft and field facilities. CAA Administrator D. H. Connolly issued an order temporarily suspending all private pilots’ certificates except those on scheduled airlines, those engaged in ferrying planes, pilots at training schools, aircraft and defense plants.
The Treasury issued orders to customs collectors barring Japanese nationals from leaving the United States and canceled all outstanding licenses permitting withdrawals from the $130 million of “frozen” Japanese assets in the United States.
E. A. Mowrer: Hand of Hitler seen in Jap’s attack
By Edgar Ansel Mowrer
WASHINGTON – Japan’s all-out assault upon all its Pacific adversaries, culminating in the tremendous attack upon Pearl Harbor shows all the evil genius of Adolf Hitler and gives the Japanese the same sort of temporary advantage that Hitler achieved by his surprise attacks against Poland, Holland, Belgium and Soviet Russia.
Not that the Japanese need any coaching in this sort of treachery. It was precisely by these methods that Japan, in the Russo-Japanese war, obtained an initial advantage over the Russian fleet that the latter was never able to make good. All those who hazarded a guess at what Japanese strategy would be, have been flabbergasted by the fact that the Japanese struck practically everywhere at once and the hardest at their chief adversary.
British and American naval people with whom I spoke during my recent trip to the Far East imagined that the Japanese would probably fight a decisive war, keeping their shifts at home and concentrating on air attacks and commerce raiding.
One admiral told me that the Japanese were outfitting several passenger ships as aircraft carriers and as commerce raiders. The efficacy of both types of ships has been demonstrated, not for defensive but for offensive warfare.
British Hong Kong was obviously being equipped for offensive warfare against Japan when I was there. The Japanese have taken the offensive against it. American Guam, virtually undefended, thanks to congressional unwillingness to “provoke” Japan, was marked down for attack. At Wake and Midway Islands, the wok of fortifying was in progress and thousands of Americans were working. Against all these places and chiefly against Pearl Harbor itself, the Japanese have sprung with their full power and the intensity of a Jack Dempsey determined to knock out his adversary in the first round.
Fortunately for this country, we did not desert China and so go into the war with many valuable allies.
The American administration probably will receive from Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek an offer of all possible cooperation. It must be remembered that although the Japanese hold Canton and some of the southern Chinese ports, their occupation south of the Yangtze is so sketchy that several airports are in the hands of the Chinese. American fliers from Manila might well find it advantageous to call and refuel at these fields on their way to and from Japan.
The Chinese Army is the only effective pool of abundant manpower on our side in the entire area. This Army lacks heavy equipment and air protection; it has shown a marvelous capacity for defense but has lacked striking power. The American military mission under Gen. John Magruder will now hardly limit its activity to “advising” the Chinese. With Gen. Magruder are numerous American specialists whose tasks from now on will be to see that the Chinese armies are made ready quickly for offensive warfare. The question of getting supplies to China is serious but not insoluble.
The first group of American volunteer aviators, who are reserve officers from the American Army and Navy, actually in service of the Chinese government will unquestionably go into action as soon as is feasible. Contrary to what had been published, they had not been in service over the Burma Road before the Japanese attack on the United States.
No direct rescue of the Americans in Shanghai and other parts of occupied China is longer feasible but with so many Japanese in this country, our government, it is felt, may be able to trade for their deliverance.
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U.S.-Jap fleets battle after Hawaii attack
Heavy toll admitted in raids on Honolulu and bases in islands
By Francis McCarthy, United Press staff writer
HONOLULU, Hawaii (UP) – U.S. and Japanese fleets were believed fighting in the mid-Pacific today after a Japanese aerial bombing attack on the Hawaiian Islands opened war between the two great Pacific powers.
The American fleet steamed out of the Pearl Harbor Naval Base shortly after Japanese planes, attacking without a declaration of war or any warning whatever, had bombed the great Pearl Harbor base, the city of Honolulu, and scattered Army and Navy bases on Oahu Island.
Naval gun flashes were seen from the coast, and the roar of the guns was heard soon after the fleet had steamed out to seek the Japanese aircraft carriers from which, it was believed, the planes had taken off and their escorting warships.
In Washington, the White House admitted 1,500 dead and 1,500 wounded, a battleship and destroyer sunk and many planes destroyed in Hawaii.
Many Japanese planes were reported shot down but not before they had wrought severe damage on objectives centered on Oahu Island.
It was estimated that there were between 50 and 150 planes in the attacking fleet, including four-motored bombers, dive bombers and torpedo carriers.
Blast at U.S. flier
They arrived over the islands at 7:55 a.m. (1:25 p.m. EST) yesterday, and machine-gunned an American civilian pilot who was taking a pre-breakfast flight as they made for their objectives.
Pearl Harbor was the principal target. Anti-aircraft guns there and at other military points went into action soon after the first bombs dropped. Residents of Honolulu, awakened by the roar of explosions, thought the Army and Navy were practicing until they saw smoke rising from the fires at Pearl Harbor and Hickam Field. Other fires broke out in nearby Ford Island.
Parachutists, apparently suicide detachments intended to commit acts of sabotage, were reported landed near harbor points, five miles from the center of Honolulu.
Army, Navy and Air Force couriers and radio broadcasts summoned all members of the fighting forces and all policemen and firemen to their posts.
Gov. Joseph B. Poindexter proclaimed a state of emergency and, in his first decree, ordered the public to remain calm and stay off the streets.
One bomb struck within 25 feet of the Honolulu Advertiser Building. Bombs were reported at various parts of the city. One bomb dropped on the world-famous Waikiki Beach, wounding one man seriously. Another struck near the Governor’s home.
Jap plane down in flames
One Japanese plane crashed in flames near the courthouse at Wahiawa, a few miles from the Army’s Schofield Barracks.
It was indicated that Army observers first identified the planes as Japanese by the Rising Sun insignia on the tips of their wings.
Reports soon arrived here of damage at Wheeler Field, Honolulu Municipal Airport and the new Air Force repair base at Kaneohe, as well as at Pearl Harbor and Hickam Field.
Residents watch attacks
As suddenly and as startlingly as the raid had come, it failed to terrorize civilians. Residents ran outdoors, many in night attire, and were soon grouped on hilltops watching the attacking planes and the bursts of bombs and of anti-aircraft shells.
Observers saw few planes over the city, but those near Pearl Harbor, 20 miles away, reported that about 50 Japanese planes were attacking in that vicinity. These observers could see ships off the coast, but could not identify them.
By noon, despite orders to civilians to keep out of the streets, men, women and children, many in pajamas, were on the sidewalks all over the city.
Policemen and special officers manned all road intersections.
Hidden behind hills
It was believed that the attacking planes came from plane carriers off Barber’s Point, to the northeast of Pearl Harbor.
The planes skimmed over the hills and were upon the naval base before they were detected. At least one plane was seen to launch a torpedo at warships in the harbor.
Air depot on alert
SACRAMENTO, California – The Army Air Force last night placed the Sacramento Air Depot at McClellan Field on a 24-hour wartime basis.
Men ordered back
FORT LEWIS, Washington – The IX Army Corps ordered all officers and men back to Fort Lewis immediately last night.
Harbor is closed
SAN PEDRO, California – All entrances to the San Pedro-Long Beach harbor area have been closed, the Coast Guard announced late yesterday. Coast Guard officers said that the entrances would remain closed pending further word from Washington.
Bomber base put on alert by Navy
SAN RAFAEL, California (UP) – Hamilton Field, big bomber and pursuit plane base, was placed on an “alert” today. Guards were doubled. All leaves were canceled. Visitors were barred.
Troops moved on West Coast
Harbors, arsenals and shipyards guarded
SAN FRANCISCO, California (UP) – All military and civilian defense organizations on the West Coast were organized today on a wartime basis.
The possibility that the West Coast, with its vital harbors, arsenals, shipbuilding yards and airplane manufacturing centers, might be the next target of the Japanese bombers was reflected in the speed with which defense plans were put into operations.
Troops shifted
Anti-aircraft units, here from Camp Haan in what had been planned as practice maneuvers, were shipped from various points in the San Francisco Bay Area to Vallejo and Benicia to guard the Mare Island Navy Yard and the Benicia Arsenal.
Navy censors moved into the offices of all radio and cable communications companies, checking all messages before transmissions to Honolulu or the Orient. Similar censorship was in effect at the other end of the circuits.
Rear Adm. J. W. Greenslade, commandant of the 12th Naval District, announced that all war plans of the district had been put into effect.
Army plans in effect
Lt. Gen. John L. DeWitt, commander of the Fourth Army (which includes Alaska), announced that the Army war plan for the area was also in operation.
Mayor Angelo J. Rossi of San Francisco proclaimed a state of emergency for the San Francisco area and authorized the Civilian Defense Council to “take all proper steps to protect the lives and property of San Francisco citizens.”
The war crisis served to bring an abrupt halt to plans for a nationwide strike of welders. The United Welders, Cutters and Helpers canceled plans for a strike, announcing that it was the union’s answer “to the trouble in the Pacific.”
Rear Adm. Stirling: Japs can’t win
Pacific expert predicts naval revenge
By Rear Adm. Yates Stirling Jr., USN (ret.)
The former U.S. naval commander at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, who is familiar with the strategy in the Pacific, reconstructs the pattern of events involved in Japan’s attack.
The war in the Pacific has begun and first reports of the fighting show undeniable reverses for the United States in a conflict for which Japan has been preparing for a considerable period in which it carefully planned its strategy.
Japanese bombers attacked Hawaii yesterday in a surprise attack which plunged the United States into a Pacific war of unguessable magnitude. Reports of attacks on other bastions of the United States, Britain and the Netherlands followed news of the attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor.
Japan has risked everything on an “all-out” war. To this observer, Japan’s action appears suicidal.
Japs cannot win
It may be a long, hard war, but the Japanese cannot win. The United States may suffer reverses at first, but the Navy will obtain a terrible revenge for the men and ships it loses. Our Pacific positions have been carefully planned and ably manned, and details for cooperation with Britain, the Netherlands East Indies, Australia and China have been agreed upon.
The Japanese probably followed what has long been understood to be their great master plan – simultaneous attacks on British, Dutch, American and probably Russian bases in the Pacific. They must clear their flanks if they are to be successful. That means an effort to occupy Vladivostok, Russia’s Siberian base which presumably might be placed at American disposal, Soviet Kamchatka to the North and possibly the American base on the Aleutian Islands off Alaska.
Alaska may be hit
An effort to attack the Alaskan mainland is possible. The Japanese commanders probably do not envisage occupation of our islands, but hope to do all the damage they can to hamper our war effort by crippling as many of our ships as possible and damaging shore establishments at the outset.
Cities on the west coast of the United States may be subjected to a series of hit-and-run raids by planes from aircraft carriers, but they are unlikely to achieve much. It is certain that air patrols have already been established along the Pacific Coast to meet any Japanese effort.
Nazis may help
The enemy may be receiving German advice and assistance. We must be prepared for news that German planes, submarines and surface ships are in action against us in the Pacific in as great numbers as can be spared from Adolf Hitler’s other war efforts.
The attack on Hawaii probably came first because of the presence there of the United States fleet. If the Pearl Harbor base could be put out of commission, it would hamper the fleet and delay its departure for avenging attacks on the Orient.
News of major engagements can be expected momentarily. The United States Navy will not be satisfied until the entire Japanese raiding force has been sunk.
Frances Farmer turns down three plays, Hollywood no longer ‘pain in the neck’
Actress, who once flayed filmland, is now loudly singing its praises
HOLLYWOOD, California – Frances Farmer, who once said in no uncertain words that Hollywood was a pain in the neck to her, has changed her mind.
She has turned down three plays that she could have done on Broadway his winter to say in the movie town.
She has bought a home, furthermore, in Santa Monica, and her mother, Lillian Farmer, has arrived from Seattle to live with her.
“Can’t a girl change her mind?” asked Miss Farmer who has been given radiant blond curls by 20th Century-Fox for her role of an 18th-century beauty in “Son of Fury,” Darryl F. Zanuck’s costly epic.
I was young and inexperienced when I condemned Hollywood so blithely. I know better now. Hollywood is a paradise for young actors and actresses. There are heartaches here, but there are opportunities, too, that you can’t find any place.
No business takes the trouble and goes to the expense of helping newcomers as do the studios. The stage never surrendered the beginner with all the experts that Hollywood calls forth when a studio thinks some unknown shows promise.
The studios make poor pictures, it’s true, but they’re few in number compared to the many fine ones that they create. It’s surprising the gamble that many producers take in trying to make really great films.
I hope never to go back to Broadway, for good. I’d like to do another play there some time and above all, I want to get with a summer stock company in New England, perhaps next summer. But Hollywood’s my home and I’m not going to stray away from here for very long.
Miss Farmer, whose role in “Golden Boy” established her on the New York stage, was sought by the Theater Guild to play a similar character, but she turned the offer down to play opposite Tyrone Power in “Son of Fury.”
“It’s the best movie role I’ve ever had,” she said, “and I want to establish myself in Hollywood before I go back to New York for another play.”
Millett: Judge tough on husbands
Angered wife offered as office aide
By Ruth Millett
Every man who has both a wife and a secretary should be interested in the divorce decision recently handed down by a Chicago judge. Interested – and alarmed.
For when the husband told the judge he couldn’t afford to pay his estranged wife $15 a week temporary alimony, the judge told him to fire his $30-a-week secretary and give the job to his wife, at $15 a week.
Think how tough it is going to be on husbands if judges over the country decide that this Chicago judge had a bright idea – and start handing down similar decisions.
If he advertised for the world’s worst secretary, a man probably couldn’t find a much poorer one than he would be taking on an estranged wife, forced to work out her alimony.
In the first place the average wife – like the one in the Chicago case – hasn’t had any secretarial experience. And no matter how expertly a woman handles the job of homemaking the experience doesn’t teach her anything about the business world.
And as bad as that handicap is, the fact is that a man needs to have his secretary think – or pretend to think – that he is a great guy. No estranged wife, who has undoubtedly already told her husband just what kind of a heel she thinks he is, would be able to qualify along that line.
Then, too, a secretary is naturally a meek creature, saying “Yes, Sir” to all the boss’ ideas, whether she thinks much of them or not – and being willing to take the blame for mistakes she knows are his. A wife, who for years has answered back, just couldn’t fall into that “Yes, Sir” pattern.
And a woman who has been used to the I-can-put-it-off-if-I-want-to atmosphere of the home might treat letters dictated at 5 o’clock in a too casual manner. A wife can always leave the dishes – but a good secretary always gets the letters out before locking her desk for the night.
So, think about it a while, men, before you tell a judge you can’t afford to pay your wife alimony. Maybe you’d rather hand it over willingly than have your wife work it out.
War talk, not baseball, fills Chicago as major leaguers gather for meetings
Frisch, Benswanger unable to foresee effect on sport
By Lester Biederman, Press baseball writer
CHICAGO, Illinois – Baseball major league magnates, gathered here for the annual midwinter pow-wow which opens tomorrow, are talking war – not baseball.
The war with Japan shoved baseball off the stage. Early arrivals were talking only of the more serious situation, certainly very little about making trades.
The two gentlemen Pittsburgh baseball fans are most interested in – Frankie Frisch and Bill Benswanger – were much too shocked by the latest war developments to devote any enthusiasm to baseball.
Benswanger said:
Frankly, we don’t know what to do. Up to this point, our chief worry was the army draft. Now it’s war. I’m afraid this meeting may be a washout as far as trades are concerned. Everybody’s going to be afraid to deal. That’s only natural, too. Nobody wants to talk baseball with this war situation as serious as it is. We don’t even know if we’ll open the season.
Trade with Phils fades
Both Frisch and Benswanger came here from the minor league meetings in Jacksonville, Florida, looking for action but not very hopeful, though they’re ready. Of course, they picked up Pitcher Henry Gornicki unexpectedly from the Cards, purely after a hasty meeting called by Card officials. Other trades may develop in this manner.
Frisch admitted he talked to the Phils concerning Pitcher Ike Pearson but the season was stalemated.
“The Phils placed a higher valuation on Pearson than they did on Lee Handley,” Frisch declared, “and I placed a higher valuation on Handley than the Phils did on Parson. So there you are.”
Handley has close call
Incidentally, word from Handley is that his recent auto accident outside of Peoria was a miracle in that he wasn’t more badly hurt. He had borrowed a friend’s convertible coupe and was driving home at night when he struck a culvert. The car turned over twice and Handley was thrown through the canvas top of the car. He landed about 50 feet away and laid there fully two hours unconscious, when a passing truck driver picked him up and took him to a hospital.
The doctors had to sew up a wound on his forehead and he suffered body bruises. The medicos were amazed that no bones were broken. Had Handley been driving his own sedan, probably he would have fractured his skull when he hit the top of the car.
Frisch said as soon as word reached Jacksonville of Handley’s auto mishap, other managers immediately took his name off the trading list. The Bucs appear anxious to deal him off and may have something to announce before the week is up.
Vaughan set
Arky Vaughan’s status as a Pirate appears more secure than ever, with Frankie Gustine and Bill Cox hovering near the Army via draft and the latest Japanese development. Gustine said here today his local draft board sent him to a hospital for an examination and the report there was the same as from the local board’s physician, “a hernia.” He expects to be deferred. Word from Cox is that he, too, expects deferment because of dependents.
In the meantime, Frisch says he must wait for the final status on Gustine and Cox, but probably Arky will be back in a Pittsburgh uniform for the 11th year next April.
Another potential draftee is Rookie Catcher Vin Smith. He’s single and wasn’t expecting to be called until next October, but with the present crisis is apt to go before very long.
As one baseball man remarked today, “The married men are the big shots in baseball now, and even they aren’t too secure.”
Jacobs’ boxing shows to benefit service
By Jack Cuddy, United Press writer
NEW YORK (UP) – Mike Jacobs placed his boxing promotions on a wartime basis today and announced that he would stage a series of bouts for the benefits of service relief organizations.
His announcement coincided with the arrival of Buddy Baer from California to begin training for his second attempt to wrest the heavyweight crown from Joe Louis at Madison Square Garden, January 9. This bout had already been arranged as a benefit for the Navy Relief Fund, which will get all profits and Louis’ purse. Jacobs revealed that Welterweight Champion Freddie Cochrane would participate in two bouts to benefit the Navy Relief, which he said, “needs money badly now.” Cochrane, who is in the Navy, meets Young Kid McCoy of Detroit in a non-title 10-rounder at the Garden, January 2, and he will defend against the outstanding challenger on February 20.
Jacobs will negotiate for furloughs for other prominent fighters – men like Marty Servo, Fred Apostoli and Al Nettlow.
Whether or not Joe Louis goes into the Army, Jacobs plans for him to make at least four title defenses through 1942 if he continues to hold the crown. Service reliefs will benefit from all.
Jacobs said he would gladly donate percentages of other bouts, already arranged, to service organizations, but it is uncertain if they would accept because the Navy Relief, for example, will not lend its name to a show in which promoters take a profit.
Such bouts, definitely or tentatively arranged, are:
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Friday: Young Kid McCoy vs. Fritzie Zivic, welterweights, 10 rounds.
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December 19: Lew Jenkins vs. Sammy Angott, 15 rounds to decide disputed lightweight championship.
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Late January: Melio Bettina vs. Lem Franklin, heavyweight contenders, 15 rounds.
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Early February: Lou Nova vs. Gus Lesnevich, heavyweight bout, 15 rounds.
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February 13: Tony Zale vs. Billy Conn, light-heavyweight, non-title, 12 rounds.
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Late February: Max Baer vs. Bob Pastor, heavyweights, 10 rounds.
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Early March: Angott-Jenkins winner in lightweight title bout.
Stock market drops on war declaration
Prices break 1 to 3 points sugar issues hit new highs
Opinions of brokers on stock market
HORNBLOWER & WEEKS: Developments over the weekend probably came as less of a surprise to the Army and Navy than to the business world, but the markets have been adjusting themselves to the rapidly changing trend of affairs and must have gone far toward taking into account even our participation in hostilities.
EF HUTTON & CO.: We would look for a lower market at first as a result of the Japanese declaration of war but would look for no serious decline in the long run. If the market goes appreciably lower today, there may be buying opportunities.
SHEARSON, HAMMILL & CO.: We expect an initial moderate decline in the market but look for a resumption of last week’s rally in the near future after the shock of the Japanese declaration of war has been absorbed.
J.S. BACHE & CO.: Some initial nervousness will result from the Japanese declaration of war. We would do no selling of stocks but would be ready to make selected purchases if the initial reaction is toward lower levels.
NEW YORK (UP) – The stock market turned weak in the early afternoon trading today following President Roosevelt’s message asking for declaration of war against Japan.
Earlier in the day the list has rallied from initial declines of 1 to more than 3 points.
The afternoon reaction carried:
- American Can down to 70½, off 5⅜;
- Westinghouse Electric 74, ex-dividend, off 3;
- Bethlehem 57, off 2;
- Chrysler 51, off 2;
- U.S. Rubber 22¾, off 3⅛;
- Goodyear 15⅜, off 2;
- A new low – American Telephone 143, off 3;
- American Tobacco B 48½, off 2⅛;
- American Airlines 52½, of 3⅜;
- Standard Oil (New Jersey) 44½, off 2⅛;
- Union Carbide 71½, off 2½.
Sugar shares were strong spots with gains ranging to more than 2 points and several at new highs for the year on outlook for higher sugar prices on war demand.
Patino Mines made a new high at 11⅛, up 1⅝. A few other issues were steady to firm, but the main list registered losses.
Commodities were strong in most instances on outlook for war markets.
Trading in Jap bonds suspended
NEW YORK (UP) – The New York Stock Exchange today suspended all dealings in Japanese bonds pending an “investigation of their status.”
The action was taken in the initiative of exchange officials themselves, but immediate contact was made with Washington in an effort to determine the status of Japanese obligations.
All categories of Japanese bonds, government, industrial, utility, etc., are listed on the Stock Exchange.
Banks halt quotations on Far Eastern rates
NEW YORK (UP) – New York City banks today halted quotations on Hong Kong and Shanghai dollars while other foreign currencies held steady in terms of the U.S. dollar.
The move in suspending quotations on the two Far Eastern rates was said to have been taken because no business could be done with the two cities.
Trading in Japanese, as well as other Axis and Axis-occupied countries, monetary units ceased some time ago when the Treasury Department “froze” all assets of those nations in this country.
The Cuban peso rose 1/16 cent to 99 15/16 cents and the Argentine “free” peso was up 10 points at 23/80 cents, but all other leading rates held steady. The “free” pound sterling was quoted at $4.04 and the Canadian dollar at 88½ cents, unchanged.
U.S. enters World War II with record public debt
WASHINGTON (UP) – The United States enters World War II with a record public debt of $55,212,550,304.21, after having spent $6,737,166,940.71 for defense in the last five months and five days. The nation also possesses a world-record gold reserve of $22,770,829,868.59.
The Treasury’s daily statement for the current fiscal year through December 5:
| This fiscal year | Last fiscal year | |
|---|---|---|
| Expenses | $9,466,373,665.69 | $4,199,214,884.14 |
| Defense spending | $6,737,166,940.71 | $1,391,706,909.47 |
| Receipts | $3,144,052,598.76 | $2,320,137,633.27 |
| Net deficit | $6,267,513,416.93 | $1,860,440,400.87 |
| Cash balance | $2,158,461,976.30 | $1,727,206,385.07 |
| Working balance | $1,401,068,988.90 | $988,210,639.64 |
| Public debt | $55,212,550,304.21 | $44,282,612,154.67 |
| Gold reserve | $22,770,829,868.59 | $21,831,306,198.18 |
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The Guiding Light (NBCR), 3:30 p.m. EST:
John’s Other Wife (NBCB), 3:30 p.m. EST:
SCOTUS SETS ASIDE CONVICTION OF HARRY BRIDGES ON CHARGES OF CONTEMPT SAN SALVADOR DECLARES WAR ON JAPAN
GERMAN RADIO: JAPANESE AIR RAIDERS BLEW UP NUMBER OF OIL TANKS AT PHILIPPINES NAVAL HQ, MANILA POPULATION FLEEING IN PANIC
ANKARA RADIO TAKES ON PRO-AMERICAN TONE IN LATEST BROADCASTS
ONE LARGE SHIP, 2 DESTROYERS OFF GUAM, PENDING LANDING JAP RADIO, FORMOSA: JAPANESE WARSHIPS SURROUND GUAM, BIG BUILDINGS ON ISLAND ABLAZE
Vic and Sade (NBCR), 3:45 p.m. EST:
Just Plain Bill (NBCB), 3:45 p.m. EST:
Backstage Wife (NBCR), 4 p.m. EST:
Club Matinee (NBCB), 4 p.m. EST:
JOINT RESOLUTION
Declaring that a state of war exists between the Imperial Government of Japan and the Government and the people of the United States and making provisions to prosecute the same.
Whereas the Imperial Government of Japan has committed unprovoked acts of war against the Government and the people of the United States of America:
Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the state of war between the United States and the Imperial Government of Japan which has thus been thrust upon the United States is hereby formally declared; and the President is hereby authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and military forces of the United States and the resources of the Government to carry on war against the Imperial Government of Japan; and, to bring the conflict to a successful termination, all the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States.
SAM RAYBURN
Speaker of the House of RepresentativesHENRY A. WALLACE
Vice President of the United States and the President of the SenateApproved —
December 8, 1941, 4:10 p.m. EST
FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT
PRES. ROOSEVELT SIGNS DECLARATION OF WAR AGAINST JAPAN
Stella Dallas (NBCR), 4:15 p.m. EST:
Lorenzo Jones (NBCR), 4:30 p.m. EST:
Statement to the America First Committee by Charles Lindbergh
December 8, 1941, 4:40 p.m. EST
We have been stepping closer to war for many months. Now it has come and we must meet it as united Americans, regardless of our attitude in the past toward the policy our government has follows. Whether or not this policy has been wise, our country has been attacked by force and our own military position has already been neglected too long. We must now turn every effort to building the greatest and most efficient Army, Navy, and Air Force in the world. When American soldiers go to war, it must be with the best equipment that modern skill can design and that modern industry can build.
Young Widder Brown (NBCR), 4:45 p.m. EST:
Adventure Story (NBCB), 5 p.m. EST:
When A Girl Marries (NBCR), 5 p.m. EST:
Portia Faces Life (NBCR), 5:15 p.m. EST:
Secret City (NBCB), 5:15 p.m. EST:
We The Abbotts (NBCR), 5:30 p.m. EST:
Flying Patrol (NBCB), 5:30 p.m. EST:
UNCONFIRMED REPORTS STATE AT LEAST 300 CASUALTIES IN PHILIPPINE ATTACKS. USS LANGLEY ALSO ATTACKED. 24 JAP RAIDERS STRUCK DAVAO DURING RAID
News (NBCR), 5:45 p.m. EST:
The Tom Mix Ralston Straightshooters (NBCB), 5:45 p.m. EST:
FLEET OF JAP WARPLANES ATTACK MANILA IN MOONLIGHT, AFTER CONTINUOUS BOMBING OF U.S. CAMPS, BASES & PORTS UNCONFIRMED REPORTS STATE 10,000 OF 25,000 JAPANESE IN DAVAO REGION ARMED, READY FOR ACTION
News (NBCB), 6 p.m. EST:
Clarence Furman and His Orchestra (NBCR), 6 p.m. EST:
ARGENTINA TO CONTINUE REGARDING U.S. AS NON-BELLIGERENT
WHITE HOUSE: 1500 WOUNDED, 1500 DEAD IN HAWAII; LEASE-LEND PROGRAM TO BE CONTINUED IN SPITE OF WAR
JAPS DROP MUSTARD GAS ON SINGAPORE U.S. OIL INDUSTRY NOW ON WAR FOOTING
Music Every American Knows (NBCR), 6:30 p.m. EST:
Lum and Abner (NBCB), 6:30 p.m. EST:
Lowell Thomas (NBCB), 7 p.m. EST:
Words and Music (NBCR), 7 p.m. EST:
The Old Gold Program (NBCB), 7:15 p.m. EST:
News of the World (NBCR), 7:15 p.m. EST:
REP. DINGLE CHARGES MILITARY UNPREPAREDNESS FOR ‘NAVAL DEBACLE’ GUAM ATTACKED AGAIN BY AIRCRAFT AT 2200 LOCAL TIME
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC DECLARES WAR ON JAPAN NYC NAVY RECRUITING OFFICE CLOSES DUE TO EXCESS DEMANDS TO ENLIST
Phillip Murray (NBCB), 7:30 p.m. EST:
The Cavalcade of America (NBCR), 7:30 p.m. EST:
PRES. ROOSEVELT TO ADDRESS THE NATION TOMORROW NIGHT AT 10 P.M.
WHITE HOUSE: ‘ONE OLD BATTLESHIP DESTROYED AND OTHER SHIPS DAMAGED’ AT PEARL HARBOR. ‘WE MAY TEMPORARILY HAVE LOST OUR NAVAL SUPERIORITY.’ SEATTLE RADIO STATIONS TO GO OFF AIR AS A JAPANESE AIRCRAFT CARRIER IS SUSPECTED TO BE IN THE AREA
The Evening Star (December 8, 1941)
Attack by Japan ends U.S. friendship of 88 years
By Glenn Barr, Associated Press staff writer
The friendship of the United States and Japan, which ended yesterday in the flaming crash of bombs at Pearl Harbor, began just before our civil war, flourished for half a century, suffered a generation of strains and vicissitudes before the final breakup began 10 years ago.
The fateful change of course Japan made in 1931 when she embarked frankly on a program of conquest led inevitably, it seems in retrospect, to the naval conflict now opened, with mastery of the Pacific, half a world at stake.
The first American-Japanese contacts came when the United States, newly spread across the continent, arrived at the shores of the Pacific and reached across to rouse Japan on the Eastern shores from two and a half centuries of seclusion.
Turned back into seclusion
The break came after Japan had delivered herself up to a leadership that turned her back into an intellectual, moral and spiritual seclusion as darkly medieval, as disdainful of modern, Western standards as that from which Cmdre. Matthew C. Perry aroused her.
Eighty-eight years ago, America introduced Japan to the family of nations. In the decades that followed, Americans encouraged, fostered, took an almost paternal pride in Japan’s spectacular rise to world power. In the main, two or three generations of Japanese responded with gratitude, admiration and efforts to emulate the American way of life.
But in Japan’s very advance were elements of discord. She became a great power and embarked on a vast imperial program which made even the wide Pacific Ocean too small to contain both Japanese ambitions and America’s conception of her own safety.
Plunged into Manchuria
Small frictions which arose some 36 years ago developed slowly until 1931 when Japan plunged into Manchuria and embarked on a program of expansion and conquest. Seen in retrospect, it seems clear now that that was the turning point in Japanese-American relations, that clash in faraway Mukden the night of September 18, 1931 – even the turning point of modern history. From there, Japan went on to the first successful defiance of the existing world order, showing the way to Mussolini and Hitler.
For 10 years, there have been only coldly polite relations between Washington and Tokyo. Formal diplomatic ties barely concealed growing hostility. The pace of the movement toward collision has steadily increased. In the past year, it has become an avalanche.
Japanese-American troubles have become one phase in civilization’s greatest crisis. Today, the two nations find themselves in opposing camps in the alignment of the two world orders which no less an authority than Adolf Hitler says cannot exist side by side.
Aligned with new order
Japan has aligned herself with Germany and Italy and proclaimed a new order for Europe, Africa and Asia. The United States has decided that her interests lie with the nations fighting to prevent establishment of that order, to which Japan’s contributions have been the conquest of Manchuria, the overrunning of Eastern China, the subjection of French Indochina, the declaration of her purpose to dominate all “Greater East Asia.”
So, the United States has taken her place alongside Britain, China, Russia, the Netherlands and the other governments, mostly in exile, which are fighting the Axis. Of these, China has been fighting Japan more than four years and Britain, Russia and the Netherlands all have built up formidable Far Eastern forces for the sole purpose of meeting the Japanese threat. To all of these, the United States has been giving aid for months or years, in steadily increasing measure.
Here are the issues
What are the issues over which this country and the great empire of the Orient have come to a parting of the ways? The United States wants Japan to abandon her expansion program, which, at least in its southward extension toward the East Indies, endangers the safety of the Philippines and threatens the sources of materials vital to the defense and well-being of the United States and the routes by which they reach America. She wants Japan to withdraw her troops from Indochina and China, where American interests and citizens have suffered hurt for nearly a decade at Japanese hands. She wants Japan to give pledges and sureties against further aggression. She wants the markets of the East kept open.
From Japan’s point of view, the United States obstructs the fulfilment of what many Japanese consider their country’s rightful destiny, to be the dominant power of all the East, to control far-flung sources of the materials needed for her industries and dominate the hundreds of millions of Orientals who make up perhaps the greatest potential markets in the world. Control in East Asia, the Japanese say, is a matter of life and death to them, while to Americans, it can be only a matter of national prestige or minor economic interest.
Demanded end to strangulation
More specifically in the latter phases of this crisis, the Japanese have demanded an end to the economic strangulations and military encirclement which they say the United States and her associates have invoked against Japan, and non-interference with the settlement she hopes to impose on China.
Washington has held that the economic and military measures taken to curb Japan cannot be lifted until Japan mends her ways and has said there can be no compromise which would leave China at Japan’s mercy. And in the existing crisis, with the United States pledged to the defeat of the Hitler world order, Americans have held there could be no real accord with Japan as long as she remained a member of the Axis.
Thus, events moved to a point where a break could be avoided only if one party utterly changed its fundamental policies. Two opposed conceptions of what should constitute the basis of international relations, of the world order, were at stake.
Racial pride and prestige
Racial pride and national prestige are elements not to be ignored. They are as important as the cold facts of economy or strategy involved, perhaps more so. The Japanese are a proud people, jealous of their dignity, quick to resent racial slurs, holding to an ancient code which rated death in battle or by suicide preferable to dishonor.
Men experienced in Far Eastern matters say that a realization that they cannot win a war with the United States is not enough to keep the Japanese from going to war. It will not stop them to point out that this course would be national suicide. They, or at least the stiff-necked soldiers who seem to dominate their national courses, are quite capable of facing that.
The Japanese belief that their national prestige and pride of race have received affronts from America is indisputably a factor in this crisis. They resent bitterly our exclusion laws, which they say classes them with other races they consider their inferiors. Many Japanese contend that the whole course of history since World War I might have been different had the white nations admitted them as full equals.
Here is the road traveled
Here is the road Japan and America have traveled to their present collision:
In 1853, Japan, by her own choice, had been shut off from the world by two and a half centuries. Her seclusion was ended then by a flotilla of warships from the young and growing United States, which, having spanned the continent, was looking out from her new-won Pacific Coast for new markets in the Orient. U.S. Navy Cmdre. Matthew Perry reopened Japan to the world.
Japan’s first treaty with a modern Western power was concluded with U.S. Consul Townsend Harris in 1858. For half a century thereafter, American advisers, teachers and missionaries aided Japan’s heroic effort to come abreast of the Western world.
Japan subscribed in 1899 to the doctrine of the Open Door in China, enunciated by U.S. Secretary of State John Hay. A year later, Japanese and U.S. troops (along with British, German, Russian and others) fought side by side in the rescue of the legations of Peking, besieged by the Chinese Boxers. The great majority of Americans gave their sympathy to Japan when, in 1904, she challenged the Russian colossus. Japanese war loans were floated in the United States and in 1905, the intervention of President Theodore Roosevelt brought about an advantageous peace for Japan at Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Migration brings friction
But the migration of tens of thousands of Japanese to America’s Pacific coast brought on a period of friction, marked by anti-Japanese agitation and legislation in the Western states. In 1911, a gentlemen’s agreement, whereby Japan undertook to halt the tide of migration, provided a temporary remedy.
World War I brought new frictions, although at the end, the United States and Japan were associated together against the Central Powers. But Europe’s preoccupations encouraged Japanese efforts to tighten her control on China.
Her famous Twenty-One Demands of May 1915 brought sharp condemnation from Washington. In 1918, Japan and the United States (with Britain and France) sent expeditions into Siberia, but Japan went further than her allies approved and trouble arose.
One result of World War I was to embark the United States on a vast warship-building program. Japan sought to match it. A race followed which endangered the peace of the Pacific. The Harding administration summoned the naval powers to Washington and a truce was affected in 1922 in the treaties of Washington which restricted capital ship construction and pledged the powers to keep hands off China.
This was the highwater mark of Japan’s cooperation with the United States and with the Western powers’ efforts to establish collective security.
The exclusion act
But only two years later, the U.S. Congress passed, over the veto of President Coolidge and the protest of Secretary of State Hughes, a law barring the immigration of Japanese as aliens ineligible for citizenship. This ended the “gentlemen’s agreement.” The Japanese were bitterly resentful.
But this came midway in a decade of liberal government in Japan and, as late as 1930, the Japanese were still ready to cooperate in keeping the peace. They signed the new London Naval Treaty, although not without a bitter struggle at home. It was their last act of support for the post-Versailles peace structure.
The agitation in Japan against cooperation with the Western world took on the proportions of a revolution in which the army fired the first shot the night of September 18, 1931, at Mukden.
End of Chinese rule in Manchuria
The military campaign that followed ended Chinese rule in Manchuria, but it also ended liberal civilian rule in Japan. It was a military-fascist rising against the existing order not only in Japan, but in the entire world. The U.S. government, especially Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson, was quick to grasp its significance. Other powers were not. American efforts to stem the tide then set in flow came to nothing more substantial than the Stimson Doctrine of non-recognition of Japan’s military gains.
Now, 10 years later, Japan, flushed with conquests extending nearly to the equator and the mid-Asian plateau, confronts a determined United States still standing on that doctrine of non-recognition. Events have thrown Japan into the arms of the Axis, ranged the United States with the other half of the world.
Japan went on to complete conquest of Manchuria, moved into North China, launched a real war against China proper in 1937 and overran nearly all her eastern provinces, joined the Axis, took advantage of Hitler’s triumphs to march into Indochina and reach out for the Dutch East Indies. In the course of all this, she harmed American citizens and their interests in hundreds of instances, most spectacular of which was the sinking of the gunboat USS Panay on the Yangtze River above Nanking, December 13, 1937.
She allied herself with Germany and Italy in the Treaty of Berlin, September 27, 1940, especially aimed at the United States. She affirmed this tie by renewing her signature of the Anti-Comintern Pact at Berlin, November 25, 1941.
Denounced in 1939
The U.S. government, for its part, denounced on July 26, 1939, its Treaty of Friendship and Commerce with Japan. In the summer of 1941, when Japan was strengthening her grasp on French Indochina, Washington went a step further. President Roosevelt froze all Japanese credits in this country.
Britain and her dominions and the Dutch Indies followed suit. The result was almost an entire cessation of Japanese foreign trade. The flow of oil and scrap metal from the United States and oil from the Indies, which has fed her war machine, was shut off. Economically, she was isolated, with her Axis allies unable to help. The economic measures were supplemented by military moves of vast scope which in effect ringed Japan on all sides with hostile forces – in China, Russia, British Malaya, the Dutch Indies and the Philippines and Hawaii.
Russia’s entry into the war presented Tokyo with a new threat. While Hitler was plowing through the Russian armies, this looked more like an opportunity than a menace, but as winter closed down with Russia still unbeaten, the Japanese hopes which rode on Hitler’s banners faded.
Last efforts at peace fail
The economic pinch, the steadily growing power of the military forces gathering in the East, caused her to cry out against “strangulation.” A civilian government, headed by Prince Fumimaro Konoye, resigned in September, admitting its inability to cope with the vast forces loosed by the world cataclysm. Specifically, it was unable to improve relations with the United States. A military government, headed by Gen. Hideki Tojo, took over.
In what was advertised as a “final effort” to save the peace of the Pacific, the Tojo government sent one of its most accomplished diplomats, Saburo Kurusu, by plane to Washington. The negotiations were dragging on toward an apparent breakdown when, three weeks after Kurusu’s arrival in Washington, the Japanese Navy struck.
The last gesture of peace-seeking diplomacy had been turned by the military leadership into a smokescreen to mask their preparations to strike. Japanese bombs fell on Pearl Harbor and Manila while Kurusu and Ambassador Nomura were going through the empty motions of negotiation with Secretary Hull.
Eighty-eight years of peaceful U.S.-Japanese relations were at an end.
U.S.-Japanese chronology
1853: Cmdre. Perry, USN, opens Japan to foreign intercourse.
1858: U.S. Consul Townsend Harris concluded Western world’s first treaty of amity and commerce with Japan.
1899: Japan subscribes to the American doctrine of the Open Door in China.
1900: U.S. and Japan cooperate (with other powers) in ending Boxer Uprising in China.
1904-05: Americans generally sympathize with Japan in her war against Russia: Japanese war loans floated in U.S.; President Roosevelt brings about the peace treaty of Portsmouth.
1905-11: Japanese immigration becomes a friction point; exclusion agitation arises on the Pacific Coast; Japan in “gentlemen’s agreement” undertakes to keep her people out of the United States.
1914: Japan enters war on Allied side; seizes Tsingtao in China and German Pacific islands.
1915: U.S. condemns Japan’s Twenty-One Demands on China.
1917-19: U.S. becomes associate of Japan in World War I; both powers send expeditions to Siberia, where friction arises.
1918-22: U.S. and Japan engage in great naval race.
1919: At Versailles peace conference, Japan wins over U.S. on Shantung issue; loses on racial equality.
1922: Naval race ended by treaties of Washington, in which powers also pledge hands off China.
1924: U.S. Congress passes Asiatic exclusion act; Japan deeply offended.
1930: Japan, adhering to London Naval Treaty, agrees to extend naval truce, but this proves her last major act of cooperation in keeping the peace.
1931-32: Japan invades Manchuria; U.S. proclaims non-recognition of fruits of conquest: this proves turning point of U.S.-Japanese relations, even of modern history.
1933: Japan quits League of Nations; turns back on Occident’s peacekeeping efforts.
1935: Japan denounces the Washington Naval Treaty. Naval race resumed with its termination at end of 1936.
1936: Japan forms her first Axis tie, the Anti-Comintern Pact with Nazi Germany.
1937: Japan makes war on China; U.S. interests harmed; USS Panay sunk.
1939: European war begins, opens new fields for Japanese expansion; U.S. denounces commerce treaty with Japan.
1940: Hitler crushes France; Japan moves into French Indochina, proclaims her “Greater East Asia” program. Japan becomes ally of the Axis with the Treaty of Berlin, aimed at United States.
1941: U.S. extends Lend-Lease to China and Russia; Japan tightens grip on Indochina; U.S., with Britain and Netherlands, freezes Japanese credits, halts war exports to Japan; Japan feels pinch, cries out against economic strangulation and military encirclement, sends Saburo Kurusu to Washington in “final effort” to prevent a break.
The NBC Concert Orchestra (NBCB), 7:45 p.m. EST:
TOKYO RADIO: GUAM, WAKE ISLANDS UNDER JAPANESE FLAG
CHILE ORDERS NAVAL MEASURES TO PROTECT COAST IN STRAITS OF MAGELLAN
AP: ASSAM PROVINCE IN INDIA, BORDERING BURMA, REGARDED AS IN WAR ZONE
The Bell Telephone Hour (NBCR), 8 p.m. EST:
I Love A Mystery (NBCB), 8 p.m. EST:
PORT MACARTHUR, NEAR LA, IS EVACUATING WOMEN AND CHILDREN PRESSURE PUT ON REP. JEANETTE RANKIN TO CHANGE HER ‘NO’ VOTE
BRITISH BOMBERS ATTACK JAPANESE TRYING TO LAND IN NORTHERN MALAYA, SET FIRE TO TWO MERCHANT VESSELS CARRYING TROOPS
DAMAGE FROM JAPANESE ON HAWAII APPEARS MORE SERIOUS THAN AT FIRST BELIEVED
The Voice of Firestone (NBCR), 8:30 p.m. EST:
True or False (NBCB), 8:30 p.m. EST:
UNCONFIRMED REPORTS SAY JAPANESE TROOPS HAVE LANDED ON LUBANG ISLAND, 60 MILES SOUTHWEST OF MANILA
JAP RADIO, FORMOSA: ISLAND OF GUAM TAKEN WITHOUT RESISTANCE JAPAN ATTACKS NAURU AND OCEAN ISLAND, ADMINISTRATIVE HQ FOR BRITAIN’S GILBERT AND ELLICE ISLAND COLONY ALL IS QUIET IN HAWAII
Dr. I.Q. (NBCR), 9 p.m. EST:
The National Radio Forum (NBCB), 9 p.m. EST:
170 JAPANESE INTERNED IN PANAMA CANAL ZONE BY 7 A.M. THIS MORNING – 120 MEN, 21 WOMEN & 29 CHILDREN. ARRESTS CONTINUING
That Brewster Boy (NBCR), 9:30 p.m. EST:
News (NBCB), 9:30 p.m. EST:
JAPANESE TROOPS REPORTED TO HAVE LANDED AT LUBANG WITH HELP OF “FISHERMEN,” FIFTH COLUMNISTS JAPANESE FIFTH COLUMNISTS ALSO REPORTED AT DAVAO; 3,000 ARMED JAPANESE FORCES ALREADY RESISTING THERE
THE CHRONICLE: AIR RAID WARDEN AT PRESIDIO OF SAN FRAN REPORTS AT 6:20 P.M. PST 50 UNIDENTIFIED PLANES SIGHTED FROM SOUTHWEST HEADED FOR CITY
RUSH OF NAVAL VOLUNTEERS IN NEW YORK DOUBLE NUMBER OF FIRST DAY OF WAR IN 1917 MEXICO, COLUMBIA BREAK OFF DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH JAPAN
DUTCH NEWS AGENCY: BRITISH FORCES BREAK UP JAPANESE LANDING PARTY IN NORTH BORNEO
CHILE ANNOUNCES U.S. HAS ACCEPTED SUGGESTION FOR A CONFERENCE OF FOREIGN MINISTERS OF 21 AMERICAN REPUBLICS
The Carnation Contented Hour (NBCR), 10 p.m. EST:
The Monday Merry-Go-Round (NBCB), 10 p.m. EST:
COMPLETE BLACKOUT OF BRITISH COLUMBIA ORDERED ATTACK BY JAP FORCES ON PACIFIC NORTHWEST CONSIDERED EMINENT
CBS: UNIDENTIFIED VESSEL REPORTED OFF CALIFORNIA COAST WITH ABOUT 50 PLANES APPROACHING SAN FRANCISCO
Gypsy Fiddles (NBCR), 10:30 p.m. EST:
Adam Hat Sports Parade (NBCB), 10:30 p.m. EST:
News (NBCR), 11 p.m. EST:
Carmen Cavallaro and His Orchestra (NBCB), 11 p.m. EST:
ALL RADIO STATIONS IN SAN FRANCISCO SHUT OFF AIR ABRUPTLY AT 6:15 P.M. PST. 25 MINUTES AFTER FIRST WARNING, NO PLANES APPEAR OVER SAN FRAN
CBS: POSSIBLY LARGEST AUDIENCE EVER TO HEAR RADIO BROADCAST LISTENED TO PRES. ROOSEVELT’S MESSAGE TODAY – 60 MILLION BELIEVED TO HAVE TUNED IN
SAN FRANCISCO POLICE: UNIDENTIFIED PLANES APPROACHING CITY; STREETLIGHTS, PRESIDIO BLACKED OUT; RADIO STATIONS SILENCED
Story Dramas (NBCR), 11:15 p.m. EST:
Glenn Miller and His Orchestra (NBCB), 11:30 p.m. EST:
The Rhythmaires (NBCR), 11:30 p.m. EST:
ALL-CLEAR SIGNAL GIVEN IN SAN FRANCISCO; RADIO STATIONS WILL SOON RETURN TO THE AIR
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