December 6, 1941

On Saturday, December 6, 1941, the Wonder Woman comic had just begun publication, and secessionists had declared the State of Jefferson in Yreka, California, with John C. Childs as governor.

You could buy a new car for $850 and a gallon of gas for 13 cents. A loaf of bread or gallon of milk cost 8 or 54 cents, respectively. “Two bits” (a quarter) bought a movie ticket. M&Ms, just invented, let soldiers enjoy chocolate without it melting, and were sold only to the military. Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr (Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler) invented a radio guidance system for torpedoes, with a frequency-hopping signal to prevent the enemy from tracking or jamming it.

The Soviet Army had just launched a huge counter-offensive that would save Moscow from the Germans. December 6, the submarine Perseus and the SS Greenland hit mines, in the Ionian and North Seas, respectively, killing 60 and nine men.

The submarine’s sole survivor was John Capes, a non-crew-member hitching a ride to Alexandria. Three escaped. Only Capes survived the painful ascent to the surface. He swam five miles to Cephalonia Island, where folks hid him for 18 months. A diplomat’s son British authorities had sent to the Navy rather than prison after his automobile hit a horse, Capes lived until 1985. Few believed his tale until a 1997 dive confirmed it. Cephalonia became famous as the setting for the marvelous novel Captain Corelli’s Mandolin(1994)

December 6, in Kirkwood, Illinois, Richard Speck was born. Speck became famous the night of July 13, 1966, when he stabbed, strangled, and/or slashed to death eight student nurses in their Chicago residence. (He had no AR-15.) His death sentence commuted, he died of a heart attack in 1991, the day before his 50^th birthday. Speck’s beloved father had died of a heart attack at 53. Had his father lived, had his Christian Teetotaler mother not married an alcoholic traveling salesman with a long criminal record, whom she had met on a train, or had Speck’s July 13th ship assignment come through, the eight would have become nurses. One survived, by crawling under a bed while Speck was out of the room.

Joan Baez, Neil Diamond, Buffy St.-Marie, and Dick Cheney were also born in 1941.

Folks watched Sergeant York, Gone with the Wind, Citizen Kane, recently-released The Maltese Falcon with Humphrey Bogart, or the short, Elmer's Pet Rabbit, Bugs Bunny’s second film appearance, and the first with his name on a title. Or listened on radio to the hillbilly music show Grand Ol’ Oprey, the drama Gangbusters, or Arthur Godfrey’s or Jack Benny’s comedy/variety shows – or Edward R. Murrow’s chilling report from Europe on CBS. Folks were reading James M. Cain’s Mildred Pierce, James Hilton‘s Random Harvest, or perhaps the latest Batman comic. Or Berlin Diary by William L. Shirer.

In New Mexico, weeks earlier, Ansel Adams had stopped beside the road and shot the wonderful black-and-white photograph, “Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico. New Mexicans had no clue they’d soon flock to enlist, some destined for the Bataan Death March. (Within four years, the federal government would shatter a peaceful New Mexico morning by exploding a test bomb that would destroy thousands of lives here.

Admiral Isoroko Yamamoto, his fleet having miraculously crossed the Pacific unseen, reflected on the twist of fate that had him initiating a war he had vigorously argued against, attacking a country he knew well and loved.

                                                         – 30 --

 

[The above column appeared Sunday, 3 December, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and on the newspaper’s website (“Saturday, December 6, 1941”), as well as on KRWG’s website under Local Viewpoints. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/). ]

[Some who know a bit about history may ask why I mention Gone with the Wind, a 1939 film, in late 1941 or why I say folks watched Citizen Kane, which actually bombed at the box office in 1941, Disney’s Dumbo was a huge hit. Fact is, Gone with the Wind was finished in 1939, but apparently spent more than a year touring the country before being released generally to theaters in 1941. What is a bit inaccurate, perhaps, is saying some New Mexicans who enlisted in December might end up on the Bataan Death March. In fact, although the U.S. was not yet in the war, New Mexico’s National Guard forces were already in the U.S-controlled Philippines, just in case; and invading the Philippines was high on the Japanese To-Do List. That’s why New Mexicans were so disproportionately represented among the prisoners of war.]

[I’d known a lot of this 1941 stuff, but not that Speck was born that year or anything about Cape. A reader might wonder why no one believed his account. First, there have been few such events. Second, while stumbling around the engine room before he got out of the sub, he noticed the depth meter read 270 ft. Rising so fast from 100 feet could kill, and did kill his wounded companions, and nearly killed him. The 270 feet seemed excessive, and perhaps locals knew the sea wasn’t so deep around there. Too, the local Greeks, though allied with Britain to try to throw out their Italian occupiers, didn’t really trust the United Kingdom either. However, when the divers found and entered the ship, they found that the depth-meter had apparently broken from the impact, and indeed read 270 feet, though that was wildly inaccurate. Cape had died a dozen years earlier.]

[I know from other research what a complete shock Pearl Harbor was.
Yamamoto’s brilliant concept, that the Japanese 5th Fleet might travel so far undiscovered, was a hell of a gamble. Yamamoto was an interesting fellow (played by Toshiro Mifune in three different films). I read a biography, long ago. I also was particularly impressed by a historian’s account of the war from the Japanese perspective. Unfortunately, it was written decades ago and I’ve forgotten the author’s name, but will plug it in here if I run across it on our shelves.]

[Sadly, since my recent column on the Downwinders, House Republicans have stripped from the defense bill the proposed amendment to the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act that would have expanded it to cover the folks who got exposed first and worst to radium, New Mexicans who lived anywhere near the Trinity Site.]