Reading:
“Pearl
Harbor was presented to the American public as a sudden, shocking, immoral
act. Immoral it was, like any
bombing—but not sudden or shocking to the American government
So
long as Japan remained a well-behaved member of that imperial club of Great
Powers who—in keeping with the Open Door Policy—were sharing the exploitation
of China, the United States did not object.
It had exchanged notes with Japan in 1917 saying “the Government of the
United States recognizes that Japan has special interest in China.” In 1928, according
to Akira Iriye (After Imperialism),
American consuls in China supported the coming of Japanese troops. It was when Japan threatened potential U.S.
markets by its attempted takeover of China, but especially as it moved toward
the tin, rubber, and oil of Southeast Asia, that the United States became
alarmed and took those measures which led to the Japanese attack: a total embargo on scrap iron, a total
embargo on oil in the summer of 1941.”
From
A People’s History of the United States,
1492—Present, Howard Zinn, pgs. 410,411.
Sermon: December 7, 1941, A Memoir
by Shirley Rickett
Memory
is an elusive spell, especially the ones attached to childhood. Sometimes we clutch at a vivid memory, so
clear and precise it becomes lived again.
And sometimes we can only grasp for scenes, words, colors, the dress we
wore, the shirt we had on, as we look to regain the essence of some experience.
On December 7, 1941, I was seven years,
4 months old.
I
don’t remember the actual radio address by President Roosevelt when he asked
Congress to declare war on Japan. I do
remember marching around the backyard the spring of 1942 with a parade of
neighbor kids. The leader was singing, a
popular patriotic song, “Let’s remember Pearl Harbor, and go on to
vic-to-ree.” I was all for patriotism
but didn’t have a clue what Pearl Harbor meant. “Please,” I asked politely of the firebrand leader,
“What did Pearl die of?”
My
Uncle John, the closest relative to a grandfather for the early years of my
life, was said to have fought in World War I.
He was my father’s mentor, and one time, he held out an oval buckle,
silver.
“It says something in German here,” he
said. “Translated it means ‘In God we
trust.’ Can you believe that? They
believed in God.”
He produced a German Luger, a handgun which
made me recoil. My father was excited to
hold and examine it. “And you took these
off the body of a dead German soldier.” My
father was creating the battlefield, the smell of smoke and my uncle bending
over a body. My uncle nodded.
“A dead man?
You took this from a dead man?” I was aghast.
“Well,
yes. It was war, you see. Kill or be killed. You didn’t have time to shake hands first and
ask after the family.” The adults continued talking. It was decided that, well, maybe they (the
Germans) really did believe in God.
Late
at night, past my bedtime: But I had a
habit of sneaking out of bed to listen to adult conversation. I wanted to know
what the people I loved had to say after the bath, after the good-night kisses,
after the nightly prayer in which I tried to remember everyone in my life. My
father, my uncle, a neighbor or two were talking about the new war. The women were present but didn’t say much.
“What
happens if we don’t hold back the Germans and the Japs? Do you think it would come to an invasion
here, on our shores?” Then my father’s
voice: “I would take care of my family
and then myself if they were to invade us.
I would rather see us all dead than live under them.”
I
was chilled to my bones as the realization crept into my skin that my father
was talking about killing his family and himself.
The
war effort went into full swing faster than anyone could have imagined. America had been in a mode of
isolationism. Germany was quite busy
invading surrounding countries, rounding up Jews and building concentration
camps by 1941. Great Britain was attacked
by Germany, and we were still not in it.
Even after the disastrous attack on what little Navy we had, there were still
challenges in getting the groaning machine of a nation at peace to one in at
war. Finally in 1942, after weathering
increasing criticism, President Roosevelt established the War Production Board
(WPB) with real power to control and coordinate the national economy for the
war effort. Automobile plants had been
operating at 50 per cent. Through a wide
range of incentives for producing war goods and converting factories to an all-out
mobilization, FDR moved forward. Soon
items like refrigerators, bicycles, and waffle irons became largely out of
production for the duration of the war. Automobile
plants were converted to the production of jeeps, airplanes, tanks, and
guns. Never before had our nation been
so unified. From families, and youths,
down to elementary school age children, a complete sense of purpose was formed
and felt.
In
the spring of 1941, FDR created the Office of Civilian Defense. The goal was to
channel the efforts of Americans on the home front into needed work ranging
from conducting air raid drills to salvaging scrap metal. Pearl Harbor had brought the possibility of
invasion more clearly to the imagination of Americans.
In
our neighborhood, the Northeast part of Kansas City, there was a large
plant. At one time, when I was around 3,
it had been a retail warehouse. My uncle
John took me there to shop and bought for me a pair of patent leather shoes.
Now it was 1942, and that old building came
alive as a defense plant. My mother went
to work there. It was a job outside the
home many women took on as men and boys were drafted or enlisted. Young guys 16 and 17 lied about their age and
when found out, worked on their parents until they signed for them. At that
time, there was no 8th grade, and high school graduates were young
as 16, and many went from receiving a diploma to enlist.
It
was also the beginning of a consciousness raising among women that culminated
for some in finding themselves in the fifties, still in the kitchen making
coffee during the civil rights movement, instead of being part of the decision-making.
After working at jobs men used to do, and being an integral part of the war
effort, women had had a taste of participation in a war economy. They had taken off their aprons and now there
was no going back.
The
classification, 4F was the only
deferment for men, or if a man was married, he was further down the list. If married with children, at the bottom of the
list with the draft board in the beginning.
Later on, married men with families were needed.
One
of the best films ever produced that depicted what happened to military men and
women and those on the homefront post- WW II is The Best Years of Our Lives.
Better by far than Tom Brokaw’s The
Greatest Generation.
“Vee,”
(my mother’s nickname) “did you know that Carlas missed work again today? That’s two days this week.” My aunt who worked at the defense plant with
my mother was upset.
“I
know,” my mother said quietly. Carlas
was my cousin and half the neighborhood worked at the defense plant. “And I heard a guy at work the other day, who
gave a pep talk to our division.” My
aunt was bristling. “He pointed out how
missing a day of work leads to lowered production, which can actually mean the
death of a soldier or a soldier short of a parachute. I don’t see why he can’t understand
that.”
“I
know,” said my mother.
At
school we were encouraged to bring tin foil, from cigarette packages, candy and
gum wrappers, twine in a ball, string,
and any salvaged metal we could find. To
buy a US Treasury bond was the ultimate investment in our future. Later in the forties, butter, coffee,
bananas, tea, red, meat, and gasoline were rationed. You got a book with ration stamps in it. You could get your allotment if you could
find what you wanted, and then you were done for a stated amount of time.
At
the Stover Lane Studio of the dance, I learned patriotic songs and dances. On the wall in the outer office, a poster or
two were plastered for us to see at every lesson. “Loose talk sinks ships” spoke one.
“ And what does your Daddy do?” A teenage girl had cozied up to me. I was
puzzled by her interest.
“He
works in a defense plant.”
“And
what does he do in the defense plant?”
“He
guards it. He wears a uniform and he
carries a gun.”
“Really! And what’s the name of the defense plant?”
“Well,
it used to be Buick-Oldsmobile-Pontiac, but now it’s a defense plant. He worked for plant protection before the war
and now he’s a guard.”
She
drew herself up to her full height. I
was really short at 9.
“Do
you see that poster over there?” She
stabbed the air with her finger. “Loose talk is just what you have let loose to
me.”
“Are
you a spy?” I was not the least bit
sarcastic. Just curious.
“What
if someone who WAS a spy asked you those questions and you gave out all of that
information? Don’t you know that could
lead saboteurs to your dad?”
Suddenly I saw my dad knocked out and his keys
taken from him. No, he pulled a gun on
the saboteurs and they got it away from him and then tortured him until he told
them how the guns were made and where the airplanes were. I must have looked horrified because my inquisitor
softened and told me it was OK, but that I should remember loose lips, sink
ships.
Americans
didn’t have to experience firebombing like London did. Goerring and his Luftwaffe came up with
firebombs that melted asphalt pavement along with anything else they hit. People would get their feet stuck in the hot
melting pavement if they survived the actual bomb. We heard about suffering we could only
imagine. Rationing in this country was
an inconvenience compared to the deprivations of the British people. It was either through school or community
that we sent tins of foodstuffs and blankets and anything to brighten their
days.
My
uncle, my mother’s brother either enlisted or was drafted. He lived in Kentucky. After boot camp, (a
scant six weeks) we all piled into cars and went to Kentucky to see him before
he left for his first assignment overseas. He had leave, and maybe his last for a long
while. We brought his tearful new bride
home with us and my dad found her an apartment and a job. Then another uncle, youngest of nine from my
mother’s family, enlisted in the marines.
And cousin Carlas joined the Air Force. That meant we could hang three little
flags each with a blue star in our windows at home. If your loved one in the
armed forces died, you hung a gold star in the window.
The
war was not going very well for Americans.
By 1943 we were at war with Japan, Germany, and Italy. Tojo, (Emperor Hirohito) and Hitler, and
Mussolini were termed the evil Axis.
They had joined forces against the West, against us, against
America. We were building a Navy, an Air
Force, an Army, almost from scratch while our enemies had been mobilizing for
war for years. Neighbors began to report
where their sons and daughters were, vague indications like he’s somewhere in
Africa, she’s headed for the Pacific.
In
the Pacific, we heard of one island after another that fell to the Japanese
after bitter battles and great losses. I
learned the names of foreign places I hadn’t known existed. Just the sound of some of the names of places
that “fell,” left me with a solid weight in my chest … Corregidor, Guam, Iwo
Jima, Sumatra … as we listened to news on radio and in the movie newsreels
after the feature film. In the movie houses, when the Americans scored a victory,
people cheered and clapped. Men and
women, but mostly men in uniform were everywhere. In Union Station, on buses,
in the movie houses, walking down the street, at USO dances. People smiled and greeted them. Kids, my dad would say. They’re just kids.
Around
the corner from the shoe repair shop where my father worked sometimes 12 hours
a day, was what we called the local hamburger joint. My dad would take me there for lunch
sometimes and I would squeak the round stools in front of the counter by turning
them as fast as possible, one after another.
I was strongly encouraged to stop.
Leonard would always tease me by quoting Wimpy from the funny
papers. “If you’ll give me a hamburger
today, I will pay you on Tuesday.” Is
that what you want, he would ask me while he slyly slipped me a burger.
One
day my aunt and I went by there to see Hattie and Leonard, the owners. My aunt
was grim because she had heard some terrible news. We entered and I headed for the stools but
stopped when I saw Hattie slumped in a booth. I had never seen her sitting down
in their place of business. Leonard was behind
the counter looking gray. There were only a couple of customers in the
place. They had gotten the dreaded
telegram. Their son had died at Anzio in Italy. My aunt tried some words of
comfort, then we left to report to my parents.
I had never known such sadness in my short life.
It
was the movies that helped me survive the war the most. Film after film about fifth columnists,
saboteurs, spies, and combat, lots of combat.
Sometimes we won and sometimes we lost.
But we always knew we would come back and win. But most of all, I could fall in love with
the wives and daughters on the homefront in England and America, and experience
the grip of the war, or the explosion of a bomb, and in Great Britain, Greer
Garson walking into her kitchen to find a German soldier looking for food.
Tom
Brokow called the people of that time, “The Greatest Generation.” It did seem like a justified war. We were defending ourselves. We had been attacked. But war is war. Now we fight impersonal wars with computers
and drones. More troops dispatched to
Iraq, to wherever, and we are shielded from the blood, the mangled bodies, the
dead children, the grieving families, and our fallen coming home. We isolate
ourselves with tv, and jobs, and i-pads and phones. Distance.
So often we know little of our neighbors, where they work, how they
struggle, what they dream. Sound bite
news and Facebook entries, keep us in touch, we say.
In
my childhood neighborhood, I encountered racism, brotherhood, customs,
traditions, family life different from mine, and I knew everyone, every small
business owner like my dad. I knew them and their children by name. We went to school together, we played
together, and our parents knew one another.
Our corner business area was like a family of small business owners. Our
parents were a little suspicious of chains like Milgram’s or Katz drug store
although many of our friends and neighbors worked there. I miss that warm sense of community. Sometimes I long for it, and the teachers who
were a force in my life, who really knew me and even visited my house at my request.
I
know that many of the movies were propaganda.
But I also know of a man I met through my teacher union, NEA. He was Italian and during WW II, the fascists
took over the schools and proceeded to literally brainwash students. He said it took him years to understand what
had happened to him. The process was a
slow, creeping paralysis and now he was a leader in our education association. His
specialized area was grievances.
I’d
like to close with a couple of poems on some of the subjects covered here.
For
these two short poems, imagine that you are in an art gallery viewing and
experiencing paintings.
Eternal People
Often
the smaller paintings hold them
as
they stand in coarse muslin
and
old shoes near a bowl of fruit.
They
bear the look of those accustomed
to sun, to the
purpose of the day,
and
the eyes hold you
in
a spell of constancy, a fullness ripe
as pears in the
bowl, the dim lit room.
If you look away
they will go back
to
what they were doing.
*First appeared in Antietam
Review.
“Eyes Wide Open”
The name of a national exhibit of boots from dead
soldiers who served in Iraq
that soon became confined to state exhibits due to
increasing numbers.
We arrive at the park early and wait for the van with boots.
They come in plastic bins, boys’ boots, men’s boots
with tags, names alphabetical, then town and state.
Some bear daisies or sunflowers stuck inside
that bump against the leather..
Letters and poems dangle from laces.
I read one dead man’s thoughts, his life in Iraq,
his daily agony, his hopes and fears, stare at
the photo of him in fatigues kissing his baby.
Where sorrow and grief live and resist,
more must be endured.
We set out the boots,
measure with yardsticks one yard apart both ways,
but the boots are different sizes like unruly boys.
Bend,
measure, place, adjust. Order—we must
have it
in death if not in life.
Our director repeats the exhibit
in towns all over the state:
The rows must be precise.
She struggles with angles, with volunteers.
Just eyeball it she
tells me after we shift a row
for the fourth time, after we all join her angst
to get it right, get this one honor right.
The soldiers stand at attention, ancient and worn
with eyes wide open, blinded by history and war.
The rows of boots tremble in a triangle on the green.
Next to them a jazz band unloads at the outdoor stage.
“Eternal
People,” and “’Waiting’” from Dinner in Oslo, Shirley Rickett,
Aardvark Global Publishing, 2008.
No comments:
Post a Comment