Longview News-Journal from Longview, Texas • Page 6

6- A SUNDAY, DECEMBER 7,1380, Longview Morning Journal Pearl Harbor victims honored Carthage man recalls Pearl Harbor time the Japanese attack HONOLULU (AP) if startea jy years ago. The program includes a moment of silence, a fly. over by four Hawaii Air Na- tional Guard jets, a brief prayer, and a flag-raising. A flower from each of the s' wreaths will be dropped on' the waters over the sunken; battleship, where more than 1,100. men were entombed, i Arizona Gov.

Bruce Babbitt and a group of Arizona national guardsmen will participate in the Pearl Harbor anniversary rremonies aboard the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial on Sunday. More tharr 30 veterans and patriotic groups will present wreaths during the brief ceremony, which will begin at 7:55 a.m., HST, the From page one out his .45 and fired a clip at the airplane. were the first shots fired against the Japanese during World War II." For many of the servicemen under attack, the experience was frustrating. "We were madder than hornets because we didn't have anything to fight back with," he recalls.

"It was like attacking a dragon with a paring knife. "Everybody was definitely angry," Murphy added. "Not so much at the Japanese, but because we didn't have the capabilities of going after them." Murphy also feels resentment. "It was a political fiasco," be said. "Pearl Harbor was setup.

"It is a known fact that the U.S. had broken the Japanese naval code and their diplomatic code in April 1941 months before the attack" he added. "And you can't move a ship in a couple of days." Murphy theorizes that two people, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and then-Secretary of State Cordell Hull, knew weeks ahead of time the attack was coming. Murphy does concede that Roosevelt probably did not realize exactly when it was going to be.

"But, Roosevelt was so committed to Churchill in Eng-. land to get us. into the war that he failed to notify the operational commanders. "It was not the fault of the Navy," Murphy emphasized. "Roosevelt goofed up, he got us into a war, he got those men killed on Dec.

7 and then it was turned over to the military to? get us out of the mess." Murphy bases his assumption on declassified World War II records released by the government a few years ago and his theories of Roosevelt's involvement in the event. "Once we had been suckered into war, this stuff had to remain top-top-secret," he said. "For the good of the public and the nation this could not be made public. "If the Japanese had known that we had broken their code, we would have lost the war," Murphy said. "Because we had the code we knew every move they made." More has been written about the Pearl Harbor disaster than perhaps about, any other single event in United States history.

When the Japanese aircraft returned to their carriers only 29 planes with their crews of 55 officers and men were missing. Of the American battleships, the Arizona was completely destroyed, the California and West Virginia were sunk and later raised, the Oklahoma capsized, the Nevada heavily damaged and the Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Maryland were damaged but aljle to proceed under their own power to the West Coast. The Japanese task force, a total of 33 ships, were all sunk later and did not survive the war. Four of the enemy carriers were sunk at the Battle of Midway. At his air station.

Murphy said 36 long-range bombers badly damaged, but through salvage efforts, "We were able to get seven into the air the next morning even though they were in no way airworthy," he said. Fortunately for the United States, three carriers were absent from landlocked Pearl Harbor during the attack. The Lexington and Enterprise were at sea and the Saratoga was still being overhauled on the West Coast. Without these surviving carriers America would not have survived the war, Murphy said. Murphy is a member and past president of the East JVV.

si 'J A--" rV fVyHt iiu dSftspfP JAMES R. MURPHY Texas chapter of the Pearl. Harbor Survivors Association. He ccntined in the Navy for 29 years. He is proud of his career and appreciates the historical significance of the events of which he has been a part.

Although the attack on Pearl Harbor was a strategic sue-, cess for the Japanese, in the end it was a colossal political mistake. The American people were aroused into a united force which carried them to victory. Sullivans: Worst tragedy since Pearl WATERLOO, Iowa (UPI) The five Sullivan brothers stuck together. All five worked for Rath Packing Company and when a boyhood friend, Bill Ball, was killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor, they vowed to fight together. And they died together.

They were among the 700 killed when the light cruiser USS Juneau was torpedoed at Guadalcarial: A special Navy representative was "sent to Waterloo to break the news. The Navy called the deaths "the greatest single blow suffered by one family since Pearl Harbor and probably in American naval history." The Sullivans quickly became a rallying point in the war. The parents toured defense plants, sister Genevieve enlisted in the WAVES and President Franklin Roosevelt approved naming a destroyer The Sullivans in honor of the brothers. Eleanor Roosevelt wrote the mother, one of the hundreds of letters the family received after the deaths of George, 29, Francis, 26, Joseph, 23, Madison, 22 and Albert, 20. "You and your husband have given a lesson of great courage to the whole country," the president's wife wrote.

The legend, aided by a Hollywood movie and a park on the east side of Waterloo, is muted after 38 years. "I think people are interested but we don't have much material (on display)," said Margo Dundon, co-director of the Grout Museum of History and Science. "We are in the process of collecting memorabilia." tet. 1 in" x. 1'i 'J: i The place to see.

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Nary Battleship Arizona belches smoke after Japanese attack Dec. 7,1941. Lazy Sunday turned into Day of Infamy in on the wire services. But a spectator did not need a portable radio to tell him momentous events were in progress. At the Polo Grounds, the man who would direct clandestine war actions as head of the Office of Strategic Services was paged.

"Attention please. Here is an urgent message. Will Col. William J. Donovan call operator 19 in Washington immediately." At the Washington game, the public-address announcer reported a call for an Admiral Blanding, then a message for a Major Butler.

"Report to your office" was the word. Employees of The Washington Times Herald who might be at the ball park were asked to go to work. though the Redskins-Eagles game was a thriller Sammy Baugh threw two fourth-quarter touchdown passes for a 20-14 Washington victory many fans streamed out of the stadium well before the end to find out what was happening in the outside world. N.Y. Times News Service NEW YORK Another Sunday, another Dec.

7. It was the end of the National Football League's regular season and the end of an era for America. At Griffith Stadium in Washington, the Redskins met the Philadelphia Eagles, and though neither team was in contention for anything, 27,102 fans turned out. At the Polo Grounds in New York, the Giants, having clinched the Eastern Division title, took on the Brooklyn Dodgers. And at Wrigley Field in Chicago, the Bears, needing a victory to tie the idle Green Bay Packers for the Western Division championship, were trying to get past the Chicago Cardinals.

Before the games in Washington and New York, there would be a bit of ceremony. Oh the Griffith Stadium turf, Al Blozis, a tackle and shot-put champion from Georgetown University, presented traveling bags to three members of the Eagles and a Redskin all alumni of Georgetown on behalf of the school's student body. In New York, the gifts were not quite so modest. It was "Tuffy Lee-mans Day." In pregame ceremonies, Leemans, the Giants' veteran running back, was given a silver tray inscribed by his teammates and $1,500 in bonds defense bonds. Soon these government securities would be called war bonds.

The 55,051 fans at the Polo Grounds watching the Leemans ceremony on that cold, windy Sunday in 1941 did not know it yet, but the United States had gone to war. The first word to reach the football fields in Washington and New York came to the sports reporters. The ticker in the press boxes reported a score from Chicago Cardinals 7, Bears 0, in the first quarter and then The Associated Press interrupted its report with the words "cut football running." After a pause, there came the bulletins that made football games, seem a bizarre irrelevancy. The public-address announcers at the two games did not relay to the crowds the reports that were coming kb I I i if I You ere cordially invited to attend the First National of Longview Christmas Music Festival Wednesday, December 10, 19G0 W7 19-15 Fosfet Junior H.gh Cho.r fei I I I 9.45 Tre Chorote I I 1 10: 15 longview's Teth Gfode Choir 10:45 longview' Ninth Grade Choir aX 4 I I Hudson Pep School Stngef yd'' longview Concert Choir 12.30 Forest Park Middle School fZy MS Pine Tree Junior High' Choir MtT- 145 Judson Middle School Choir 'XMi 2:15 Foster Fat.hncs MEMSER A. N-1045, 18k braided gold necklace $5500.00 B.

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