For my church’s Christmas production, we’re doing a drama about a family that is gearing up for Christmas when they hear about the bombing of Pearl Harbor on the radio. I’m in the play.
Our director has asked actors to share stories from people who remember where they were when they heard about it, what their reaction was, etc. Since I’m not really on a first-name-basis with anyone old enough to remember WWII, and my grandparents are all deceased, I figured I’d try the Dope.
So if you are old enough to remember where you were, what you were doing, etc. when you heard about the Pearl Harbor bombing, please share with me.
My daddy told me what had happened. I don’t remember the house we were in or anything (it was a long time ago, after all) but it certainly made a big impression on me.
Of course - it was 1973 when I heard about Pearl Harbor, so maybe that’s not going to be so helpful.
I’m not but my mom and dad were. I know all the students in my mom’s high school were called into the auditorium to listen to FDR’s speech on their radio. I’ll ask them for their recollections.
I’m nowhere near old enough, but my father told me that he was playing baseball at the local athletic field. I’m familiar with the field – it’s really small and a bit claustrophobic for baseball.
Baseball in December. I never asked him about that. It must have been a very mild December for that.
Somebody must have been listening to the radio in one of the houses across the street (there was a railroad track on the other side), or gotten a phone call.
Here’s my mom’s slightly edited e-mail response (she had just turned 14 when Pearl Harbor happened):
I don’t have a very interesting story but I do remember the day clearly. It was a Sunday. Back then there was no TV and news programs were short and few between. But I remember that my friend and her mother drove up early in the afternoon and told us they had just heard it on the radio. Everyone was shocked and went looking for their atlases. The next day in school we all went into the auditorium and there was a small table-size radio sitting on the stage floor and we all listened to Pres. Roosevelt declare war. A number of boys who were old enough immediately enlisted. There started to be air raid drills and at night we were supposed to cover our windows in case enemy planes came over. They had spotters who went up to the Soldier’s Monument every day, scanning the skies. If anyone drove at night, the headlights had to be hooded. The upper-half was covered black. I remember the old '38 Buick we had (we called it the Iron Horse) had the covered headlights but with gasoline rationing, there wasn’t much night driving anyway.
My dad was born in '39. He would have been about 2 1/2 at the time of Pearl Harbor.
He says his earliest memory is of one night. He was crawling around the living room rug playing with his cars, while his parents listened to the big console radio. He recalls his mother getting up with an exclamation, and his father reaching over to turn the radio up. He says it was like they had turned to stone, they were listening so hard. Then several neighbors came in, just came in the front door and into the living room, where they joined his parents in silently listening. He remembers the pattern and colors of the oriental run, he remembers his mother wearing a blue dress and standing with her hand at her throat. He remembers the stillness of all these grown-ups, and he knew something bad had happened, but he didn’t know what.
Years later, he recounted this very specific memory to his mother, and she told him, “We were listening to the President. That was the day Pearl Harbor was bombed.”
I’ve read lots of interviews of people concerning that day, and Ken Burns recently captured the reaction of ordinary people well with his series.
Keep in mind that this was America in 1941. For most of the country, people were caught by the announcement either on their way to or coming home from church. Since your church is putting on this production, you’ll want to capture this.
I just called my mum, who was eight and in Scotland when it happened. I must admit I was wondering if the reaction in Britain would have had a slightly bittersweet edge, in that the Japanese had attacked the Americans, British and Dutch and now there was another enemy to fight, but tinged with some relief/hope because now the USA was in the shooting war. My mum’s recollection is that there was only a great deal of anger about the sneak nature of the attacks. She was an evacuee at the time and she can remember the farmer she was staying with telling all the children about it.
12/7/41 was my mother’s 10th birthday. She said that it was a horrible birthday - everyone just gathered around the radio, all birthday celebrations cancelled.
Something similiar happened to my grandmother in high school. They had an assembly to listen to Roosevelt and after Congress declared war alot of boys (including half the male seniors) left school and went straight to the local recruiting office. That wouldn’t happen today.
My father was at his parent’s flat, listening to the Chicago Bears game on the radio. When he heard the bulletin on the radio, he started to cry.
The next day he (and about a million other men) went downtown to enlist. After his physical he was declared 4-F. He then married my mother two months later. Then he got drafted.
I remember my father mentioning this once. He was 14 at the time and heard about Pearl Harbour when he went to school on the Monday morning. He recalled that the prevailing feelings among the adults were shock at the surprise nature of the attack (as Struan’s mother said) and near certainty that the US would now enter the War. The boys, on the other hand, were more interested in the approaching summer holidays, since it was the last week of term.
My grandmother, now deceased, was 22 at the time and was working a Sunday afternoon shift in a bakery in Baltimore, MD. A customer brought word of the attack and several others confirmed it.
Radio was in its infancy, and a bakery wouldn’t have one in the back for employees to listen to.
She said that after they were sure it was true, they all cried and hugged each other and that their tears mixed in the cake batter.
Second hand stories, but maybe they’ll be of some interest.
My father was onboard ship in Pearl Harbor the morning of the attack. He was (like many of his shipmates) in his bunk below decks taking it easy on a Sunday morning.
My dad says their first thought was that they’d been accidentally rammed by another ship. Then the alarms sounded and pretty much all hell broke loose for the next couple of hours. During the attack he helped to haul ammo up to the smaller guns. He told us that at one point he was pulling an ammo case along the deck and stopped to rest for a second when a torpedo came down and hit within a few feet of him. Fortunately it was a dud, and went through the deck and out the side of the hull above the waterline. He said it looked close enough as it went by that he felt like he could have reached out and touched it. The ship was badly damaged but didn’t sink, and was repaired and spent the rest of the war in service in the Pacific.
My mother was at her parent’s home at the time of the attack, and heard about it on the radio. They all spent the next hours (and days!) glued to the radio waiting for news. This was before my parents were married, but they were engaged. Because of the confusion from the attack and the slowness of the mail in those first days of the war, it was about two weeks later that word finally got home to mom that her fiancé was still alive. For others it was even longer. My mother said she remembers another woman in her neighborhood got a letter from her husband, and the first indication that he was alive, on Christmas morning. The Post Office had stayed open, and the carriers were taking their own time on to deliver whatever letters came in.
My dad married my mom about 4 months later while on a short leave while the ship was being repaired. They both made it through the war ok, and they proceeded to have nine kids, of which I was the eighth, and was born about 10 years after the war.
My folks both died many years ago, so I can’t get any fresh details. The above is just what I remember from things they said over the years, but I think it’s reasonably accurate.