ith 75 years having passed since the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor—the surprise air raid by Japan that precipitated the U.S. entry into World War II—most of the aspects of that day have been thoroughly explored: the military strategy, the political maneuvering, the personal tragedies, the moments of heroism. And yet mysteries do remain.
And one of them, in particular, is downright spooky. Here’s how Craig Nelson describes it in his new book Pearl Harbor: From Infamy to Greatness:
On November 22 [of 1941], a strange advertisement appeared in the New Yorker magazine. It pictured a group of people sheltered from an air raid, playing dice. Under the headline “Achtung, Warning, Alerte!” the copy read, “We hope you’ll never have to spend a long winter’s night in an air-raid shelter, but we were just thinking . . . it’s only common sense to be prepared. If you’re not too busy between now and Christmas, why not sit down and plan a list of the things you’ll want to have on hand. . . . And though it’s no time, really, to be thinking of what’s fashionable, we bet that most of your friends will remember to include those intriguing dice and chips which make Chicago’s favorite game: THE DEADLY DOUBLE.”
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