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December 7, 1941: This Day in Pittsburgh

DECEMBER 7, 1941: This Day in Pittsburgh

Everyone alive on this day would remember what they were doing when hearing the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Just as future generations would remember where they were on November 22, 1963, and September 11, 2001.

The Japanese Attack

On this Sunday morning, Japanese bombers under the command of Mitsuo Fuchida were approaching Hawaii’s Hickam Field, a few miles from Pearl Harbor and heading directly for “Battleship Row”.
At 0753 hours, in the skies over Hawaii (1:23PM Pittsburgh) Fuchida sang out, “Tora! Tora! Tora!” - Code words which told the entire Japanese Navy that they caught the United States Pacific Fleet unaware.
At 1:47PM that afternoon Navy Secretary Frank Knox calls and informs President Roosevelt of the ongoing attack.
At 2:05PM President Roosevelt calls Secretary of State Cordell Hull and tells him not to say anything about Pearl Harbor when he receives the Japanese envoys, Nomura and Kurusu, who were to break off diplomatic negotiations, but arrived about an hour later than planned.
At 2:20PM Admiral Nomura, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States, and special envoy Kurusu delivered a letter to Secretary of State Cordell Hull. Nomura and Kurusu leave Cordell Hull's office. At this moment bombs from the second wave of attack have begun falling on Pearl Harbor. This second attack would last until 3:15PM.
At 2:26PM New York radio station WOR interrupted their coverage of the New York Giants vs. Brooklyn Dodgers football game. The brief broadcast is linked below
At 3:00PM in Pittsburgh, some 2,800 people were at the Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall in Oakland to attend an America First Committee rally against American involvement in the European war.
Over the next hour further news interruptions of the Japanese attack would occur on radio stations across the country as events were unfolding rapidly. Pittsburgh residents listening to their radios in the middle of this chilly Sunday afternoon would receive the grave news first on WCAE 1250-AM.

Pittsburgh: America First Committee Rally

A lesser known historic event took place that Sunday afternoon at the Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall in the Oakland section of the city. Those inside the solemn war memorial on this gray Sunday afternoon had come to attend a large antiwar meeting on the theme of “Christianity and Intervention”-- an America First Committee rally against American involvement in the European war.
The hall was filled to capacity, decked out in red, white and blue bunting, and "Defend America First" placards. "Defend America First" was the foremost non-interventionist group against American entry into World War II. Those who attended the meeting that afternoon carried their American flags to “demonstrate their Americanism” even though they opposed the policies of their president.
The advertised speakers for that afternoon were Senator Gerald Nye, Republican from North Dakota and prominent isolationist; a Pennsylvania state senator, and a celebrity dancer and animal rights activist. On the walls behind the speakers, inscribed with Lincoln's words from the Gettysburg Address, were the groups’ large placards saying "NO WAR".
The rally started at 3:00PM. The animal rights activist spoke first and she told the story of how her husband had died in the First World War and said that she did not want her son to also die in war. The state senator, C. Hale Sipe, spoke next and attacked the president saying that Roosevelt was trying to make everything Russian appealing to the United States, and that he, Roosevelt, was the chief war-maker in the United States. A white-haired man sitting in the back with his wife began calling out from the floor to get the speakers attention. The shouting man seemed to be a foreigner…his broken English gave the impression that he was an agitator. Get out, you don’t belong here, the crowd shouted. The ushers being prepared for such disturbers, “took him out.” It turned out that the "foreign agitator" was a colonel in the U.S. Army. Colonel Enrique Urrutia Jr. was chief of the Second Military Area of the Organized Reserve. He was trying to tell the speakers on the stage about the Japanese attack that had just taken place that morning on Hawaii which had rendered all their talk about keeping the United States out of war irrelevant.
After Colonel Urrutia had been escorted from the hall, C. Hale Sipe continued his political attacks, describing Wendell Willkie, the 1940 Republican presidential nominee, as the mouthpiece of Roosevelt and that Secretary of War Henry Stimson slept at cabinet meetings.
America First then passed their collection basket, asking for a dollar from each person.
Senator Gerald Nye of North Dakota would now speak at the rally. The meeting had started at 3:00PM, just early enough that most of the 2,800 people in attendance had not heard the radio flashes about the attack in Hawaii.
But the speakers knew the truth - “prior to the meeting, newsmen had rushed up to them with press association and radio flashes and had quizzed them for reactions that were guarded and cautious”… If Japan attacked, there is nothing left for congress but to declare war, said Senator Nye. It wouldn’t change my non-interventionist opinions materially on the European war.
It was now 4:50PM and for nearly two hours the first two speakers had denounced America, knowing, but not acknowledging, that America had been attacked. Senator Nye now also ignored the news, as if nothing happened, and went ahead with his speech.
Nye was good at stirring up the crowd, starting with Never, never, never again must America be let herself made a monkey of as she was 25 years ago? He asked the crowd, whose war is this?... Roosevelt's war, was the well-rehearsed response.
The senator continued to denounce President Roosevelt as a warmonger, denouncing the church for condoning the war against Hitler, said America was fighting Britain’s war. He went on to condemn the draft.
Finally at 5:20PM a reporter walked to the stage and handed a note to the United States Senator stating that “Japan had now formally declared war on the United States of America”. Senator Nye read it to himself but continued speaking with his impassioned anti-war rhetoric. He talked about giving away the ships despite laws forbidding it...Treason, yelled some of the American Firsters in the audience. Cries for impeach him followed from the riled up crowd.
Finally, Nye acknowledged the message that had been given to him 15 minutes earlier… I have received the worst news that I have encountered in the last twenty years to report this afternoon. He then read the reporter's note aloud. The audience was stunned and an excited murmur swept through the packed hall. I can't somehow believe this, said Nye. I can't come to any conclusion until I know what this is all about. I want to find out what's behind it. Senator Nye continued his rant on criticizing the administration, accusing the government of doing its utmost to provoke a quarrel at every turn... our negotiators denied the Japanese representatives a chance to save their face, charged Senator Nye. Suspicion and skepticism about the media, and its collusion with the Roosevelt administration were an integral part of isolationist politics.
The bitter debate between the Roosevelt Administration and the isolationists ended on December 7, 1941 when the Japanese attacked the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. The Japanese carrier attack was a stunning military success, crippling the fleet. It was, however, one of the great strategic miscalculations in history. The American people overnight were galvanized into a formidable national consensus to wage war. Democratic Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana, a strong isolationist and spearhead of congressional opposition to President Roosevelt, said the Japanese bombs dropped at Pearl Harbor mean war and we'll have to see it through. The next day, Senator Nye would join the rest of the Senate in voting for a unanimous declaration of war.
The Pittsburgh Chapter of the America First Committee was officially disbanded later that night.

Rush to Colors

Late that Sunday night in Pittsburgh, the Navy and Marine recruiting offices at the Old Post Office building on Smithfield Street opened at 11:30PM.
Robert W. Taylor, a “twenty year old Negro” from Webster Avenue, was the first to enroll. I wouldn’t mind going tonight and get it over with, he said.
By 3:00AM thirty-five men had applied for enlistment in the Marines. The numbers grew with time. Most were young. If their bodies were good and strong, they were accepted. Some were too old and turned down, temporarily. Eleven youths offered their services to the Navy. By mid-morning 25 to 30 young men were filling out applications or being examined by a physician. One man told the marine recruiter that he had “lung adhesions" and that he had two or three years to live. He said I haven't got much more time. So I'd like to fight the Japs, if you'll take me.
The Army recruiting office opened at 8:00AM on Monday morning. In the first two hours more than 100 men had applied.
Charles Will of 43rd Street ln Pittsburgh, a father of three, made the rounds of recruiting stations but was refused by the Army, Navy and Marine Corp because he had a wife and three small children.
Albert Crawford grew up on the North Side of Pittsburgh in a family of seven children. He had dropped out of Oliver High School to join the Civilian Conservation Corps to help support his family. On this day in 1941, the 17-year-old heard radio reports about the attack on Pearl Harbor and asked his dad whether he could join the service. Yes. That’s one less mouth to feed, his father replied. Albert Crawford devoted the next four decades of his life serving his country. In May 2013, Mr. Crawford received the French Legion of Honor medal for his contributions in the liberation of France from Germany.
On that first day after the attack, nearly 1,400 Western Pennsylvanians volunteered for military service. “Marine Corps physicians gave physical examinations to 140 of the 410 who sought service and passed 38 of them... The volunteers included dozens above the age limits, or who were married and needed permission from their wives before they could be accepted.”
The first American casualties of the attacks in Hawaii were revealed by the Navy Department on December 8th. Among those informed were the parents of Private George G. Leslie, whose son was killed in the Japanese attacks. Pvt. Leslie, from Arnold in Westmoreland County, was a member of the U.S. Air Corp and was the first Pittsburgh District causality of the war. Unfortunately, this notice would be repeated to thousands of parents over the next four years.
On Tuesday, December 9th, Allegheny County’s first contingent of 178 Army draftees left Pittsburgh to report for service in Ft. Meade, Maryland or New Cumberland, Pennsylvania. One of those men was Harry G. Aites of Braddock. Private Aites would serve in the Army’s Tenth Field Artillery Battalion, 29th Division, and was part of the D-Day Invasion at Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. Private Aites was killed-in-action at Brest, France, on September 10, 1944. He was survived by his parents, three brothers and six sisters. Private Aites was later buried at All Saints, Braddock Catholic Cemetery in 1948.

Arsenal of Democracy

After word came of the Japanese attack, extra armed-guards, police and FBI agents were being concentrated at every major defense plant in the Pittsburgh district. City officials "ordered out 150 additional policeman last night and another 250 were added today". Extraordinary precautions were being taken to protect this key industrial center against sabotage as a result of the declaration of war. The Pittsburgh district was a significant center of the public/private effort to convert production from civilian to military goods, expending $511 million on plant expansion during the war, the sixth largest total of the fifteen leading industrial centers in the country. More than $200 million worth of war materials were being built in Pittsburgh mills and factories.
Some of the principal defense plants in the Pittsburgh area on alert included Carnegie-Illinois Steel (U. S. Steel subsidiary), Jones & Laughlin Steel Aliquippa Works, Dravo Corporation, U. S. Steel's American Bridge Company, Mesta Machine in Homestead, Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing in East Pittsburgh, Mine Safety Appliances, and Heppenstall Company in Lawrenceville where my father worked.
To put the need for increased materials production into perspective, consider the inventory of Germany’s arsenal with that of the United States and its allies in 1940. In the spring of that year Germans Blitzkrieg warfare, consisting of aircraft, tanks, mobile units, artillery, anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns, drove the British and French armies back to the sea at Dunkirk, leading to the capitulation of France on June 24, 1940. At this time the Germans had 25,000 aircraft while the US Army Air Corp had 2,665 planes. The Germans had several thousand Mark III and Mark IV tanks. The United States had no heavy tanks, 144 medium tanks, and 648 light tanks on hand, or on order. The Germans had motorized panzer units that swept across Western Europe. The United States was still in the early stages of motorizing its horse cavalry regiments. A significant percentage of the ammunition for the American military consisted of deteriorating World War I stock. The United States and its allies lagged significantly behind the Germans in all the weapons of war.
Pittsburgh and its surrounding area played a special role in the United States becoming the "Arsenal of Democracy" by providing much of the raw materials, primarily steel and aluminum, to produce the ships, tanks, aircraft, machinery and munitions required to defeat the enemy. Between 1940 and 1945, Pittsburgh manufactured more steel for the US and its Allies than any other steel-producing hub in the world—an amount over one-fifth of that made worldwide.
And to produce this steel a continuous supply of coal drawn from nearby mines was required. Each ton of steel produced, required roughly a ton of coal. All supplied from mines in western Pennsylvania. Coal was crucial to fueling America’s war production machine.
Shortly after the United States went to war in December 1941, the Navy Department realized that victory would be possible only through the physical invasions of Europe and Japanese-held territories in the Pacific. Special ships were needed for this new type of warfare. In January 1942, less than two months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Chief of the Navy Bureau of Ships approached Dravo Corporation with a preliminary design for an invasion craft, and a large purchase order. Dravo quickly converted its Neville Island facility on the Ohio River for landing ship, tanks (LST) production. The LST’s that sailed out of the Dravo yard at Neville Island, and the American Bridge yard in Ambridge, would be used by Allied forces in the D-Day landings at Normandy, and by the Marines during their crucial invasions in the Pacific Islands.
In 1942 Curtiss-Wright Corporation built a $5.2 million plant in Beaver Falls on the Ohio River and there they fabricated more than 100,000 new propeller blades per year for a variety of aircraft, including the B-26 Marauder and B-32 Liberator bombers. Alloy steel plate fabricated in nearby Pittsburgh steel mills would be used at the plant to produce the propeller blades.
Westinghouse Electric Manufacturing Company would produce everything from gun mounts to electric power plants for aircraft carriers. Westinghouse ran newspapers ads across the state expressing their pride, stating “Westinghouse is producing war equipment now at the rate of 4,000 carloads per month… enough to fill a freight train 37 miles long every 30 days”.
Another Pittsburgh firm with numerous war-time manufacturing accomplishments was Mesta Machine, located in West Homestead, along the banks of the Monongahela River. During the war effort Mesta specialized in manufacturing 16-inch naval guns, ship-propeller shafts, artillery carriages, and "Long Toms" 155mm cannons.
The Heppenstall Company, located on Hatfield Street in Lawrenceville, was a family owned specialty steel company producing forgings, dies and shear knives. The end product from their materials would be a shaft that drives the propeller of a ship, or an airplane. During the war effort Heppenstall also produced forged artillery gun tubes.
U.S. Steel supplied steel to those companies who produced the armored ships, cargo ships, landing crafts, armored tanks and other heavy military vehicles, propeller blades, anti-aircraft guns, battleship equipment, artillery and munitions. The majority of that steel was produced along the rivers that form the golden triangle of Pittsburgh.
Western Pennsylvania employees worked day and night turning out war materials during World War II for America and its allies. Pittsburgh’s role in the “Arsenal of Democracy” of producing raw materials, as well as finished products, cemented the region’s worldwide reputation for industrial might, hard work and can-do spirit.

One, United America

On Monday, December 8, 1941, the Pittsburgh Press editorial  was titled WAR! The editor wrote of our country being attacked by the Japanese while their ambassadors were in Washington supposedly negotiating peace. That we were “played for suckers”... and “we had paid a price for peace, but we lost”. But in losing the peace we gained “clear proof to Americans that their nation is not the aggressor but the defender”... that “she has thereby eliminated our chief danger – indifference and division”. And that “whatever initial military and naval gains (Japan) achieved from her betrayal, they are insignificant beside the defense spirit and untapped power which she has needlessly provoked.”
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial, Japan Declares State of War With the United States stated “Since Japan has elected to fight for the supremacy which it hopes to establish in the Pacific, it is perhaps as well that she chose to attack the United States directly. Nothing could have united the American people so immediately and completely
Senator Robert A. Taft, Ohio Republican and three-time presidential contender said, Japan's outrageous attack can only lead to a declaration of war by congress. Undivided and unlimited prosecution of the war must show that no one can safely attack the American people.
Just after noon on Monday, December 8, 1941, President Roosevelt stood before a joint session of Congress and delivered his seven-minute, 500 word extraordinary speech, ending with the pledge that we will triumph so help us, God. The resolution, proclaiming existence of a state of war between the United States and the Japanese empire, was now before both houses of congress. Within 15 minutes of the time Mr. Roosevelt completed his speech, the Senate acted, adopting the war resolution by a unanimous vote of 82 to 0. The house voted immediately afterwards, and by 1:13PM a majority of the house members had voted aye. The House of Representatives vote was 388 to 1. The lone exception was Republican, Jeanette Rankin of Montana. Ms. Rankin also cast a dissenting vote against our entering the First World War in 1917.
Pittsburgh Congressman Joseph P. McArdle was one of two Pennsylvania congressman who failed to vote on the resolution. Congressman McArdle’s plane from Pittsburgh to Washington arrived at 1:20PM, and despite a police escort from the airport to the Capitol, he and several other congressman did not reach the House chamber in time for the vote. “The record shows that he was either absent, or voted against virtually all of the major defense measures.”
There was a swell of patriotism now taking over the country. Senate Republican Leader McNary of Oregon, when leaving a late night conference at the White House said party lines were declared erased for the duration of the war. Although the form of action had not been decided on, the Republicans will go along on whatever is done.
It was the same for many other Republicans and isolationist Democrats whose votes in the past have been cast against the administration.
President Roosevelt, and Congress, received the “unqualified approval of the man on the street. The people's view was that “we are in the right and everyone approves of what Mr. Roosevelt and Congress has done”.
Another editorial from the Pittsburgh Press on this same day was titled UNITY. “America has been attacked. The drumming guns are sounding. And many problems have been solved on a Sabbath Day. Chief of these is the problem of national unity. We will have that unity - from here in.
From the December 12, 1941 editorial section of the Mount Washington News… “Last week there were two factions in the nation - one thought we should go into the war, the other thought we should stay out. That question is settled now. We are at war and every American will do his utmost to bring that war to a speedy and successful conclusion.”
What an extraordinary day this must have been, seventy-five years ago today!
Many of our parents, and grandparents, would serve their country during World War II, whether as a member of the military, the Nurse Corps, the USO, as part of the city’s “Arsenal for Democracy”, or in some other meaningful way. They served their country in a time of need. And to all, we must be grateful.
The World War II * 19th Zone * Honor Roll, located on Boggs Avenue, just north of Kramer Way (next to the old American Legion Hall), contains the names of more than 3,400 men and women from Mt. Washington and Duquesne Heights who served in the military during World War II. This memorial is a very special place for me - where I can see the name of my father, and that of many of my close friends and schoolmates. There are over 120 such monuments and memorials within the City of Pittsburgh.
Today, December 7, 2016, is a day to remember One, United America.
WW2 HONOR ROLL 19th Ward Pittsburgh.jpg
Honor Roll for the 19th Ward Men and Women Service in World War II

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Daniel Patrick Birmingham
North Canton, Ohio (formerly of Mt. Washington, in Pittsburgh)
December 7, 2016

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