One reason SF became popular with gay people is that during WW II the military would bring soldiers and sailors who were found to be gay in the Pacific theater to SF to be discharged. A good many of them decided not to head home so they stayed in the SF area.
Yes they were. Bones pulled a nasty temporal faux pas that almost cost the Allies victory in WWII.
The Headquarters of the US Pacific Fleet (headed up by Admiral Nimitz in WW2) was the operational command for the USN in the Pacific Theatre.
There was an administrative command (whose name escapes me) positioned in San Francisco. It was responsible for personnel assignments, organising training programs, and forwarding supply to the combat areas.
I believe that it was a senior billet (meaning an Admiral ran it), but it did not have operational (mission planning) authority over Nimitz.
However, the two Admirals did lock horns, occasionally, over personnel assignments, as Nitmitz might want a particular individual for an assignment, but the bureaucracy sent someone else, based on rank/seniority, etc.
For example, a few top scoring sub skippers were assigned to non-submarine billets as they ranked up (supposedly to “broaden their horizons”), while Nimitz wanted to retain their sub expertise in squadron level command slots.
I had family members who told me they first heard of it at Sunday Mass, when the priest offered a prayer for the servicemen killed & wounded in the Japanese attack.
This talk about Daylight Saving (not “Savings”) Time seems unaware that President Roosevelt instituted year-round DST, called “War Time,” on February 9, 1942 — two months after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
As to the question of whether Americans were aware of Pearl Harbor by name, it had been mentioned in Time magazine 83 times between 1923 and 1940. Pearl Harbor was mentioned 8 times in 1941 alone, including this article from August, before the attack.
The attack even got television coverage. Reporters working with a model of the harbor demonstrated the attack over New York television.
How many peopled owned a TV in 41? My guess is very few.
Maybe 1,000.
http://framemaster.tripod.com/Electronictv.html
About 7,000–8,000 electronic sets were made in the U.S. before the War Production Board halted manufacture in April 1942.
I’ll always remember where and how I learned of the 9/11 attacks. My parents never forgot hearing of Kennedy’s assassination. Did news of Pearl Harbor have the same effect on the previous generation?
Oh, yes.
My father, 82 years old, remembers specifically his next older brother telling the family about it that afternoon. Everyone else thought Uncle Bob was making it up, as they didn’t recognize the name Pearl Harbor. Dad did, though. Apparently, he’d read it in a book and knew it was in Hawaii.
Ask anyone old enough to have memories from that time, and they will remember hearing about Pearl Harbor.
Hell yes! Remember that football game mentioned in back in post #3? My father was in his living room, listening to the Bears-Cardinals game in Chicago, when he heard the bulletin.
The actual broadcast still exists. It was made at 2:26 EST. They played it yesterday on the History Channel show WWII in HD.
Excuse me, this is what I meant to write:
> Thanks, anson2995. Put it this way then: During the winter (or more precisely
> the non-daylight saving part of the year) Honolulu is two hours behind Pacific
> Time and five hours behind Eastern Time. During the summer (or more precisely
> the daylight saving period of the year), Honolulu is three hours behind Pacific
> Time and six hours behind Eastern Time.
This is what happens when you write one thing, decide it’s wrong, and then try to correct your mistake. This is what I meant, really. I went back and forth on this answer so many times that I forgot to fix everything up right.
Thanks for all th info people. I am quite surprised that the info disseminate that quickly. My father had already enlisted in the Navy and I am sure he got the info pretty quickly.
I wonder how quickly the similar news would have spread circa 1917?
Breaking news stories in 1917 travelled by telegraph to newspaper offices and train stations. Often a telegraph operator would post handwritten bulletins outside the office. A newspaper could have a special four-page edition out on the street within four hours of breaking news.
My dad was ten - he remembers hearing it on the radio.
Now you’re thinking of the movie “The Final Countdown”.
Very much so.
My father even mentioned that he and several friends skipped out of school the next day, and were waiting in line at 8am outside the military recruiting station in town. It was a long line; he said that he thought that about a quarter of the men in the senior class were there.
My grandparents told how they heard it on the radio because they were late for church, but got shushed when they told about it, because they were going to get people upset, and it was pretty ridiculous on the face of it. They must have heard it wrong.
Of course, but they were on the other side.