The First Pearl Harbor Day

In the 21^st Century, Pearl Harbor Day passes with most of the citizens of the US hardly noticing. It is not a national holiday but those of us who were living on that winter day in 1941 shall never forget.

On the morning of December 7, 1941, the Japanese Imperial Navy launched an aerial attack on the naval base at Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands. At that time Hawaii was not a state but a U.S. territory. Nevertheless the attack was considered an attack on American soil.

The attack destroyed or severely damaged most of the battleships of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and killed an estimated 3000 U.S. servicemen and civilians. President Franklin Roosevelt in a speech on December 8 called it "A date which will live in infamy."

At the time I was six years old and living in Charleston, South Carolina with my mother and father. My father was a supervisor at the Charleston Naval Shipyard. We lived in a three story apartment building on George Street in downtown Charleston. It was an older building that had a wide staircase running from the first to the second story and two smaller staircases that connected the second sand third floors. There was a balcony with a heavy wooden banister running around both the second and third floors. There were 4 or 5 apartments on each floor. The landlady occupied a large apartment on the first floor.

It had been a lazy Sunday afternoon until we began to hear a commotion outside our third floor apartment. My father opened the door to check on the commotion and a neighbor exclaimed "The Japs have bombed Pearl Harbor." My father uttered something like "Damn" and went out onto the balcony where the other tenants were gathering. Someone had turned up their radio very loud so that we could hear the newscast. My mother came out and we sat on the stairs with our neighbors listening to the radio reports. I had never heard of Japs or Pearl Harbor but I thought it must be serious because all the adults were grim faced and talking in low voices.

In addition to my father, there were other men living in the building who worked at the Naval Shipyard and several sailors. They had formed a little group and were smoking and talking and gesturing.

There were two telephones in the building. One was in the landlady's apartment and the other was at the head of the stairs on the second floor. After about an hour the telephone rang and one of the sailors was called to the phone. He listened then hung up the phone, motioned to his wife and went to his apartment. Soon he emerged in his uniform and left. The phone continued to ring and one by one the sailors were called, put on their uniforms and left. I never saw some of those sailors again. After a few months their wives moved away. I never knew whether they had been killed in the War or just shipped out and never returned to Charleston.

Later my father was also called to the phone. He my mother and I went back to our apartment. He put on his work clothes and hard hat. He said, "Mr. Marie's picking me up." Mr. Marie was his boss and the Foreman of Outside Machine Shop 38 at the "Navy Yard."

For the next three years my father worked 7 days a week. He worked a 12 hours shift Monday through Friday and eight hours on Saturday and Sunday. He would occasionally take a day off. On those days off he would sleep and drink whiskey. Sometimes he would be gone for several days when he and his crew would go out on a new ship or one that they had repaired for what he called a "Shakedown Cruise." My father was 35, married and had me. In addition he was working in an occupation critical to the war effort. He was therefore exempted from the military service draft.

However over the next 4 years almost every family had a father, son or daughter serving in the Army, Navy, Air Corps, or Coast Guard. My three uncles served in the U.S. Navy and a friend of my mother and father was drafted into the Army and was severely wounded in the "Battle of the Bulge."

In a few months we were fully involved in the War. We had to put blackout curtains over our windows and outside doors. Air raid wardens checked our compliance and we had practice air raids. Gasoline, tires, sugar, meat and other grocery items were rationed

On December 7, 1941 everyone in the country went to war.