The Pittsburgh Press (December 20, 1941)
Rambling Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
SAN FRANCISCO – To the people of San Francisco the blackout is variously frightening, grim, exciting or a nuisance. To me it is something warm and tingling, as from an old book of good memories.
All last winter I lived in the darkness of England. I didn’t mind it – in fact, I liked it. But in no stretch of the imagination did I ever then picture myself walking the streets of one of our own American cities in aboriginal darkness – blindfolded by Nature and learning again to move by the outstretched feeling tips of my toes. But here it is.
We were at the home of friends in the Pacific Heights section when the sirens sounded for my first American blackout. It was early in the evening. We had not yet eaten. San Francisco had had several previous blackouts, but people still were only learning what to do and how to act under peril.
We turned our electric switches and then watched from the window as the light of this lovely, hilly city gradually – and it seemed so awfully reluctantly – went out. Then we threw a pitcher of water on the burning fireplace, got our shielded flashlights, and went outdoors to let the night take us in. We felt our way up into a little park, from where we could look down over the city. All around us there was nothing now but Nature’s own night.
I can’t deny that I was thrilled by it. I had heard stories of how miserably done were the blackouts of the first few nights. But it wasn’t miserably done this time. I remember saying over and over to our friends, “I admire this.” For San Francisco that night seemed literally as black as London.
City is serious now
I had never before been on this certain hill from where we watched. I kept complaining and asking if we couldn’t get to a higher place, where we could look down on the city. And my friends assured me that we WERE looking down on the city. It was incredible.
In the darkness of the grassy park, we bumped into a man with a dog. The dog kept rubbing against my knee, and I reached down and petted it.
“What kind is it?” I asked, for I couldn’t see the dog I was petting. “A young Airdale,” he said. And then he said something that really described the spirit of San Francisco that night. He said:
“I ran up here right after the first alarm. There were still lights all over town. And all over town I could hear people shouting ‘Turn out those lights!’ Hundreds of voices in every direction were shouting it. It was like an angry growl washing over the city.”
And so it was. We heard that angry growl all through the hours that we walked the streets. San Francisco is serious now. The people aren’t making-believe any more.
The greatest difference between San Francisco and London in blackout is that all traffic stops here. Only police cars and ambulances, with lights out, dare move. The streets might be dusty remnants of a city dead and uninhabited for a hundred years.
Another difference is that in London there is some faint light on the streets, while here there is none. Over there autos move with one very dim and hooded headlight. Vague little oases of light tinge the street corners, from heavily hooded street lights.
But in San Francisco no light at all is allowed. Actually, the effect is less eerie than in London. For here you have the feeling of a graveyard at night, with all the ghosts asleep. Over there, it seems like a graveyard inhabited by shadows that move and slink.
Of course the London blackout is permanent, from dusk till dawn. But here, and in other coast cities, the blackout goes on only during the actual danger periods of the alert.
San Franciscans still have much to learn in the ways and habits of the blackout, I was amused at the fervor of some of the citizens. One of our party made a tent of his coat and lit a cigarette. And several times, as we walked along, people angrily told him to put it out.
Eat in the darkness
Actually, it’s all right to carry a cigarette. In London you dare not light one on the street. But if you light it inside, and then go out, it’s even advisable to carry a cigarette. Its glowing end serves as a tiny torch and keeps people from running into you. And a burning cigarette end cannot be seen from a plane.
To my chagrin, these neophyte San Franciscans seemed to get about in the dark just as well as I did. We walked for an hour and a half, but none of our party stumbled or fell. There were two little girls of 13 with us, and they laughed and enjoyed it all.
When we got home, we experienced one thing that I never knew in England – darkness inside a house. Few people here have had time to put up blackout curtains, so they dare not turn on a light in a room with a window.
So our host, by a dim flashlight, put the fried chicken on the plates and put the plates into the laps of each individual guest. Such fritter things as salad, vegetables, knives and forks were left in the kitchen.
We all ate with our hands. We couldn’t even see the chicken – just had to feel what piece it was and then hunt where to bite. It was swell. Made us feel vital or something.
I think London would have been proud of San Francisco in its blackout. I know I was. And as we walked the dark streets that night, walking in the deep darkness that I used to know so casually, I couldn’t help but feel another certain sort of great pride.
And that was a pride that now we, too – we here in America – are sharing in the knowledge of a universal catastrophe. The tragedy now is real for us; now we are beginning to take it, too. Now we can hold up our heads again, for we also are hurting.