Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7 – I’ll never forget it!

by Joe Snyder

Without a moments notice, on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor changed from a quiet seaport into a war zone. An enemy force of 31 ships and more than 350 planes approached Hawaii undetected and delivered what was described by the Japanese as an “annihilating blow” to Pearl Harbor and other military installations in the Hawaiian islands.

Six of our battleships were sunk or badly damaged, about 200 of our aircraft were destroyed and around 2,400 people killed. The Japanese simultaneously attacked the Philippines as well as British possessions of Hong Kong and Malaya. Winston Churchill telephoned President Franklin Roosevelt immediately to confirm the report about Pearl Harbor.

“It’s quite true,” FDR answered. “We’re all in the same boat now.”

At the time Ralph and Edyth Snyder’s little boy Joe was in a Fort Riley, Kan., mess hall on KP and sweeping floors, even as the bombs fell in the Pacific. He had been drafted, expecting to serve in the U.S. Cavalry for just one year. He would then resume his fledging newspaper career at The Kansas City Star where he answered phones, wrote high school sports stories and, reluctantly, run errands for Star staffers who needed a battle of Scotch to get them through their night shift.

What World War II did for the United States was what seven years of the New Deal had been unable to accomplish – extricate America from its Great Depression that had throttled the nation’s economy and put millions out of work and on relief rolls. My family was one of the millions affected during the “depression.” It was an embarrassing time for many. My father became a WPA worker for a bit less than $10 a week, digging in the banks of the Blue River (on the east side of Kansas City) without a purpose or a goal.

I remember how discouraged he became. Meanwhile my mother “raked and scraped” to keep food on the table but I recall she sure beat the meals I had, courtesy of the U.S. Cavalry at Fort Riley. It was there I learned to identify one end of a horse from the other and greatly embarrassed as a fledging Democrat to be thrown into the Republican River by my horse “Crackers” during basic training.

The Dec. 7 attack changed my parents. My dad, a canvas worker, suddenly had steady, good paying job making tents for the Army. My mother could go to the store and buy just about anything she needed. Women played a huge role in WW II. A large portion of America’s success in the war was attributed to females like “Rosie the Riveter” wielding wrenches and cranes in mammoth factories.

There was a real “Rosie.” Rosie Bonavita with some assistance pounded 3,345 rivets into the wing of a bomber in a record six hours. In the meantime the Germans went into Russia and across North Africa and the Japanese went south toward Australia, east toward Hawaii and west to India. My participation was both dangerous and exciting, ending on the USS Missouri for the surrender ceremony.

Thank God for Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. Remember Dec. 7, 1941? I’ll never forget it!