The Pittsburgh Press (December 22, 1941)
Rambling Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
SAN FRANCISCO – The war and that first Japanese plane scare caught San Francisco with its pants down.
But now that the first jitters are over San Francisco is pulling its pants on fast.
At first there was a terrible confusion of mind all over town. Some people were scared stiff; some refused to believe there was any danger at all; the majority didn’t even know what they thought.
But since then, the public mind has settled down, the people in charge have fired up their boilers, and the business of creating a system whereby San Francisco will care for itself if the bombers come is well under way.
This city began studying its civil defense last spring. By August it had formulated an all-inclusive plan, and had it printed in booklet form. People tell me it is one of the best plans in the country.
But it was just a paper plan, and nothing more. No new fire equipment was bought, no uniforms or tools for air raid wardens were ordered, no shelter sites were picked. It was just like a guy, with a sure-fire scheme for making a million dollars, who sits around a hash-house talking about it instead of going out and making it.
They put out a call for volunteers for civil defense in November, but only 3000 registered, when actually 100,000 will be needed. There was apathy everywhere. San Franciscans just weren’t interested.
42,000 sign up in first week
All that has changed. There is action everywhere. Within a week after the war started, 40,000 people had signed up for civil defense.
Training has already begun, and wardens are at their posts during blackouts. Eventually there will be 10,000 air raid wardens. The fire department will add 3000 auxiliary firemen. The police department will be expanded. Of course it will take weeks or months to train all these people, but at least training is finally under way.
Even if the raiders should come before this new defense organization is all hung together and running smoothly, it wouldn’t be such a debacle as it might have been.
For the Red Cross has not been asleep. It has its whole organization trained and equipped and spotted all over the city. They say that, if the bombers had come that first night, the Red Cross and medical set-ups could have handled 10,000 casualties.
Hospitals already have equipped themselves to operate during blackouts. Several hospitals are being evacuated – with the less seriously ill patients discharged and other moved to hospitals inland. They say, however, this is not so much in preparation for possible raids as it is to receive the wounded from Hawaii.
The slow start in civil defense here just seems to be an old English-speaking trait. England was and is magnificent in her civil defense, but she was just about as slow as San Francisco to get started.
For example, London had been bombed constantly for four months before the great “fire night” of last December 29. Yet, despite those months of experience and warning, the British weren’t ready for an all-out fire raid, and if the weather hadn’t turned bad that night the Germans might have burned London down.
It was not until after that creepingly narrow escape that the British turned to and organized a definite fire-watching system, or put sacks of sand on the street, or set about teaching the whole population how to handle fire bombs.
But you learn fast under direct peril, and before the winter was over old British grandmas and tiny British children were putting out incendiaries as casually and unheroically as though they were blowing out matches.
They think bombs will come
The first two nights of blackout here, most people were convinced that Japanese planes actually were over the city. But by the time the third blackout came along, six days after the war began, people began figuring this way – well, if there were Japanese planes, why hasn’t the Navy found the carrier and sunk it by this time?
So now many people believe there are no Japanese planes around, and that there never were any. The public agrees that the Army did a wise thing in making the scare real at first, and in taking no chances.
Most San Franciscans are thoroughly convinced, however, that the Japanese bombers will come sooner or later, and so they’re going about their civil defense preparations with the greatest seriousness.
The blackout regulations are plenty strict. They forbid any private vehicle to move after the sirens sound. They forbid the showing of any light whatever, even cigarettes or flashlights. Violators can get up to six months in jail and a $500 fine. (In England, as I told you yesterday, it’s all right to smoke cigarettes on the street and to use dim flashlights, pointed downward.)
It won’t take long for blackouts to be running smoothly here. Already I can sense how naturally and easily people are falling into the new blackout life. They’ll soon be able to live in it, just as Londoners do. And from what I’ve seen of them, I think they will take actual bombings in just the same stoic way the British have.