Chapter 8 We Interrupt This Regularly Scheduled Program ...

PEARL HARBOR ATTACKED!

It was about 2:30 in the afternoon before most of us in Texas started hearing about the attack on Pearl Harbor. You can’t imagine the shock and disbelief at the time, most of us had never heard of Pearl Harbor or even Hawaii. 

It was a Sunday. Most enlisted men had a few hours of free time on Sundays. If we could get a pass we were off the base. It didn’t matter where you were, even if you weren’t near a radio, word about the attack on Pearl Harbor spread like wildfire. We heard that every radio program was interrupted by a bulletin that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. New bulletins came in every few minutes.

All military were advised to return to their base as quickly as possible. We found out later that in 2 hours 18 ships, 188 planes and 2,403 men were lost at Pearl Harbor. President Roosevelt called a meeting of his cabinet. By nightfall, the West Coast was under blackout, expecting to be the next target of the Japanese. The next day FDR and congress declared war on Japan. Two days after that we declared war on Germany.  The U.S. war machine was about to kick into action.