Photo of the Day

Reading the paper on December 10, 1941

Headline: “Roosevelt sees a long, world-wide war.”

“The War Department made public today an incomplete list of casualties in Sunday’s surprise bombardment of Oahu, Hawaii. The list consisted of 37 names of those killed in action… The Navy has not yet announced a casualty list…”

Left: Japanese sailors wave their caps as bombers head off to Pearl Harbor. Right: Ford Island, with Battleship Row.

Congressmen charged that the US Navy had been “caught asleep” in the Pearl Harbor raid and demanded more information.

“Secretary of State Cordell Hull said today that the nation was on guard against other surprise attacks…”

NYC school children evacuated for an air raid drill, Dec. 10, 1941.

A phony tip of approaching enemy bombers prompted an air raid alert in New York and along the East Coast… “City nonchalant as sirens wail…Passengers refuse to quit bus…Pedestrians ignore order to get off the streets.”

Coast Guard pharmacists march on 64th Street, NYC, c. 1943.

From Roosevelt’s fireside chat the night before: “Powerful and resourceful gangsters have banded together to make war on the whole human race.”

Left: Montana Sen. Burton Wheeler with Charles Lindbergh at an America First rally. RIght: Wheeler at the controls of a subway car. Wheeler supported the isolationist organization and gave many speeches at their rallies, but never joined. His wife, Lulu, however, served on the organization’s national committee.

“War brought a change. Senator Burton K. Wheeler, long an opponent of the President’s foreign policy [is] now an advocate for a total war.”

“The Administration will urge Congress this week to authorize the President to utilize the war equipment of this country in any way and in any place he deems most effective in prosecuting the war….”

FDR watches as the Attorney General draws a number from a jar in the first national draft lottery, which sought 21-year-old men. Oct. 29, 1940.

Congress initiated legislation to extend the term of military service for all presently serving to “six months beyond the period of the war emergency.” The War Department is considering the conscription of all men from 18 to 45 years old.

“According to the National Broadcast Company, Germany has jammed the radio transmission beams to continental Europe for two days in an effort to prevent the conquered nations from learning of the spread of war to the Pacific.”

Left: A London fire warden searches for indendiary bombs. Right: Fires caused by incendiary bombs rage through London residential buildings.

Britain was tightening her air- raid defenses tonight on the theory that Germany, having announced a halt on the Eastern Front, might switch her air forces back to the West.”

300 Mexican pilots trained in the US and then went to the Philippines, where they were attached to the US Fifth Air Force and flew missions against the Japanese.

'The Mexican Government is sending troops to Lower California, where Japanese raiding attacks and landings might be attempted.”

British mother with her newborn. Both wear gas masks.

“Britain has informed Japan that she will abide strictly by the terms of the poison gas protocol of the 1925 Geneva Convention and has asked Japan’s assurances that she intends to do the same…”

Jews from Marseilles are rounded up and placed on trains to concentration camps, 1943.

“Arrests of 12,850 are revealed in Vichy [France]; Jews who entered France since January 1936 are ordered rounded up.”

“President looks fine despite strain of war.”

Reporters crowd around FDR’s desk in the Oval Office, 1944.

In what the Times called an ‘unusual precaution,’ Secret Service agents made all news reporters line up inside the White House and present their credentials before entering Roosevelt’s office for a press briefing.

Anti-aircraft gun atop the Government Publishing Office in Washington, D.C. during WWII.

From Washington: “Floodlights which illuminate the dome of the Capitol were ordered turned off tonight for the duration of the war. Arrangements were completed for darkening, at a moment’s notice, of the White House and the grounds in which it stands.”

Philco Model 40-124C with push-button controls, made in 1940. $25 selling price.

“Please do not telephone the New York Times for war news. Every hour on the hour news bulletins are broadcast on Station WMCA — 570 on the dial.

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I’ll see you tomorrow.

— Brenda

Banner image: Admiral Nimitz, the newly designated Pacific Fleet commander, at the map, with FDR and Gen. MacArthur. Text for today’s post taken from the New York Times.