Memories of December 7, 1941

I remember December 7, 1941, as if it was yesterday. I had just turned sixteen and was living with Rev. Hawley and his family at the Vancouver Barracks east of Portland, Oregon. Rev. Hawley had gotten me a job at the Post Exchange (or “PX”). On this particular Sunday morning, my buddies and I were walking down Broadway in Portland checking out the movies. All of a sudden, someone opened a store door and shouted, “The radio says the Japanese just bombed the hell out of us, somewhere called Pearl Harbor.”

My buddies and I were in a state of shock and disbelief.  Like most Americans, we had read about and listened to the ongoing debates regarding the threat of war with Japan.  But now the facts of the matter were quite different.  On that frightful morning, in what turned out to be a long-planned secret attack, Japanese warplanes appeared suddenly over the unsuspecting U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbor and proceeded to bomb or aerial torpedo what was then the mightiest U.S. naval force in history.

We forgot about the movies and headed home to listen to the radio. The next day, President Roosevelt indelibly described December 7, 1941 as “a date which will live in infamy” and declared war on the Japanese.

I was gung-ho to join the Marines or Navy, but had just turned sixteen.  I checked in with both recruiting offices anyway thinking there might be an age exception now that there was a war on.  The bottom line: no way to enlist at 16; okay at 17, providing one parent sign a consent form; and okay at 18, period.

I waited out the next ten months, eager to turn 17, working as a welder on ships at the newly-opened Kaiser Shipyard in Vancouver, Washington.  In September 1942, on my 17^th birthday, my mother signed a consent form and I joined the U.S. Navy.  –From “BLUEJACKET ODYSSEY, 1942-1946: Guadalcanal to Bikini, Naval Armed Guard in the Pacific” by William L. McGee

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