The Century: America's Time - 1941-1945: Homefront

On the first Sunday in December 1941,
Americans were doing what Americans did

on any normal Sunday:

I'd been to see another string of
interminable Westerns at the plaza,

which went every Saturday and Sunday.
Guns of the Pacos was the movie that was

playing.

My father and I were in the
living room listening to the Giants'

football game. My father was sitting next
to me. Suddenly when they announced

that Pearl Harbor was attacked.

"We interrupt this program to bring you a
special news bulletin: The Japanese have

attacked Pearl Harbor by air..."

I came home to a household that was
somber and quiet and the radio was on

and I was told that the Japanese had
bombed Pearl Harbor, which I had no

idea where it was. I'll tell you what
struck my mind, I thought it was somewhere

in Oregon.

Soon, every American would know that over
2000 of their countrymen had perished

in the Japanese attack on Hawaii's
Pearl Harbor, and nearly half of

the US' fleet had been destroyed.

Well it was absolute horror. People were
just shocked. When it happens, you don't

know what to think. You're just standing
there wondering 'what happens now?'

And it was terrifying. We sat down and
looked at each other for a couple of

minutes and Max said 'no more civilian
clothes.' It was a very bad time.

"Yesterday, December 7th, 1941, a date
which will live in infamy. The United

States of America was suddenly and
deliberately attacked. No matter how long

it may take us to overcome this
premeditated invasion, the American

people in their righteous might will
win through to absolute victory!"

President Roosevelt told an America
shocked out of its isolation and

innocence that in order to win this war,
every man, woman, and child would have

to become part of the fight.

"Never before have we been called upon
for such a prodigious effort. Never before

have we had so little time in which to
do so much."

We may forget at the end of the century
that America in the early 1940's was

far from a super power. Its Army was
ranked 19th in the world behind

Holland and Portugal. Its industry was
still in the grip of a lingering

depression. The war, of course, would
change all that and many other things

as well. It would unite the country in a
way never known before or since.

To understand the American homefront
during the war years, you have to

understand the texture of the times, a
time so naive that most Americans

didn't know their president couldn't walk.
Certainly a time before television and

instant satellite transmission. When war
news took days or weeks to reach

newspapers and the news reels. The
survival of democracy was by no means

assured.

I remember as a young boy a fear of the
Japanese that submarines were gonna

come up in Santa Monica and there was
a lot of fear then.

Just 4 days after the Japanese had
attacked Pearl Harbor, Nazi Germany

and Fascist Italy declared war on the
United States.

The world was a very dark place. The
German U-boats were sinking tankers

right off the coast of Florida and New
Jersey within sight of the bathers on the

beach.

The oceans, which had historically kept
America invulnerable had been

penetrated by enemies from both east
and west.

We had to destroy those people to save
ourselves and to save the United States.

Then we all rushed off to the recruiting
stations. Everybody I knew that was my

age or close to it was in the services.
If you were brave, you were in the Marines

Corps. Everybody was in one thing or
another, and almost all of us were in the

Army. The Axis had to be defeated, and we
knew that nobody was going to do it but us

My father went to war and he managed
a little grocery story, IGA grocery store.

And he went to Springfield, Missouri to go
through basic training.

Volunteers and draftees shed their
civilian identities in basic training

camps that united grocers from Kansas with
mechanics from Monterrey and

bookkeepers from Brooklyn. Within six
months, many would be sent to

battlefields around the world leaving
behind parents, wives, and children.

I really adored my father, I mean it was..
I admired him, I loved him. He was

a wonderful father, and the thought of
life without him was unimaginable to me.

It was sort of the hand one was dealt, and
your father was going to war in a

good cause, and I was very proud of him.

We got married, and then he enlisted. His
goal was to be a pilot under 24 and he

achieved it. He was commissioned as a
2nd lieutenant. He got his wings the

same week his son was born. We were
taught that when your husband becomes an

officer, you're an officer's wife. You do
not show any emotions when they go

overseas, you hold it back no matter what.
No crying. And we did that. It was tough.

But we did it.

From an Army of 300,000 in 1940, American
Armed Forces would swell to 15 million.

At the beginning of the war, there was
considerable fear that these hastily

assembled citizen soldiers could hold
their own against a highly trained and

heavily equipped enemy. News from the
front had not been good.

Three months after Pearl Harbor, the
Japanese had inflicted a series of

humiliating defeats on an America whose
confidence was shaken.

On February 23rd, 1942, the president
tried to calm and to rally a frightened

nation.

"This is war. The American people want to
know and will be told the general trend

of how the war is going."

The president had asked every American to
follow his speech on a map.

I had huge maps on my walls from the backs
of newspapers. I marked it with crayon and

I remember putting arrows and circling
towns.

We Americans have been compelled to yield
ground, but we will regain it...

I remember his confidence and the tone of
his voice and the closeness that you felt

to him. He was a beacon of light.

Oh boy, when he came on the radio.

"... we, not they, will win the final
battle..."

He had the capacity of moving us with
words of inspiring the country, lifting

the country to do more than it might do
otherwise.

"There is one thought for us here at home
... the fulfillment of our special tasks

of production. Uninterrupted productive."

Government films pounded home the fact
America not only had to supply its own

troops, but meet the needs of its allies
as well. Workers in cities across the

country responded.

During the war at night the mills would
be going full blast, and the sky would

pulse red with the glass furnaces going
on and we were told at school and we heard

on the radio and also on the newspapers.
Pittsburgh was helping to win the war.

In Detroit, it took just nine months to
convert the entire capacity of the

American automobile industry to war
production.

They dubbed Detroit as the arsenal of
democracy. The plants operated 24 hours

a day. Around the clock. You had bombers
coming off the line every five minutes.

Worked til they almost fall out, then
somebody takes your place. I was working

on the Jeeps. We sprayed the Jeeps with
this olive paint. Can you imagine

working 18 and 24 hours a day? Staying in
the shop. You run home and look at your

family and run back to the shop again.

With existing manpower strapped to the
limit, there was another pool of workers

ready to be tapped.

Factory owners were very reluctant to hire
women. They argued, they'll never be able

to learn how to operate these complex
machines, and if they come on to the

assembly line they'll distract the men,
productivity will go way down, and besides

they shouldn't leave their homes. It'll be
the end of the home and the family.

But then, by about 1942 or 1943 when so
many men were in the armed forces, they

had to turn to women. So suddenly the
whole attitude toward women coming to

work changed.

Between 1940 and 1944 the number of women
in war related industries rose 400% to a

high of 19,000,000 -- a full third of the
entire civilian workforce. Half of those

women were wives and mothers who had never
held jobs before.

... a nice lady who baked and cooked and
cleaned house and whacked her kids around

to make sure they stayed in line, and
suddenly she's running a machine at an

aircraft factory. She felt she needed to
do something.

I think there was an underlying
unexpressed kind of patriotism. Not the

kind that waves flags, but it was the kind
that loved our lives, that loved our

country, and we all worked for one reason:
to get those airplanes in the sky.

In Boeing's Seattle plant, half the
workers were women. In just 4 years, they

turned out over 12,000 B17 bombers.

They called it the "Flying Fortress Most
Awesome Plane." Oh, what a feeling of

accomplishment. Even if you only did the
riveting on part of it, it was -- they

couldn't have done it without you.

I became an ABS welder, top of the line.
I wore a leather suit. I had a helmet

with glasses through it. I pull this down
and I could see through the glass in the

helmet. I had an acetylene torch to join
pieces of steel together. I was

determined that I was going to build ships
to show Japan that we would hit back.

Thanks in large part to these women
workers, American factories turned out

4,000 tanks and 4,500 planes every month,
and ships which used to take one year to

assemble were now being completed in 17
days. Production expectations were not

only being met, they were being surpassed.

"The war years at home" said First Lady
Eleanor Roosevelt, "were no ordinary time

"and no time for weighing anything except
what we can best do for the country."

Beyond the sacrifices large and small
being asked of every American,

the social fallout from the war's demand
for men and material would change

America forever. The American family would
be restructured as mothers now left their

homes and children to do their part on
nation's assembly lines.

There was this thing called "The War
Effort" and it took on a life of its own.

You had to be doing something for the war
effort.

My father was an air-raid warden and when
Patrick Joseph Shine said

"I like Castle St." in his rich Irish
tenor voice "lights out,"

the goddamn lights went out all over the
neighborhood.

Hollywood stars left stateside did their
part too becoming pitchmen for war bonds.

Virtually everyone would do something for
the war effort and at the very least that

meant adjusting to the rationing of a slew
of items formally taken for granted.

There was gas rationing and you had either
A stickers or B stickers or C stickers

which you put in the windshield of your
car and it told how much gas you were

allowed.

Cut the use of your car. Save its tires by
driving slowly, and by driving less.

The President appealed to a national sense
of collective sacrifice, asking Americans

not only to do without, but to actively
collect the materials of war.

Turn in all the old rubber anywhere and
everywhere.

People sent in their rubber toys from
their dogs that had died with a letter

saying "this was Snuffy's favorite toy,
please contribute to the rubber scrap

dock." Women cut up their girdles and sent
them to Roosevelt personally. Kids would

gather up the rubber, gather up the
aluminum.

There were kids memories collecting tin
foil. Everyone felt that what they did

mattered, and that just was of - as I
reflect back on it - just inestimable

importance.

And so too were the news reels and the
propaganda films which united the

home front in its hatred of the enemy.

I remember going and seeing the news
reels, you know, cockadoodle doo and then

there you were in the war. I saw it all,
the invasion of Europe, Africa.

You'd go there and watch two and a half
hours of news reels.

It was wonderful. It was all bombs and
shells. You were immersed in it.

You had to hate the enemy. I mean, the
Germans were despicable.

The Japanese were indefensibly horrible.

All the soldiers of Japan toss Chinese
babies on their bayonets. Slaughtered the

Chinese people.

We knew that unless we were vigilant, it
could happen to us.

For these men would be committing these
same crimes today in San Francisco,

Chicago, or any town.

I was ten years old. To me, a 'Jap' was
a Jap, and the only good one was dead,

and I suspect that I pretty well reflected
most people in this country in their

response to the depiction of the Japanese.

The American government's portrayal of the
Japanese was as if they were cockroaches.

Monkeys. Beast. Subhuman.

The fear and loathing of the Japanese
brought on by Pearl Harbor had

immediate and drastic consequences for
Japanese Americans.

Notices were posted on the telephone poles
saying that all persons of Japanese

ancestry were to be removed by such and
such date.

It was a sickening feeling. We were
quaking in our boots not knowing what

was going to happen to us.

What happened was executive order 906,
which mandated that all Japanese

Americans be removed from the West Coast
of the United States, where it was feared

they might assist any invading force from
Japan.

In 1941, one of my classmates was George
Mirikami and his little brother Roy was

at school when we did the school play.
I played Thomas Jefferson and George

Mirikami played George Washington and we
wore the white wigs and did the patriotic

speeches, and two weeks later, George
Mirikami and Roy were taken off to the

camp for the Japanese.

Some 120,000 Japanese Americans were taken
from their homes and businesses and sent

by rail to ten internment camps around the
country.

Everybody was beginning to settle down on
the train, and all of the sudden, I saw

my dad and he is a very unemotional man,
a gentle man, but I saw him take out this

hanky and go like this. It just
overwhelmed me, just crushed me to

think that he was taking it so hard. It
was called Heart Mountain, Wyoming, and

that was our camp. It had barbed wire all
around, and those camps, desolate,

and no sign of any beauty, life, green,
anything at all. Just total absence of

everything.

One of the few government officials who
objected to the internment of Japanese

Americans was FBI Director J. Edgar
Hoover. He said the camps were the

unnecessary result of war time hysteria.

The fact that we were going to be
incarcerated in these camps is a

devastating feeling.

These images are from home movies taken
by Japanese Americans forcibly held in the

camps. They reveal glimpses of what
historians would later call one of the

greatest civil rights violations in all of
American History.

While defense plants were running around
the clock during the war, so were the USO

dance halls.

I was in Seattle, Port of Embarkation. We
were up to our ears in men.

All of the services came through there on
their way to wherever they were going.

We had a great time. If they couldn't
dance, we taught them, and if we didn't

know their steps, they taught us. We knew
those guys were on their way overseas.

This was gonna be, maybe, their last big
party.

The departure of so many men changed the
normal rhythms and patterns of American

social life. For teenage girls, those
changes often meant growing up

very quickly.

Teenage girls were more precociously
sexual in some ways in the 40's than

they'd been in the 30's, in part because
their young boyfriends were going off

to the war and they might never see them
again.

One young man who was not away kept out
of the service by a broken eardrum would

begin a career about now that remained a
social phenomenon for half a century.

They were able to project some of that
newfound sensuality onto this Frank

Sinatra character who came emerging on the
scene. He came at exactly the right moment

to become such a cultural figure.

He was an idol. I mean, he was my
heartthrob, my swoon man, everything.

I was a true bobby-sock screamer.

The men at the time were less enamored
with Sinatra. The Army newspaper

Stars and Stripes observed: "Mice make
women scream too."

For young boys on the homefront, all the
heroes were in uniform.

I remember being jealous that I didn't
have an older brother. I remember seeing

these kids coming to school with patches
on their jackets that their brothers had

sent them, and souvenirs that they had
sent from overseas and I felt deprived

because I didn't have an older brother who
would send me patches and send me

souvenirs and send me a German helmet.
We'd lived for the war movies and we

fought that war in the East End Theater
and the Plaza Theater and the Lakewood

Theater.

We'd go to Saturday cereals and at that
time there were a lot of war movies,

like Wake Island.

Anything from So Proudly We Hail, to the
Purple Heart, to Operation Berma...

You got fired up in the movies. I remember
once during the movie called "Rataan" we

were losing badly. I think Robert Taylor
was trying to hold the Japanese back and

he couldn't, and Lefty Brosnan, one of the
kids in the neighborhood stood up and

through a golf ball at the screen to try
to stem the Japanese onslaught, and all

he did was mess up the screen for the rest
of the war because it had a big patch in

it that you could always see there. That
was Lefty's patch. We played "war"

constantly. We made our own rifles out of
wooden boards. We made machine guns out

of fence posts. Cutting down the enemy,
but we had no concept - absolutely

none, nor did most of our parents of
absolutely how brutal it was.

Families on the home front weren't likely
to get much of the truth about the war

from the letters that GIs wrote home.

What they were doing was assuring their
people that they were okay, not in any

danger - usually an intense lie. They were
"going to win the war very soon"

and "please send dry socks" and things
like that. But nobody ever told the truth.

You know, "I am sick to death of this,"

"I think I'm going to have a breakdown,"

"I think I'm going to go mad." You didn't
say that kinda thing because if would have

bothered the recipient.

American soldiers were fighting and
dying on 3 continents. There had been

victorious but costly battles in the
Pacific, North Africa, and Italy. By the

end of 1943, American casualties had
surpassed 100,000.

People with fathers or brothers or sons
in combat were always conscious that

someday that knock on the door and the
Western Union man would be there with

a telegram, you know, with the bad news.

Every time the doorbell rang and I didn't
know anybody was coming, you're sitting

there "is this my telegram?" you know, and
finally it came.

We just couldn't believe it. They were
coming back from Berlin. As they were

getting closer to England, like under
Benthy, Germany, they were hit by flack,

and they shot the plane down. Officers
had to wait to jump before the other

fellas jumped out, so he was about one of
the last ones out.

He jumped and his parachute never opened.

He was too close to the ground.

Out of ten men, three of them came back.

My whole world ended. It was appalling.

We were proud, I still am.

This was increasingly familiar on the
homefront: the gold stars placed in the

windows of the families who had lost a
loved one.

The realization that this was not fun
anymore came to us when kids in the

neighborhood started dying in the war.
Two brothers of two of my classmates

died in that war. Jack Callahan being one
of them, and Jimmy Worcomski being

the other. It was a small neighborhood and
it was a small parish. So, then I found

myself being thankful that I didn't have
a brother who was at risk. That I wouldn't

have to sit with my mother while she
wept in the church while they played tabs

and folded a flag and gave it to her.

As the death toll rose, so did American
resolve. With the fighting entering its

third year, the homefront was anxious for
a deciding battle, one that would end the

war and stop the killing.

By the spring of 1944, the homefront was
obsessed with the questions as to when and

where the war's decisive battle would take
place.

I remember my great uncle's wheat farm
'cause there were ten of them,

and I remember them all coming and being
around literally the apple barrel and

eating pickles and having toothpicks and
having a map of the war and figuring what

the next move is going to be. Those were
big meetings.

The next move under the direction of
General Dwight D. Eisenhower would be the

largest military operation in US history.

Hundreds of ships, thousands of planes
produced on the American homefront

would transport American and other Allied
soldiers across the English channel

to the French beaches of Normandy. The
invasion the world had been waiting for

began in the quiet early hours of June the
6th, 1944.

It was called D-Day and it was a bold
gamble that even if successful would have

an enormous cost in lives.

It was a wonderful moment of national
unity when Franklin Roosevelt read

a prayer that had been printed in the
afternoon editions of the newspaper

so people could pray along with it. The
impulse to pray was just overwhelming.

The churches were filled from sea to
shining sea from the Gulf of Mexico to the

Arctic Ocean, the church bells clanged and
people were in the pews praying.

Oh, it was a very big event.

The country had pulled itself together to
make this invasion possible, and it was

the great achievement of the American
Republic in the first half of the 20th

century, the D-Day invasion, and it was
treated as such here in this country.

Blasting big headlines, second-front:
"D-Day Invasion", it meant we were now

invading the European continent, and it
was the beginning of the end.

Indeed, it was. The Allies were now
fighting their way across France, and just

two months after D-Day, Paris was
liberated.

With national spirits lifted, FDR, who'd
already won an unprecedented third

term, began campaigning for yet a fourth.

I don't want to exaggerate the amount that
we depended on Roosevelt, but from

a child's point of view, he was very much
a part of the celestial furniture; there

was god at the top level and then
Roosevelt.

The coming election temporarily distracted
Americans from events overseas.

Republican opponents spread rumors of
Roosevelt's failing health, but when he

answered charges that he'd sent a Navy
cruiser to retrieve his dog,

Roosevelt seemed in top form.

These Republican leaders have not been
content with attacks on me or my wife

or on my sons. Now, not content with that,
they now include my little dog Fallon.

People in the know, of course, knew how
sick he was, and I suppose anybody with

eyes could have seen in the last campaign
that this was a very unhealthy man, but

Roosevelt had broken so many laws in a way
already of limits, of human limits,

that - god, that he would actually die was
fairly shocking.

The shock came on April the 12th, 1945.
While Roosevelt was posing for this

portrait at his retreat in Warmsprings,
Georgia.

It was a real, real, real sad day. I seen
guys just - men just break down in tears

right at the machine when the news came in
that he had died.

You could see the impact that his life had
made on the American people when that

famous train ride took place from
Warmsprings, Georgia to

Washington, DC. Hundreds of thousands of
people came out just to watch his body

go by on the train. Simply, as a tribute
to the fact that this man had been their

leader through the two greatest crises of
their lives, the Depression and then the

War itself.

That was the most mournful period that I'd
ever seen. No hero that I knew of in

America -- I think it touched Americans
so much. I mean, I saw my mother crying,

my father was weeping. It was a tragedy
for everybody.

When Franklin Roosevelt died, it was as
if the presidency had died because

we had never known another president. He'd
been president all my life, and I just

assumed he'd always be president. It was
shattering.

Of course, I was very sorry when he died,
but I didn't burst into tears.

It didn't bother me as much as it bothered
some people who didn't exist in an

atmosphere of death as I did. For me, the
war was about death and hundreds and

hundreds of thousands of people important
and unimportant were being killed all

the time. He was just another casualty to
me.

The weighty burdens and responsibilities
of the presidency fell to Harry Truman,

who had been vice president for only 82
days. To stunned and confused

Americans who thought of Roosevelt as a
father, the new president was, at best,

a distant uncle.

"I wish that Franklin D. Roosevelt had
lived to see this day..."

Truman had a chance to inspire some
confidence when less than a month after

Roosevelt died, he announced Germany's
surrender.

"Much remains to be done. The victory won
in the west must now be won in the east."

A series of valiant American victories
seemed to promise that the end might

finally be near.

Japan knew Japan was defeated, and we knew
Japan was defeated, the question was,

would they surrender? And the Japanese
did not surrender, and the closer we got

to the mainland islands of Japan, the
higher the price became in blood.

Suicidal Kamikaze attacks suggested to
Americans that the enemy would fight

until the bitter end. In July of 1945, the
Allies met at Putstan, and they issued

an ultimatum to Japan: unconditional
surrender, or utter destruction. As they

spoke, millions of troops were gathering
for the final assault on the Japanese

homeland.

I was in deep despair and regarded myself
on say, August 1st, 1945, I regarded

myself as dead already. I knew I was going
to be killed.

Paul Fossil, who had been wounded in
Europe and patched up to fight again,

was one of a million Americans preparing
to attack Japan.

I knew that I'd be running up the beach at
Kiwashu. It was all planned; my division

was to be in the first wave. I couldn't
avoid being killed forever.

As troops in the Pacific awaited their
orders, a bomber named

"The Enola Gay" took off from the island
took off from the island of Tianjin.

President Truman hoped it was on a mission
that would end the war. The plane

carried a new weapon that was the result
of the most secret home front defense

project; for 4 years, 160,000 people had
labored at 37 sites, most of them unaware

of the magnitude of what they were working
on. On July the 12th, the weapon was

tested. The decision to use it came less
than a month later.

It was a decision made by the people who
also did not understand the magnitude

of what they had. Who could? We were at
war, and we were fighting an enemy

who had not shown any inclination toward
mercy whatsoever, and we wanted the

killing to stop. Truman said "I dropped
the bomb. I made the decision to stop

the war."

On August the 6th, The Enola Gay's mission
was to drop the new bomb on the

Japanese city of Hiroshima.

I remember hearing on the radio that an
atom bomb had been dropped, and in

my head, I spelled it A-D-A-M, and
wondered what is this Adam bomb?

And why is it so powerful?

The world had never seen anything like
it. A single bomb that could level

an entire city. 3 days later, a second
atom bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.

The almost inconceivable idea of Japanese
surrender was now suddenly at hand.

The news came on August the 15th, 1945:
Japan had surrendered.

I was at Fort Dix, New Jersey, thrilled
that the war was over, that I wouldn't

have to fight. They were going to send me
to machine gun school, but there was

nobody to machine gun anymore.

It was awesome. It was crazy. Everyone was
screaming and laughing and yelling and

it was wonderful. The war was over. Done.
Finished. We won.

We were so happy. I had to retire to my
little tent, close the curtain, and just

sit there and cry for several hours. Very
powerful emotional feeling to be

redeemed from certain death into life
again.

I was glad it was over. I didn't go
downtown or anything like that.

For me, it was over a long time ago,
right?

292,000 Americans paid for democracy's
victory with their lives.

The 11 million veterans who did return
came home to an America seemingly

untouched by war. Except for one thing:
America's pre-war innocence and

naivety had disappeared.

The day that the Japanese surrendered, I
remember going next to our next door

neighbor's to Mrs. Laceto and I said:
"Mrs. Laceto, the war is over. The

Japanese have surrendered." And she threw
up in the kitchen window and said:

"Yeah, the next one will be with Russia,"
that was the conversation!

In the sweet afterglow of victory, few
could have imagined that peace indeed

would be very short-lived.

America's returning veterans and their
families would forge a prosperity the

likes of which the world had never seen.

That's on the next episode of The Century:
America's Time.

I'm Peter Jennings. Thank you for joining
us.