Almanac

By the time the first wounded came home from North Africa last week, smiling from their cots in the train that took them to Washington's Walter Reed Hospital, almost a year had passed since that calm Sunday afternoon when the Mare Island Navy Yard intercepted the message: From CINCPAC to all ships present Hawaiian area: Air raid on Pearl Harbor. This is no drill.

When he heard the news from excited Navy Secretary Frank Knox, all that Franklin Roosevelt could utter was an astonished "No!" In their living rooms, on the golf courses, driving in their cars, tens of thousands of profane Americans said: "Why, the yellow bastards!" Said the Hon. Gerald Prentice Nye, senior U.S. Senator from North Dakota, about to address an America First rally in Pittsburgh: "It sounds terribly fishy to me."

That same day: Maxim Maximovich Litvinoff arrived in Washington by plane to take up his duties as Russian Ambassador; in the indignation over the Jap attack, the ruling of the President's coal arbitration board that all captive coalmine workers must join John Lewis' U.M.W. was lost in the shuffle. Day before, Frank Knox, in his annual report, rated the U.S. Navy "second to none."

Jan. 2, 1042: Japs occupy Manila and Cavite naval base.

Ten days earlier, Winston Churchill had arrived in Washington with a delegation of 86, including Britain's top military leaders. From Winston Churchill came magnificent rhetoric, not a single hard, military fact. Franklin Roosevelt seemed preoccupied with nonmilitary affairs: he accepted his labor-management board's peace plan (no wartime strikes or lockouts, all disputes arbitrated, establishment of WLB), reshuffled production under WPB with Donald Nelson in charge.

March 17: General Douglas MacArthur, hero of the delaying action on Bataan, arrives in Australia.

Although the first A.E.F. had landed in Northern Ireland, the eyes of the U.S. people were on the Pacific theater. They learned that a month earlier the Navy had blasted the Marshall and Gilbert Islands. At home they were embroiled in a heated fight over abolition of the 40-hour week. Robert Guthrie, WPB's textile division head, accused $1-a-year men of preventing total conversion of industry to war, resigned in a huff. (The last car had rolled off Detroit's assembly lines on Jan. 30.)

In numberless cities, the names of roads and bridges were changed to MacArthur.

Brigadier General Mark Wayne Clark, up from a lieutenant-colonelcy in two years, announced that the Army would train troops in desert warfare somewhere "west of the Colorado River."

April 9: Bataan falls, on the second anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Norway.

On that same day: Commerce Secretary Jesse Jones, riled by a charge in Eugene Meyer's Washington Post that he had failed to lay in a sufficient rubber stockpile, punched Mr. Meyer at a Washington party; WPB cut out the use of iron and steel in golf clubs 50%; pink-cheeked Gaston Henry-Haye, Ambassador of Vichyfrance, presented Franklin Roosevelt with a bound volume of the speeches of Marshal Petain to "enlighten" the President on the "general principles that the Marshal is following."

In a fighting speech in his fighting home State of Texas, House Speaker Sam Rayburn let a secret out of the bag: the U.S. was producing over 3,300 planes a month.

April 18: U.S. flyers, under Brigadier General Jimmy Doolittle, raid Tokyo.

Said General George C. Marshall, U.S. Chief of Staff, on a visit to U.S. troops in Northern Ireland: "We have an Army corps trained now for amphibious operations."

May 4-9: Battle of the Coral Sea.

Same day the battle began, the U.S. people registered for sugar rationing. In The Bronx, a grand jury cleared Democratic National Chairman Ed Flynn of converting WPA labor and materials to his own use; New York's Governor Herbert Lehman announced he would not run again. The President had visits from politicos whose business was not the war.

June 4-6: Battle of Midway.

A major switch in strategy seemed to be forthcoming when WPB stopped construction of new war plants, ordered all raw materials to be used in production.

For the second time in six months, Winston Churchill turned up in Washington. Said a joint U.S.-British announcement: an understanding had been reached, on the "urgent tasks of creating a second front in Europe in 1942." The headlines also said:

ROMMEL 100 MILES IN EGYPT. The count on U.S. ships sunk by Axis subs at the end of June: 323. The newspapers that told of Jap landings in the Aleutians also carried an announcement from Cordell Hull: the U.S. would resume shipment of food, clothing and fuel oil to French North Africa.

Aug. 10: U.S. Marines had landed on Guadalcanal, Florida, Tulagi. Aug. 10: U.S. Rangers take part in raid on Dieppe.

The temper of U.S. participation in the war was increasing, but from the people and the press came demands for more action abroad (a second front), for sterner measures at home (too much was shelved until after elections). In a historic speech Franklin Roosevelt asked Congress to pass the anti-inflation bill--"or else." While Congress wrangled, he took his two weeks' "secret" trip through the country. On his return, he signed the bill. He also chastised Administration spokesmen who said the U.S. was losing the war.

Although the Jap had been beaten back in attempts to recapture the Solomons, the U.S. losses were heavy, the U.S. position looked desperate. Almost unnoticed, a Republican trend had developed in the country. On election day, Republicans gained 47 seats in the House, 10 in the Senate, many an important Governorship. Franklin Roosevelt seemed unworried.

Nov. 7: U.S. troops land in North Africa; Nov. 13-15: the U.S. Navy sinks 28 Jap ships in the epic Battle of Guadalcanal.

U.S. strategy, which began evolving last Christmas, was decided upon and accepted in principle by Britain and Russia last summer, had now come clear. Clear, too, now was the output achieved by the American arsenal in the first year of war--an output which, although measured in startling figures (see chart-), can be better appreciated by the American people now that its planes and tanks and guns are being used by their sons and brothers. What is more, they know that the arsenal is still growing.

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