• Two days in infamy

    by  • October 2, 2011 • News • 0 Comments

    By JOHN CHURCH

    Separated by almost six decades, the United States has experienced two days that live in infamy.  Pearl Harbor and the 9/11 attacks, conflicts that occurred on opposite sides of the world, caused similar reactions in residents that remember both apocalyptic days.Large swaths of Europe, Africa, Asia and scattered island nations of the Pacific were under Axis control.

    Early on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941 Pearl Harbor and the surrounding military installations were attacked for 2 hours and 20 minutes. Just three months short of 60 years later, early on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 the twin towers of the World Trade Center were attacked for 16 minutes. Two of the tallest buildings in the world would soon be piles of burning rubble.

    For three residents of New Jersey who grew up in the time of Pearl Harbor and who witnessed the events of 9/11 the same reactions from 1941 replayed themselves in 2001. For some, live television images rekindled long lost emotions, while for others the voice of a radio news bulletin brought back past feelings. Shock and disbelief lay over all of them like a shroud.

    1941 – Pearl Harbor

    Patricia Dolan, 87 a freshman at the College of New Jersey at the time, had a hunch that America was the next target of Axis aggression. She didn’t live the experience, but heard stories about what happened at Pearl Harbor.

    “Hitler was on the rise by this time,” recalled Dolan of Ogdensburg, N.J. “Well, all the concentration was in Europe and I guess things were starting over in the Asia. But we weren’t that alert to it. So that afternoon, Dec. 7, there was a ballgame on the radio and we were sitting in here; my brother, mother, and father. We were sitting here and the flash came over that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor.”

    Dolan had a discussion with her father every evening about the latest news and knew something was going to happen. The direction from which the attack came surprised both of them.

    Hawaii December 7, 1941 - USS Arizona burning at Pearl Harbor. - Library of Congress

    “It was like a disbelief. You had a sense that things were not the way they should be in the world, but you never suspected the Japanese said Dolan. “They were still negotiating right up to the day the thing happened.”

    The news stunned the nation but the paralysis was temporary. The next day President Roosevelt went before a joint session of Congress and delivered his “Day of Infamy” speech.“People cheered and carried on. Everybody got behind it. That’s the word. Everybody. Everybody got behind it because it touched every one. Where, as these, shall we say, these latest wars do not touch everybody the way this did.” Dolan soon participated in air raid drills and war bond drives. Life had changed.

    As a 10-year-old boy, Don Smythe, 80, then of Bronx, N.Y., was a Giants fan. In a letter he described listening to the Giants – Brooklyn Dodgers football game on the radio.

    “During the broadcast I remember the announcer breaking away from the game to announce that the Japanese had just attacked Pearl Harbor, and that all military personal should immediately report to their units,” wrote Smythe. “My first reaction was shock, then worry.  My first concern was would my Dad have to go off to war.”

    His worry for his father was unfounded. An accountant for the Barber Steamship Line, his father was in his 40s, and past the age of being drafted.

    Rosemary Mora, 79, then a 9-year-old living in a rural part of Mexico, remembered hearing of Pearl Harbor “only what my parents were saying.”

    Being too young to understand world affairs she was entertained by the activities that began in town. The local militia unit quickly mobilized, much to the delight of the local children.

    “The men had no uniforms or weapons,”recalled Mora. “They practiced marching through the town square with sticks on their shoulders instead of guns.”

    The Mora family moved to New Jersey in 1943.
    Helen Steer, 83, then 13, was listening to the radio while working on the family farm in Bartley, N.J.

    “All I remember is Roosevelt’s voice announcing Pearl Harbor was attacked,” said Steer.  “We were stunned. I was stunned. The family was stunned. Probably we were packing eggs at the time and listening to the radio.”

    Like Dolan, Steer soon saw changes brought on by war.
    “The next day in school it was talked about,” said Steer. “And then we did drills in case something happened, being so close to Hercules Powder Company and Picatinny Arsenal.”

    2001 – New York City

    Dolan, a retired grammar school principal in the Borough of Ogdensburg, was home the morning of the 9/11 attacks.

    “It was a beautiful day,” said Dolan. “Absolutely beautiful day. My friend called me and she asked ‘Have you had your television on? A plane ran into the twin towers’.”

    [AUDIO: Listen to Patricia Dolan talk about what she remembered of 9/11.]

    Walking into the same living room in which she heard the radio report of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Dolan  put the television on in time to see the second plane hit. Images of the crash were broadcast live to viewers around the world.

    NEW YORK: Flight 175 from Boston crashes into the south tower of the World Trade Center at 9:03 a.m. on September 11, 2001. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

    “We didn’t see any films of Pearl Harbor until you saw the Movietone News in the theater,” said Dolan. “I didn’t have to wait to read it in the Time magazine or the newspaper. Technology got the word around.”

    News broadcast had changed from just the facts to facts and extensive analysis by experts.

    Taking a jab at broadcast news, Dolan said, “Every item, the pundits give their slant. Edward R. Murrow was more factual.”

    For Dolan, proximity gave more importance to the recent attacks.

    “Pearl Harbor was far away and lengthy,” said Dolan. “This one, I had been to New York City, knew what it was like. It was backyard stuff. One was in your backyard the other was thousands of miles away. But both changed your life in a different way.”

    In a follow-up phone interview Smythe, retired from his job in manufacturing, said that he first heard of the 9/11 attack over the radio in his car.

    “I was shocked and angry,” said Smythe. “Angry that somebody could kill so many innocent people.”

    Disbelief was a common reaction.

    “It seemed unbelievable that someone could pull this off, confiscate four airplanes and steer them into four buildings.”

    He expressed admiration for the actions of the passengers in the plane that crashed in Shanksville, Pa.
    Mora saw the second airplane crashing into the south tower live on television. “Disbelief,” was the only word she could find to describe her feelings.

    Steer, a retired school bus driver living in  Wharton, N.J., was on vacation when the planes struck. Coming back from an Alaska Cruise, she was detained on the ship an extra day. She spent an unscheduled night ashore in the state of Washington. When airline flights were resumed she made her way back to New Jersey.

    ‘“When it was announced on the ship we were all stunned,” said Steer.
    “It was just shock, it couldn’t be happening. That’s close to home. We really worried about what was going on back home.”

    Both attacks had the same effect on her.

    “One comes over the radio and one comes over the loudspeaker on the ship,” explained Steer. “Shocking news that scares the bejesus out of you.”

    Despite the delay in getting reliable information, the United States knew who had attacked Pearl Harbor almost as it happened.

    Roosevelt rallied a shocked nation the next day. The nation started to prepare for a hard fight.

    “The contrast between the two [attacks] was cultural because after Pearl Harbor our culture was one where people pulled together,” recalled Dolan.

    The 9-11 attacks left the country just as stunned, and a professional all volunteer military was ready to fight. But who was the opponent.

    “The enemy was not known like the Nazis and the Japanese and the Communists,” said Dolan. “It was more of a shock because it was the last thing you would expect and plus the fact that we didn’t know who had done it,” said Dolan.

    Dolan felt that the 9-11 attacks did not change the life as much as Pearl Harbor. Away from New York City there was hardly any effect at all.

    “My goodness we never think that that could happen to us,” said Dolan. “Now 9-11, we were such a power in the world that they wouldn’t dare do it to us.”

    Yet they did, again.

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