The Pittsburgh Press (January 5, 1942)
Rambling Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
SAN FRANCISCO – Newspapers on the Coast are no longer allowed to give weather forecasts, because it might help the enemy.
So The San Francisco News pays $1 a day for the best silly forecast submitted. For example: “Possibly rain, conceivably show, it may clear up, we really don’t know.”
During the first week of the war, after San Francisco had had two nights of blackout, people were still calling up police stations on the third night to ask, “What are the lights out for?”
Several cities, after getting their new air-raid sirens installed, have had test blackouts and discovered that nobody could hear the sirens.
San Francisco has eight new and powerful sirens, but hasn’t had a chance to hear them yet. The City intended to test them, after duly notifying the public. But the Army said no, that any time San Franciscans heard those sirens, from now till the end of the war, it would mean real danger overhead, and not just a test or practice blackout.
At this writing, San Francisco has been without a blackout for more than two weeks. Several times during that period, however, the Army has sent out “alerts” to the police, which means unidentified planes in the air. The sirens are not blown on an “alert” and in all recent cases the planes were soon identified as friendly and the “all clear” given. The public never knew anything about it until next day when it read the papers.
They didn’t turn out so well
The first foreign shore I ever saw was that of Japan, 20 years ago. And although I, like the rest of America, detest the very thought of the Japanese now, that youthful view still remains one of the greatest thrills of my life.
And I remember one day in Tokyo when, being completely lost, I went into what turned out to be a bank, and inquired the way to the Siyoken Hotel (I’ve even forgotten how to spell it now). The cashiers couldn’t speak English, and they kept sending upstairs for higher and higher officials of the bank, until finally one came down who could understand a little. He was in a gray silk kimono, and for all I know was the president of the bank.
He didn’t just tell me how to get there. He went out into the street and led me four blocks to the hotel. And to think that’s people like that could turn out to be people like this.
Christmas this year in San Francisco was my first Christmas in the United States in five years. Last year I spent all of Christmas in the underground bomb shelters of London. Four years ago it was on the sunny beach at Honolulu. Wonder what’ll be left to spend next Christmas in?
Red Cross shows it’s stuff
The Red Cross has always been one of my favorite organizations, and after seeing it perform in San Francisco it is even more so. If you want any lip from me I’d say go ahead and shell out a few bucks to them. That’s what I did, and it made my conscience feel wonderful.
I went nosing around their volunteer headquarters the other day, and from Mrs. Diehl, their chairman. I got this remark: “We have a sign up saying ‘No Dogs’ and I’ve been tempted to add to it ‘No Mink Coats Either’.” By which she means that the Red Cross is serious and doesn’t need any faddists who come whisking down long enough to get their pictures on the society pages, and then never show up again.
I got to checking the other day, and discovered that when I arrived in San Francisco this trip it was the twenty-fifth time I had crossed the continent. And as my own hollow remark echoes in my ears, the only rejoinder I can think of at the moment is, “Well, what of it?”
My witty friend, Cavanaugh, down in Los Angeles writes me as follows:
“I just got this from a friend who is no fool and has exercised the proper restraint from the start. He says that the lost continent of Atlantis has suddenly appeared off Catalina Island and declared war on the whole damn works.”
Welcome to our messy midst, Atlantis.