What Pearl Harbor Did

The United States was a different world in 1940. Journalist Cabell Phillips relates: The population was 131.6 million in 1940, up a scant seven percent over 1930. . . . The GNP was 97.1 billion, with federal government expenses just under 10% of that at 9.1 billion. About 7.5 million people paid federal taxes, with the tax rate at 4.09%. Only 48,000 taxpayers were in the upper bracket of incomes between $25–$100,000. And there were 52 people who declared an income over $1 million. The average factory wage was 66 cents an hour and take home pay was $25.20 a week. Urban families had an annual income of $1,463 and only 2.3% of these families had an income over $5,000 a year.

Canton, Ohio, was a typical midwestern city of about 110,000. Dorothy and Leo Lavin owned a house on 25th Street. It was small, but it was paid for. It had indoor plumbing and a telephone. Leo also owned a LaSalle automobile, which he allowed Carl to drive -- a pretty good deal for any seventeen-year- old boy.

On Sunday, Carl took the LaSalle downtown for lunch. It was around 3 p.m., and he was headed home after having a bite at a lunch counter. As Carl braked for a traffic light, his uncle Bill happened to pull up alongside him, then started waving, trying to get Carl’s attention.

Uncle Bill rolled down his window, motioning for Carl to do the same. Uncle Bill was almost shouting: “Is your radio on? Turn to a news station. Pearl Harbor’s been bombed.”

Carl did not fully understand.

“The Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor,” Uncle Bill said. “That’s ours.”

On 25th Street, Dorothy and Leo also heard the news. Dorothy, classical pianist that she was, always had Leo tune into the weekly 3 p.m. broadcast of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra on the CBS network. There was one large RCA radio set downstairs, and it wasn’t a bad way to pass a Sunday afternoon while reading the paper and catching up on small talk. That day Arthur Rubinstein was to perform Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto. But as Rubinstein was about to begin, CBS announcer John Charles Daly broke the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor during his regular news program.

Said Daly: “The Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor Hawaii by air, President Roosevelt has just announced. The attack also was made on all military and naval activities on the principal island of Oahu.”

After Daly reported for thirty-three minutes, Rubinstein played a stirring rendition of the “Star-Spangled Banner.”  Leo and Dorothy knew America was at war. Carl knew that somehow he would be part of it.

His journey was to take him into the worst of combat in Europe by way of Miami University, Texas, New York, Mississippi, and Britain. He met Nazis, Communists, survivors of work camps, POWs, hundreds of civilians, and thousands of GIs. There were at least four times he should have been killed.

Carl summed it up when he got home in 1946: “I was impossibly lucky. If I never have another lucky day in my life, I will still die a lucky man..”

In memory of all those who served the Allied cause, this book is dedicated

From "Home Front to Battlefront" to be published January 2017