December 1941 by Craig Shirley Read Free Book Online Page A

the Japanese Espionage effort is the determination of the total strength of the United States. In anticipation of possible open conflict with this country, Japan is vigorously utilizing every available agency to secure military, naval and commercial information, paying particular attention to the West Coast, the Panama Canal and the Territory of Hawaii.” 1 The 26-page document went into great detail about the coordination between German and Japanese agents on U.S. soil. The secret paper also reviewed the attempts by the Japanese to infiltrate labor unions, Latin American groups and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. 2
    A second reference specifically to the Hawaiian Territory was made in the memo. “However, only the more important groups are of interest, since they are in a position to engage in espionage, sabotage and other acts inimical to the best interests of the U.S . . . . Each of these groups is at least strongly influenced if not directly controlled by similar ones in Japan.” 3 The confidential document prepared for Roosevelt went into great detail regarding the Japanese civilian presence in Hawaii.
    The response by the U.S. military, government, and citizenry to the events of December 7 was quick and decisive, even if it was also often bumbling and haphazard. “Everyone, I suppose, will be jotting down in a little black book somewhere the memories of Sunday, December 7—where they were, what they were doing, what they thought when they first heard of the war. Let me tell you—you don’t have to make a note of those things. You’ll remember them.” So wrote famed sports columnist Bill Henry in his “By the Way” column in the Los Angeles Times on December 9. 4 This was true enough, but the entire thirty-one days of December 1941 were memorable, messy, historic, poignant, confusing, inspiring, depressing, and enduring.
    After December 7, 1941, the policies towards the Japanese, Germans and Italians living in America were harsh and comprehensive but, because the government believed the Germans, and the Japanese had incredible spy and sabotage networks operating in the United States and the Hawaiian Territory, the reaction by the government at the time, they felt, was justified.
    At the end of December 1941, Americans still weren’t calling it “World War II” or the “Second World War,” though there were hints of the standard appellations to come. Even three weeks after America’s entry into the global crisis, Americans were still calling it the “national emergency” or “the war.” I didn’t learn many of these and thousands of other things just from researching books during the development stages of December 1941 ; I learned many of these facts from the newspapers, magazines and other publications of the era as well.
    Washington Post publisher Phil Graham once said, newspapers were “the first rough draft of history.” The phrase had been attributed to others before Graham, but he gets the credit for it. 5 So much of the sourcing for this book comes from hundreds of newspapers and thousands upon thousands of newspaper and magazine articles around the country and wire service bulletins and radio dispatches and short-wave intercepts sifted through to build the following account. But private diaries, personal papers, and confidential and classified materials were also heavily relied upon for this story.
    There never had been a book solely devoted to the month of December 1941, surely one of the most important and decisive and nation-altering thirty-one days in the history of the American Republic. There have been days such as July 4, 1776; October 19, 1781; September 17, 1787; and April 15, 1861, that rank with December 7, but one is hard-pressed to think of another month as startling, compelling, interesting, critical, and inspiring as December 1941.
    There have been many outstanding books