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SALT LAKE CITY — President Franklin D. Roosevelt told Americans that Dec. 7, 1941, would go down in history as “a date which will live in infamy.”
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, a U.S. naval base, killed 2,403 people, wounded another 1,000 and severely damaged or destroyed 20 American ships and 300 airplanes. Two ships, the USS Arizona and the USS Utah, were never salvaged. More than 1,100 crew members were killed in the sinking of the USS Arizona.
“I saw 15 planes of one attacking group subjected to heavy aircraft fire from batteries ringing Honolulu. Several were shot down according to Army authorities,” Richard Haller wrote, in a piece written Dec. 7, 1941, distributed to newspapers across the world through the International News Service. He went on to describe a moment in which he was nearly killed reporting on what was happening.
“Our own fighter planes were in the sky in hot pursuit. A bomb fell in our direction. We took refuge as it screamed to earth only a short distance from the Honolulu Advertiser building. One woman was killed by the blast and dozens were shocked and believed injured,” Haller wrote.
He noted the attacks reached all over the Honolulu area, with bombs striking near the residence of the territory’s governor, as well as the resort area of Waikiki.
Seventy-five years later, Roosevelt’s claim holds true as America looks back at one of the worst attacks on the U.S. in history.
How did Utah react to the news of Pearl Harbor after it happened 75 years ago?
To answer that question, KSL went back to the old newspapers of the time to find stories in the days following the attack.
The Deseret News didn’t run Sunday editions at the time the attack occurred. In the days following the attack, articles generally focused on world events — the latest as the U.S. found itself closer to war not only with Japan, which was declared Dec. 8, 1941, but with Germany and Italy also.
However, there were several local angles to what had happened, centering around sorrow, fear and preparedness for what was to come. There were also examples of dozens of young men wishing to enlist right after the attack and an increased spirit toward the American military.
The news of the attack even claimed the life a man living in Beaver Dam, who suffered a heart attack and died upon learning of the attacks in the area where two of his sons were stationed, according to one article.
On Dec. 8, 1941, Utah Gov. Herbert Maw declared a state of emergency and enacted laws that were passed at a special session. Among the proclamations: The regulation of manufacturing, selling, distribution and possession of explosives — with a special permit. Another proclamation authorized a “special police” to guard public property.
The news of the attack also sparked an immediate rise in military service interest in Utah. Reports of an increase of Utahns selected in the military draft were included in the paper, where it stated about 8,000 Utahns were already serving in the military as of December 1941. The number of those signing up for the military increased the day after the attack, as reported in the Deseret News at the time.
“At the Marine Corps station in the Salt Lake Federal Building, 20 youths were on hand where ordinarily there are three or four. Inquiries from others numbered in the dozens,” the reporter wrote, before quoting a Marine recruiting officer who said “they all wanted to go right now.”
Utah’s Navy recruiting stations also saw an increase that day, with its district director telling the newspaper that several offices were “swamped” with those interested in enlisting. Similar stories were reported at the Army, Coast Guard and Selective Service offices.
In one particular story, a 20-year-old Provo man, whose parents had died and had no other living relatives in the state, needed the assistance of the Utah State Bar and Third District Court to join the Navy since the man was below the legal age to join the military at the time. With the help of the courts, he was able to do so quickly so he could enlist just days after the Pearl Harbor attack, which inspired him to join.
The president of an honorary society of American Legion Auxiliary was in Utah at the time of the attack and in a speech given in Salt Lake City the day after, said defeating Japan was the first step in “the defeat of Hitler and what he stands for.”
“We are for war today, not because time has dimmed our memory of its horrors, but because we feel that Hitlerism is far worse,” said Hal R. Whitehead, the president of the “Eight and Forty,” according to an article.
On the campus of the University of Utah, a fraternity placed a large sign outside their chapter house that read: “Our relations with our Upsilon Pupsilon chapter in Tokyo are hereby severed!”
An article in the Dec. 10, 1941, edition of the Deseret News noted that several of those who hung the sign up were going to be serving in the armed forces soon and that a similar sign was posted outside the same fraternity’s chapter house at the University of California, Berkeley.
On Dec. 9, 1941, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced that all of its missionaries and church members were safe and well. The following day, J. Reuben Clark, first counselor in the First Presidency of the church at the time, said that members living in Hawaii were told to prepare for anything as the rumors of war began to increase before the attack.
“Two years ago, leaders of the church advised our 15,000 members in the Hawaiian Islands to prepare for trouble we now are having. I hope they have prepared,” he said, according to an article.
Several other articles from the days after the attack were spent discussing protocol should anything happen to Salt Lake City, including blackouts and attacks.
There were also early signs of what was to come regarding internment camps.
According to an Associated Press article on Dec. 8, 1941, 736 Japanese aliens were arrested by the FBI in the U.S. and Hawaii, which was a U.S. territory at the time. Two days later, that number rose to 1,291 — with an additional 865 Germans and 147 Italians also detained.
U.S. attorney general Biddle said Dec. 10, 1941, that some of those arrested would end up being released after the government could review an individual's case, according to the Associated Press.
Meanwhile, the American Chinese Association of Utah issued a statement that ran as an ad on Page 5 of the Dec. 8, 1941, edition, which noted that Chinese citizens and Americans of Chinese descent “pledge their all to the United States in this crisis,” while reminding that it had been against Japan’s aggression for the previous four years, when it began invading China.
The ad ran adjacent to an Associated Press article about the largest Japanese settlement in the U.S. at the time, Little Tokyo in Los Angeles, promising its loyalty to the U.S. “This is an unprecedented crisis for us, but we shall acquit ourselves proudly. America is our home, our permanent residence,” said the president of the Japanese Cultural Society, in the article.
Nationally, the U.S. declared war on Japan, with a unanimous 82-0 vote in the Senate and a near-unanimous 388-1 vote in the House of Representatives. Montana Rep. Jeannette Rankin, who also had voted against entering the first World War in 1917, was the lone vote against the declaration.
Famous aviator and social activist Charles Lindbergh, who was a critic of Roosevelt, called for American unity and for retribution for the attack on Dec. 9, 1941.
“Our country has been attacked by force of arms and by force of arms we must retaliate,” Lindbergh said, according to an International News Service article.
Utahns rushing to enlist with the military wasn’t uncommon across the country. As The New York Times pointed out in 2001, “thousands” lined up to join the military in the days after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
On Dec. 9, 1941, Roosevelt declared Japanese, Italian and German individuals living in the U.S. as “enemy aliens,” while rumors swirled that Germany would declare war on the U.S. for declaring war on Japan. That declaration later became official Dec. 11, 1941, and by then, the U.S. was wrapped up in the second World War.
