The Shock of 7 December 1941
I was having a conversation with an older gentleman the other day and as most conversations do, it turned to history. This discussion happened while in a museum observing a scene of a typical living room on 7 December 1941. We were talking over the scene. The mother gasping, hand to mouth, staring at the radio, the teacup on the floor. The young girl sitting up straight with a look of shock. The photo of the young man in Marine blues on the table. I made a comment how that was a generational moment. Everyone was affected. Young people knowing they would fight, parents knowing their sons would fight. Older men would know how terrible it would be.
What he said to me seemed so painfully overlooked that I was taken aback.
He mentioned that he asked his mother once how she reacted to the news on 7 December. Her said they were scared. Not just of the attack or pending war. But because of the unknown outcome. That America may lose. That the country may be changed. What a concept…America loses? Changed how? It almost seems so silly to think of. Unless you look at it through their eyes.
Prior to 1941, America had been involved in several wars. Working backwards the highlights were World War I, The Spanish-American War, the Civil War, and the Mexican War. That takes us back about 100 years before Pearl Harbor. Of those, only the Civil War had any significant action on American Territory. We would need to go back to the War of 1812 to see any element of real enemy action taking place in America.
The most recent conflict, The Great War, or what was about to become World War I, was a European matter. Heck, even the unofficial theme song was “Over there.”
Now, America had been attacked, granted it was thousands of miles from the mainland, but one can easily see how they must have felt. Fear of insider threats from both Japanese and German immigrants and spies. U-Boat patrols along the east coast and Gulf of Mexico. Japanese fire ballon threats on the west coast. The invasion of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. To the average citizen, victory may have been a real doubt.
Once that doubt is considered, my goodness, the anxiety of how America, or the world would change. Hard to fathom. But fathom it people do. Alternate history works have been done in several mediums. Most recently, the Amazon show The Man in the High Castle portrayed an alternate America where the Allies lost the war. Thankfully, a work of fiction.
But the situation remains. That generation had a unique and terrible time of worry. Since World War II, America has fought more wars. Several arguably loses. But they were still fought “over there.” Citizens have never worried about invasion, or how America would really change regardless of how they felt the “war” would end.
One thing is obvious to me. The fear and concern of the American citizen stoked the fire of resolution that put men in uniforms. It also put women, children, and men who couldn’t put on a uniform into service supporting a war effort.
Greatest Generation indeed.
