Free December 1941 by Craig Shirley Page B

written on World War II and the events leading up to Pearl Harbor, but never has there been a book about the days in America prior to December 7, 1941, and what happened to the country in the hours, days, and weeks after the attack. Suffice it to say, the country was radically changed forever.
    Never before or since has America been so unified. There were virtually no Americans against their country getting into World War II after the unprovoked attack by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor. One of the few was Congresswoman Jeannette Rankin, Republican of Montana. She voted against declaring war on Japan and would only vote “present” when FDR asked Congress for a declaration of war against Germany and Italy—after they had declared war on America. Someday someone will write a book about Ms. Rankin, exploring her reasons for not voting for war. They were principled, nuanced, and commendable. She was mistaken but she wasn’t wrong. 6
    The goal here is to make the reader feel as if they are experiencing the day to day events as they unfolded. Some historians don’t like to go into the arduous tasks of going through thousand of newspapers preferring instead to rely on those bits and pieces of news reporting they may glean from other books. I did, and consequently the reader will find stories and information from the month of December 1941 they have never heard before. It makes for what I hope will be a fascinating book.
    Of my previous writings, many said they gave the reader a “you-are-there feeling,” while another said I wrote like a sports writer, which I took as one of the best compliments I’ve ever received. The goal here was to impart new information while making the reading enjoyable. I wanted to do a story of America, to allow the reader to see the country through the eyes of the 130 million citizens who lived in the forty-eight states in that remarkable month of December, 1941.
    The goal was to write a book so that the reader could read and feel what their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents were reading and hearing and feeling and talking about at the time. About a time of war and peace and service and sacrifice and losing and winning and unity.
    President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, General George C. Marshall, Admiral Chester Nimitz, General Douglas MacArthur, and many others in both the Allied and the Axis Powers are here. Prominent Americans including political leaders, actors, and athletes are here. Yet they are all merely supporting cast members in this drama.
    The central and most important actor in December 1941 is the United States of America.
    Craig Shirley
Lancaster, Virginia

EPILOGUE
    â€œA failure of imagination . . .”
    A fter the devastating fire of 1967 in which Apollo One astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chafee were burned alive on the ground in a seemingly routine drill. Another astronaut, Frank Borman, was ordered to head up the NASA investigation.
    He was hauled before a hostile congressional committee and towards the end was asked, “How could this have happened? How are three men killed in a ground test of the Apollo capsule?” Borman, a taciturn man, thought for a moment and replied to New Mexico Senator Clinton Anderson, “Senator, it was a failure of imagination. . . .” Elaborating, Borman said, “No one ever imagined . . . [we] just didn’t think that such a thing could happen.”
    So it was with the attack by the Japanese on December 7, 1941. Sure, memos had been written and hypotheticals discussed, but when it got down to cases, no one—until it was too late—really ever thought the Japanese could sail thousands of miles undetected and attack Pearl Harbor.
    No one in America imagined that the Japanese would have the cunning and tenacity to attempt such a feat, and yet they succeeded because of a failure of imagination on the part of those in power in Washington, both civilian and in