Most of you reading this newspaper were probably born after Sunday December 7, 1941, “a date which will live in infamy,” as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt designated it. That was the day that Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and pushed the United States into World War II. On Monday December 8, our Congress declared war on Japan. On Thursday December 11, Germany and Italy declared war on us and we promptly responded in kind. This was a war in which the vast majority of American citizens enthusiastically participated. Such a wave of widespread patriotism has not been witnessed since.
World War II actually started on September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. It ended piecemeal. Italy surrendered on September 28, 1943; Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945, VE (Victory in Europe) Day, and Japan finally surrendered on August 14, 1945, VJ Day.
Those of us who are old enough can still remember where we were and what we were doing on that date of infamy 66 years ago. In the photo are two local veterans who have very vivid memories. Bernard “Bernie” Merritt (on the left) and Leland “Lee” Swertfager are showing me the hill in the Town of Preston where they were skiing on that pivotal Sunday. With them were Lee’s older brother, Ed, and Bill Wright.
Some time after lunch, Ed went back into his house across the road and came out running. He yelled that something terrible had happened. The three other boys went home and listened to the radio. All of America was also listening.
To clarify for younger readers, there was no television back then. Visual news of the war was shown at movie theaters. Although television was invented in 1923, it was not broadcast commercially until after the war, in black and white.
As soon as our four boys were old enough, they entered military service. Any able bodied young men who did not were severely ostracized; some were even harassed. Bernie joined the Army, Lee and Ed the Navy, and Bill the Marines. Bill was the hero of the bunch. (Marines reading this are probably muttering, “Of course!”)
Bernie was an MP (Military Police), serving in the Pacific in places such as Okinawa and Inchon. Lee was an ARM (Aviation Radio Man) and gunner in the Navy Air Corps, flying in bombers over the southern Atlantic. Ed manned crash boats, vessels sent out to rescue aviators who crashed. Bill fought in the Pacific.
The happy, and remarkable, outcome was that all four of these servicemen returned. They had been hanging out together since they were about 15. They still keep in contact. Bernie and Lee live in Norwich; Ed is in California, and Bill is in Homer. For the past few years I have been hoping to photograph all four of them on that hill, but it did not work out that way.
The front pages of “The Norwich Sun” from Monday December 8, 1941, forward were largely devoted to war news. The local reaction took a few days to materialize. On Friday December 12 the City of Norwich announced its first test blackout to be held at 6:30 pm on Monday December 15. Every light in the city was to be turned off. Mayor Frank Zuber took over as chairman of civilian defense. He posted guards at the city entrances and no one was to leave or enter. The blackout was to be announced by the simultaneous tolling of all the church bells.
This was not an over reaction. These blackouts occurred all over the country. I remember them very well. In Chicago they often occurred unannounced. The defense wardens enforced them vigorously, breaking any lights they could not turn off. Antiaircraft guns were mounted on rooftops near where I lived and we were taught how to identify enemy airplanes. Bernie tells me that he participated in an airplane watch up on West Hill.
World War II exerted such a strong force on the lives of everyone who lived through it, warriors and civilians alike, that these four years became indelibly impressed in our minds. I was seven years old on the date of infamy, but still remember it because of its immediate stunning effect on my parents. The radio was kept on continuously. Most of the time some sorrowful dirge droned on and on, interrupted frequently by scratchy news flashes. All other programming was canceled.
What I remember most about the early days of the war were the proud displays of blue stars in the front windows of almost every house on our block, indicating a man in service. Many houses had several. Before long those blue stars were being replaced by the dreaded gold ones, the terrible proclamations that the servicemen were dead. Our neighborhood was never the same again -- nor was anyone else’s.