Seattle Sun Newspaper - Vol. 8, Issue 1, January 2004
Copyright 2003 Seattle Sun. Please feel free to use the article below in your research. Be sure to cite the Seattle Sun as your source.
'Day of Infamy' brought uncertain future
(Editor's note: This column, courtesy of Stan Stapp's archives, originally appeared in two parts in the December 1985 and January 1986 issues of The Forum, a community newspaper that covered Fremont and Wallingford.)
PART ONE
In my lifetime, only once have I ever pulled the trigger of a real gun or for that matter, even held one in my hand. That was on Dec. 7, 1941, just minutes before the first radio reports of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
The night before, a handful of young Wallingford friends and I made our way to Whidbey Island in my aging Plymouth. Destination: a small musty cabin belonging to the Johnson brothers. The plan was to hunt rabbits the next day.
On Sunday morning, after breakfast, all but Al Whalen wandered outside to join in tin can target practice. Being the only completely inexperienced marksman, they gave me special attention in the techniques involved. Meanwhile, Al finished drying the dishes, while listening to a portable radio.
Suddenly he rushed outside, shouting: "Pearl Harbor's been bombed! The Japs have bombed Pearl Harbor!"
He must be kidding, we thought for we were used to playing tricks on each other. But his earnestness persuaded us to return to the cabin, and sure enough ... the newscaster's urgent tone, alone, was enough to convince us that a major historic event was in the making.
As we listened to the ensuing news reports, which soon preempted every program on the dial, we realized our lives would never be the same again.
After awhile, we left the radio and for a few hours tramped indifferently around the island, looking for rabbits "and Japs," firing the guns sporadically, but without success.
At sunset, my friends and I headed for the Clinton ferry dock, speculating on what lay ahead for us and the USA, and whether we should join up "the first thing Monday morning."
As we drove off the ferry at Mukilteo, several air raid wardens informed us that a blackout was in effect and that we must douse our headlights. No sense in making Seattle an easy target in case the Japanese had any big notions about extending their aerial bombing to the USA mainland, or torpedoing our ships from submarines lurking around Puget Sound.
This was done by removing a couple of our sweaters and tying them over the auto headlamps. It didn't allow much light, if any, to hit the roadway, but probably kept the few other motorists still about from running into us.
Thus we slowly groped our way back home, all wondering "what next?"
During the next few weeks, the gang got together as usual on Friday nights, Saturdays, and Sundays. We usually met at Al's home, sometimes played poker, often went downtown and shot billiards at Brown's Billiard Parlor, and bowled at Seattle Recreation (the only big bowling alley in town back then).
If that wasn't enough, we might attend a triple-feature movie at the Embassy, where male ushers scurried up and down the aisles at intermission time selling ice cream bars. Sometimes we fell asleep in the theater. It was not unusual to crawl into bed at 5 a.m., hoping our folks hadn't heard us come in.
But our talk was not as usual. It centered on the war effort, and whether to enlist "tomorrow" or wait to be drafted. The advantage of enlisting was getting to join the service of our choice. Some of us did. Some waited. Timewise, it made little difference. For young men of our age, the wait was short either way.
PART TWO
Should we enlist now, or wait to be drafted?
That was the question under contemplation by my young neighborhood friends and myself after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Timewise, it made little difference, for we were all of the "right" age. By enlisting, however, we might be able to choose our military service.
Whatever our choice, we knew our lives were about to change immensely.
I had registered with the Selective Service System over a year before, on Oct. 16, 1940, at Lincoln High School, the registrar being Florence Foote Ross, who is still a Wallingford resident. My draft card confirmed I'd drawn a low number, 193; was 5-feet-6-inches tall; and tipped the scales at 110 pounds.
On Dec. 13, 1940, I was placed in classification 1A, "physically fit for general military service." On Dec. 26, I was ordered to report for examination the following week; then on Jan. 10, 1941, classified 1B, a deferment for family or business considerations.
For a year, my status remained the same. Although the war in Europe was going full tilt, and the United States was busy supplying arms, we did not actively support the Allies with troops until after Pearl Harbor.
On March 18, 1942, my classification was reopened and on April 24, I was again 1A. Then came the "Greetings" message from the President: Report for Induction, May 19, at the Seattle Armory (later known as the Food Circus, and now the Center House at Seattle Center).
With a can of my mother's homemade cookies, off to war I went or so I thought. At the last minute, I was rejected and again placed in 1B. I presumed it was because of a slight heart murmur, Metropolitan Life having shortly before denied me insurance for this reason.
When I asked the Army doctor if that was it, he growled: "Who told you that, a chiropractor?" implying, I thought, that I might be a malingerer.
Then he added: "Nothing's wrong with your heart! You're just too damn light ... seven pounds less than the Army requires."
But on two later occasions, April 1943 and April 1945, induction was again ordered. Twice more I said my goodbyes, and left for boot camp with more cookies. The farthest I got before being shipped home was Tacoma.
At one point, I tried to enlist in the Alaskan Signal Corps, but they, too, weren't interested in lightweights: "We have all the clerk-typists we need," I was advised.
But don't think I was militarily inactive. For all during the war, I was busily responding to Selective Service directives, 30 in number: To register, one time; to 1A, six times; to 1B, fur times; to 2AF, one time; to 4A, one time; to 4F, three times; to report for examination, four times; to report for induction, three times; miscellaneous, seven times.
During this period, my eligible-age friends, with the exception of one, had either enlisted in the various services, or been drafted by the Army.
Fritz Massart (who worked for his uncle, Clarence F. Massart, city councilman and owner of Massart Plumbing Co., located at 4401 Wallingford, now Julia's restaurant) was also disqualified in his case because of a leg injury suffered in a rock crushed accident in the Civilian Conservation Corps.
The two of us, lonesome for our friends, and feeling "out of it," knocked around together for the duration.
At home we dealt with shortages: gas allowance, two or four gallons a week; meatless days; meat and sugar rationing.
We blacked out our windows every night.
Boeing Field was ringed with barrage balloons and the Boeing plant camouflaged.
We knew all the words to "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition," and "We'll Heil, Heil, Right In Der Fuhrer's Face."
Five months after Pearl Harbor, I was rather embarrassed when the postman handed me several Japanese magazines, all addressed to me copies of "Radio Tokyo," published by Nippon Hoso Kyokai, the broadcasting corporation of Japan. The latest issue was dated November 1941, one month before Pearl Harbor. One of them included a printed letter of mine, requesting a verification card in acknowledgement of my reception of their radio programs on shortwave radio. For awhile, I was worried that the FBI or Secret Service or somebody had been withholding the magazines as evidence while checking me out as a possible secret agent. But nothing ever came of it.
When Al Whalen came home on leave, after facing enemy action in the Pacific on the U.S.S. Ogden, his 19th birthday was celebrated with a party. His mom baked a cake, decorated not with candles, but with 19 tiny American flags. We all enjoyed a hearty laugh upon discovering each flag was labeled: Made in Japan.
But I wasn't laughing when the government reacting to fears that Japanese residents' loyalty to the USA might be questionable, relocated West Coast Japanese-Americans to internment camps.
Although not feeling knowledgeable enough at the time to fully judge the decision, I was bothered by the results. Particularly, in witnessing the forced closure of the Seattle Japanese-American newspaper operation, and the dejection