December 1941 (73 page)

All knew the garrison could not hold on indefinitely but still, the loss was yet another blow. A small amount of solace could be taken in the moral victory that the marines had held on so long and that they had taken so many Japanese men and so much materiel down with them, but the United States already had plenty of moral victories. It was time for some real victories.

The navy issued a one-sentence statement: “Radio communication with Wake Island has been severed.”
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The Japanese had also restarted their shelling of Palmyra Island and Johnston Island.

The British were in no better shape in Hong Kong but were fighting just as valiantly as the American marines. The attempts by the Chinese to relieve the British troops had not come. As far as London knew, the Chinese contingent was too small and too far away to be of much good to the struggling and dug-in Brits, Indians, and Canadians in the “crown colony.” They were given “little chance of holding out unless aid could be gotten through to them.”
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“The hopelessly outnumbered defenders . . . were losing heavily, and the situation was acknowledged to be critical.”
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On the Malayan Peninsula, the British seemed to have regrouped and had, it appeared, slowed the Japanese drive toward Singapore.

The Dutch in the Western Pacific knew something about real victories. So far, they had averaged sinking one Japanese ship per day with their fighter and bomber planes. The Netherland government announced that “the Japanese, in retaliation, had bombed and machine-gunned outlying Netherland islands, inflicting civilian casualties.”
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In the Philippines, the situation was worsening quickly. Overnight, the Japanese had landed more men “in heavy numbers.” They were also bringing tanks ashore now. General MacArthur's forces were now outnumbered, and in at least four areas on Luzon murderous fighting was going on. “Enemy airplanes have been particularly active in supporting landing and shore operations.”
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Air raids had become a commonplace occurrence and the Japanese bombing campaigns had created numerous fires near Ft. McKinley. “The enemy is exerting ‘great pressure' an army spokesman said of the Lingayen battle.”
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The islands were impossible to defend, especially with the relatively small army MacArthur had at his disposal. He'd estimated that he needed at least 500,000 men to adequately defend the country, and he had far less than that, even including the Filipino troops at his disposal. “With the Philippine defenders said to be outnumbered and hard pressed north and south of the capital, the War Department announced the appearance of enemy troop ships off Batangas on the southern tip of Luzon Island, about 65 miles southwest of Manila.”
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The Japanese propagandists claimed they had complete dominion over all aspects of the Battle for the Philippines.

The Department also announced the first seventy-five recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross, some awarded posthumously including Captain Colin P. Kelly, whose saga of his heroic actions against a Japanese ship, and who died in the line of duty had, like the marines on Wake, become the stuff of folklore. Possibly one pilot who deserved the DFC was Lt. Hewitt Wheless, whose B-17 bomber was attacked by no less than eighteen Japanese Zeros, hitting the plane fifteen hundred times yet not bringing it down! “When we got back, the plane looked like a sieve,” the calm Lt. said. “But the holes just gave us more fresh air inside. These babies (the Flying Fortress) sure live up to their reputations.”
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The award, which had been authorized by Congress in 1926, was for anybody in the Air Corps who had “distinguished himself by heroism or extraordinary achievement in an aerial flight.” The seventy-five recipients were not just those who piloted the planes, but those who attended to them as well.
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Master sergeants, staff sergeants, corporals, and privates were among the awardees.

The sports writers of the Associated Press voted the Cleveland Indians the biggest disappointment of 1941. The year before, they'd missed the American League pennant by the skin of their teeth, just one game, and the Yankees took it. In 1941, the Indians finished twenty-six games out of first place. The best fight of the year was voted the Joe Louis and Billy Conn fight. The worst fight of the year was voted the Joe Louis and Lou Nova fight.
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Box office hot Mickey Rooney, 21, and the unknown aspiring secretary, Ava Gardner, 17, announced their commitment to life-long fidelity and matrimony.
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The film industry was working with the government to ensure the government did not censor the film industry. “President Roosevelt has appointed Lowell Mellett, Director of the Office of Government Reports, as coordinator of Government films during the war emergency with the statement that he wants no censorship of motion pictures.”
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The Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company took out large newspaper ads pleading with readers not to make any long distance phone calls on Christmas Day and New Year's Day and possibly jam the lines, when the government needed them.
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For the first time since December 7, the War Department had allowed journalists and photographers to inspect the damage done at Hickam Field. “Tattered skeletons of huge hangars at the army's Hickam Field stood Wednesday as gaunt evidence of the surprise Japanese attack on this placid pleasure spot, and in them lay . . . the twisted and charred wreckage of the many once-mighty guardians of Hawaiian skies . . . The baseball field was covered with bomb craters.”
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Most of the casualties at the field had occurred while men were still in their barracks, many still in bed. Some, as at Wheeler Field, never got off the ground. “American pilot casualties at Wheeler were . . . two killed by strafers as they were taking off, and one as he was boarding his plane to attack.”
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They never had a chance.

The lion and the lamb settled down together and gave FDR and the country an unexpected Christmas gift. The business and labor conference, which just the day before had seemed at an impossible impasse, came to a historic agreement. Labor would agree to no strikes for the duration of the war if business agreed to no lockouts. Jaws dropped all over the country when the two old antagonists, labor and business, further agreed to settle all disputes by “peaceful means,” including the matter of closed shops.
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America was united in purpose; patriotism trumped even economic self-interest.

Congress had mostly fled the city for their home districts and home states but a few still remained, including some members of the House Ways and Means Committee, who were trying to determine how to raise the massive funds needed to fund the war effort. Some members “predicted the bill might bite huge chunks out of individual and corporation incomes. . . .”
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An “unlimited tax” was under advisement. Setting an income cap for all Americans, after which the government would take everything, was bandied about. Other radical plans were also discussed including collecting tax in the actual tax year. But some members thought “it was premature to discuss suggestions that the 1942 tax bill be collected immediately on 1942 incomes. Federal taxes normally are collected in the year after which income is received.”
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Marshal Petain broadcast a gloomy Christmas message to the people of France, telling his conquered countrymen that peace was a long way off and that many families in France had already been separated by the Germans, due to imprisonment.
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Rumors were thick in political and diplomatic circles that the Germans were getting ready to push Petain out of his feeble and emasculated position as head of the French Vichy government. The plan was to replace him with a new figurehead who was out-and-out pro-Nazi.
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Meanwhile, the pope issued his annual Christmas Eve message from Vatican City in which he issued a Five Point Plan for a post-war world. In a broadcast on Vatican Radio, Pope Pius XII called for the elimination of aggression, “oppression of minorities,” against future wars and armaments and “persecution directed against religious sects or churches because faith ‘is one of the rights of mankind.'”
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His remarks were carried live in the U.S. on the Mutual Radio Network.
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That afternoon, as the sun dipped over the horizon, Churchill and FDR both addressed a crowd of twenty thousand on the South Lawn of the White House (attendance estimates varied widely) and the nation by radio, as the president flipped the switch to light the big Christmas tree. It was the first time the White House Christmas tree had ever actually been placed on the White House grounds. Previously, it had been on the Ellipse, Lafayette Park, and Sherman Square. The Marine Band played and the crowd sang Christmas songs just before the lights of the cedar tree were turned on. The songs included, “Joy to the World” and “Silent Night.” The Band had played “God Save the King” and “The Star Spangled Banner,” which, of course, commemorated the American success over Churchill's forebearers at the battle of Ft. McHenry in the War of 1812. The invocation was given by Father Joseph Corrigan of Catholic University.
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It was noted that some in the crowd had waited as much as a whole hour before being admitted through the Southwest and Southeast gates which opened at just after 4:00 p.m. and where army tents had been erected to check individuals. Because no packages or cameras were allowed on the grounds, they were lined up along the fencing to wait until their owners returned to claim them. Some women—called by the
Washington Post
the “indomitable species”—asked soldiers on duty to hold their packages but the men in uniforms refused, albeit politely.
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After a time, the gates were closed and no one inside would be allowed out until the proceeding had been completed.

The weather had been unseasonably warm with daytime temperatures in the low sixties. “The sunset gun at Fort Myer boomed just before the two men walked onto the portico. A crescent moon hung overhead. To the southward loomed the Washington Monument, a red light burning in its lofty window.”
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FDR and Churchill appeared on the south portico and both stood to give their remarks. “Over the traditional ceremony hung the pall of war, but there were signs of merriment and good cheer.” At 5:00 p.m., their remarks were carried live across the nation on all radio networks. In his plummy aristocratic baritone, the Englishman opened by saying, “I have the honor to add an appendix to the message of Christmas goodwill and kindness with which my illustrious friend the President has encircled the homes and families of the United States. . . .” He spoke eloquently of his home, of his mother's “ties of blood” to America and the commanding sentiment of comradeship in the common cause of great races who speak the same language and to a very large extent worship at the same altar and pursue the same ideas . . . This is a strange Christmas Eve. Almost the whole world is locked in deadly struggle.” He also spoke of the “terrible weapons which science can devise.”
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There was a marvelous rhythm to his remarks and his cadence was mesmerizing. Churchill was a strong leader, but he also was a gifted writer and speaker.

Continuing, he said, “I cannot feel myself a stranger here in the center of the summit of these United States. I feel a sense of unity and fraternal association, which through all your kindness, convinces me that I have a right to sit at your fireside and share your Christmas joys.”
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Churchill said to the gathering that the young across the globe “shall not be robbed of their inheritance or denied their right to live in a free and decent world.” Concluding with a climactic poetic grace, in a way that only Churchill could, he intoned, “Here then, for one night only, each home throughout the English-speaking world should be a brightly lit island of happiness and peace . . . And so, in God's mercy, a Happy Christmas to you all.”
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Roosevelt had spoken first and then introduced the British prime minister as one of the “great leaders” in the world. A newspaper noted that it may have been the only time FDR had “played second fiddle” to a superior public speaker. It was noted that the crowds were silent as Churchill spoke and “restless” when FDR addressed them.
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In his “Yule Message,” Roosevelt's remarks were sprinkled heavily with reference to the war and sacrifice but also of hope and the Christian philosophy of love and charity. “The year 1941 has brought upon our Nation a war of aggression by powers dominated by arrogant rulers whose selfish purpose is to destroy free institutions . . . Our strongest weapon in this war is that conviction of the dignity and brotherhood of man which Christmas signifies—more than any other day or any other symbol.”
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In his gracious and eloquent comments, he never mentioned Germany or Japan by name, but made clear that the forces of the Allies represented the forces of light and the Axis Powers represented the forces of darkness. “The new year of 1942 calls for the courage and the resolution of old and young to help win a world struggle in order that we may preserve all we hold dear.”
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Their remarks were broadcast live on radio, coast-to-coast. The Reverend Oscar Blackwelder of the Washington Federation of Churches gave the Benediction. The whole program, from the lighting of the tree which had been placed near the fence bordering the South Lawn through the playing of the Bands and the speeches and remarks lasted but thirty-five minutes, just as stars in the sky began to twinkle. Yet those in attendance knew they had seen something special.