Eagle Feathers #219 – Pearl Harbor Week

By Bob (Monty) Doherty

The riveting reality of the Japanese attack on our American fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, horrified our nation.

While over 350 warplanes were striking Pearl Harbor, Japanese envoys were in Washington ostensibly engaging in peace talks. This crippling onslaught caused America’s entrance into World War II. President Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed the event for evermore a “Day of Infamy.” On December 8, the American Congress declared war on the Empire of Japan. On December 9, Congress also declared war on Germany.

Like every town and city across the country, Somerville’s businesses and factories turned to war production overnight. Twenty-four days later, Somerville’s Centennial, 1842 to 1942, began. The events of the attack ensured that a celebration of the city’s one hundred years of existence would never take place. Plans for the festival were cast aside.

The war changed the entire demeanor of the city’s workforce because the departure of so many workers left an immense vacuum. Much of the void left by those who had been deployed was filled by women who volunteered to become fire and police auxiliaries, air-raid wardens, and other needed jobs.

Both Somerville’s meat packing establishments, the John P. Squire company and the North Packing and Provision Company, started shipping their products to the military. Union Square furniture companies began airplane glider fabricating. The Peter Forg Manufacturing Company made army helmets. H.K. Porter, Inc. made military barbed-wire cutters, etc. The Ford Motor Company’s plant in Assembly Square rolled out tanks and other vehicles which carried military personnel and equipment.

Our nation’s greatest generation dug in to save America.

After ordering the all-out offensive against the United States, Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto professed, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” He was right, but that All-American resolve was already here:

• Patrick Henry’s rallying cry, “Give me Liberty or Give me Death”
• Teddy Roosevelt in his charge up San Juan Hill said, “Remember the Maine”
• Texas’s cry of “Remember the Alamo”
• The sailors of World War I, “Remember the Lusitania”

Again, the resolve was already here in our country. What Yamamoto didn’t realize was that he called forth to America the resolve … Remember Pearl Harbor!