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Eventide
By Stanley E. Halfhill
January 1,
1942
Reveille January
First!
Happy New Year? Merry New Year? Hell no! How
insane the usual New Year's greeting with the world gone mad and now
our own beloved country dragged into the useless slaughter of nation
upon nation, of peoples upon peoples. But could we help
it? No! We are attacked. We must fight for the
heritage of America. The highest, most sublime heritage that
man has ever known.
Freedom! Not a word, but a way of living, of believing. Why we
don't know anything else. We could never know anything
else. And we never will!
Happy New Year? With Hawaii still burying her dead. With
Luzon invaded. With three hundred and fifty American boys
fighting to the death for a mere sandy spit of American soil
thousands of miles from home. With thousands of our men aboard
their floating fortresses but in danger of their lives this
minute. Happy New Year! Ha! Next year maybe.
But right now we have a job to do.
Eventide
We remember the U.S.S. Arizona well. She
had her own private anchor buoy out in Battleship Row, opposite
Brighton Beach. Some of her boys used to come in to Cabrillo
Beach and play volley ball once in a while. She had a
hard-fighting gang in the fall football league between sister
dreadnaughts at Trona Field, too. It seems impossible to think
of that massive pile of steel as now lying on the bottom of Pearl
Harbor, and that many of those laughing American boys are still with
her, to the death.
They always seemed to be so alive--so full of spirit. Though
they never won the fleet championship they were always in there
trying and never seemed to care that the "Cal" and Pennsy"
had them outclassed. When we read of some of them swimming
through waters covered with flaming oil to reach another ship, when
the old Arizona died beneath them, we thought of the spirit they had
shown on the gridiron. So when they reached another ship and
promptly helped man her guns to fight some more, it was only
natural--they being that kind of men.
The last time we saw the Arizona she was lying out at her anchorage
in the Los Angeles Harbor in solitary splendor. She had her
war paint on consisting of dark, smoky hull and fighting top of
lighter gray. On her bow was painted an immense blue bow wave--and
she was all alone. Gone were all her sister ships, big
and small, hither and yon on many mission, and she was only to stop
for two days, at her old home, and then away again. That may
have been her last trip to the States. You see, it wasn't so
long ago.
When she slipped to sea again, too soon to keep her rendezvous with
treachery and murder, aboard was still that love of
sportsmanship. That will to keep on fighting against any odds,
that was her heritage. This week, reported in the newspapers,
was the bitter vow of one of her survivors: "After
that stab in the back I hope to live to show them what an American
can do."
Running Lights
We visited Engine 80 the other day and our eyes
popped with amazement with what we saw there but alas, we can't
report it here. We have to write of sleek deadly fighters of
the air and mammoth bombers and soldiers in battle dress but we are
war. We would not by one careless word wish to hurt the
fighting forces of our country, beset by ruthless enemies. But
we were glad to see so much accomplished toward adequate defenses,
in one short week of hostilities.
We found at quarters there a fireman with a problem. In his
pocket was a private flying license and he told me that he loved to
fly but his plane had been grounded along with all private
flying. Too, he had only four months to go before he would be
too old to get in the Air Force. The security of marriage and
steady employment was his but still, he loved to fly. His
country needs flyers. And daily before his eyes a parade of
some of the finest planes and pilots in the world--just to make it tougher
to decide to stay home and fight the battles of home defense, which
surely is the job of the fireman in this war. So Fireman Blank
thinks that is quite a problem. Blank is really his mane,
too. Say Blank, how's to swap, eh? You write Eventide
and we will join the Air Corps, huh?
All Turrets
Firemen on the Pacific slope must find a quiet
satisfaction in their position of today. Ours must be a job
vastly increased importance to those we serve for the duration of
this war in the Pacific. We of the Los Angeles area find that
life is fuller as our tasks become greater in the service of our
community. We have noticed no hysteria in the people of the
southland but a growing determination to "see it through"
with confidence in leadership and pride in the groundwork of
preparedness that was ready for the present emergency. Now,
it's kind of a "all hands to battle stations" situation with every
man with a part to do and every man doing his part. Someone
page Ervin Cody of Fire Boat 2 who can still sing out those colorful
ship orders of the old Navy, which would be so apropos to our
position today. May our petty roudelay of ordinary living be
blacked out by a a concerted and mighty surge of effort toward our immediate
surge of effort toward our immediate goal--to a complete protection of
our Pacific Coast, our cities our communities, our homes, our
lives. Our lives?
Theodore Roosevelt once said," No man is worth his salt who is not
ready at all times to risk his body, to risk his well-being, to
risk his life in a great cause."
January 15,
1942
PEOPLE
of the Los Angeles Harbor area have been cautioned by press and
radio to say nothing to anyone about the movements of ships either
in or out of the harbor during the war.
The reasons are obvious. As one commentator said, "Ships
coming and going can be plainly seen by inhabitants of the area, but
it is just possible that the enemy may not know about it if the
residents make a habit of saying nothing."
Well, maybe so. But if there is a fifth column in the Harbor
area that functions with one-tenth of the efficiency of the one in
Honolulu, as is now a matter of record, then there will be precious
little about our harbor that the enemy will not know
intimately. The topography of the district being what it
is, it would be impossible to hide much on the waters there.
From many vantage points, along the lonely roads that wind through
the Palos Verdes hills, the whole panorama of the harbor and its
environs spreads like a map far below. There used to be
high-powered telescopes set along some of the higher promontories,
where for the small sum of "a thin dime" one could bring
Fort McArthur or Navy's Reeves Field right up to the eye. It
was like having a ringside seat to any "doings" anywhere
down below.
Of course, the Japs farmed all of that area for years and it never
seemed important to the ordinary citizen then. That they probably
watched our fleet, as it came and went, from their high fields along
the shoulders of the hills, seems now to be only a matter of course.
We know that other Japs followed our Navy in local waters in their
tuna boats and had to be driven away from San Clemente Island, a
Naval reserve. The little yellow men were busy those days,
sizing up the big complacent behemoth that they were to
treacherously attack, come the day.
We remember one time accompanying Cap (now Chief) Danks, and Keith
Danks on an abalone trip out toward Portuguese Bend and when we would
have gone down through a field toward the ocean, we found our way
blocked by a Jap's garden truck and curtly refused entrance.
There may have been no significance to that incidence but if the Jap
had something to hide he was in a particularly advantageous point
for it, being at a place where he could watch the whole Catalina
channel.
It was in '38 that we stood on a high knob above Fort McArthur and
watched the whole Pacific fleet pass in and out of the outer harbor,
in a test of the capacity of the Los Angeles harbor to hold the
entire fleet at one time. We proudly pointed out to our Dad,
who was a visitor from the East, the different units in the various
columns of ships. We found it to be a thrilling sight. We
suppose that the short-wave sets were busy that night, on the Palos
Verdes, near by. Having catalogued, as well as counted, our
ships and noted their doings, the little yellow devils, come night
fall, had left their tomatoes and cabbages and turned on their
power-radio sending sets and reported to other hirelings of the
Mikado, that which they had seen.
We fancy that it is a different story up in the Palos Verdes, these
days. The army is certainly there and if there be any
telescopes, any radios, they are manned today by loyal Americans in khaki
uniforms and what they are doing is their business but we'll
lay you two to one that they are not growing any tomatoes.
Speaking of telescopes--there is one not far from here and the boys,
who daily scan the ocean are those same boys in khaki. Day and
night a watch is kept and not long ago one of them was rewarded by a
great thing to see. He saw the attacker of the Absaroka blown
to pieces by a Navy bomber and that must have been a satisfying
sight to any American.
We saw this same ship laying on the sand at Cabrillo beach the other
day and we can tell about it for she won't go anywhere for awhile
with that torpedo hole in her side. In fact we saw many ships
in the harbor but won't go into that. There was one though
whose painting with the colors of war surely seemed odd. We
refer to the Catalina and some how we can't picture that one with
war paint on. She and her sister ships have been, for many
years, gay excursion boats to the "Magic Isle" and with
their white paint and colored pennants, have been the carriers of
happy vacation-bound people and, well, she just won't fit into the
war scene.
It looks like, now, that it will be impossible to continue writing
about the harbor, at least of things that we normally discussed on
these pages. We are at last in the position of having an empty
stage and even the stage is taboo. We mean that the moving
characters have gone and the props alone remain and they shrouded in
darkness. The play is over. A new one will soon
begin. Title? Remember Pearl Harbor!
February 2,
1942
We walked out on the breakwater at Cabrillo Beach and gazed around
us in amazement. Without question there had never been
seen such a massing of implements of war since the Spanish
Armada. And what implements of war!
Massive flying boats of multi-decked height and wings of enormous
spread, anchored in windrows of countless thousands, behind the
breakwater and over the surface of the Los Angeles harbor, clear to
the dim outline of Long Beach in the distance. Why, the miles
of space was crowded with them and still they were coming.
Every few minutes could be heard a hum that crescendoed to a roar
and from out of the sky, from north or south, or east would come
another great bird to land on the sea outside and come taxiing in
past the breakwater light house and thread its way through the labyrinth
of sister ships, to an anchor buoy, in the middle distance.
On their bows was painted the stars and stripes, like the Pam
American Clippers, but on their wings was the blue star-with red
field center-on a white field, of the Naval Air Forces. How
they bristled with guns! We had no idea that flying ships,
even such mammoth ones as these, could mount such enormous guns as
protruded from the wings, the turrets and blisters of these flying
fortresses. We guessed that they must be somewhere from three
to five-inch bore.. It was so hard to tell, but compared with
the size of the flyers that were swarming over them, waking on the wings
and clamboring up and down the fuselages, the guns must have been
that big at least.
From the feverish activity that was going on, we surmised that this
great fleet was in a hurry to cast off in the near future.
Many Navy launches were weaving to and fro from the pier to planes
and back in never ending streams.
We sat down on the breakwater's edge to see what this was all
about. We watched a heavily laden shore boat make its way out
to one of the nearer flying battleships and pull up to the
bow. Big doors immediately opened and an I-beam traveling
crane came into view and the sailors in the boat fastened the
business end of winch to an aerial torpedo or bomb of the same size
and it slowly raised and disappeared into the maw of the
plane. This was repeated many times and then the boat shoved off
with a tinkling of the coxswain's bell. Soon another took its place
and this performance was repeated many times. Our surprise at
the size of these ships was gradually replaced with a wonder at the
capacity of them. Holy Cow! How many of those big tin
fish and bombs could these planes hold any way? As we looked
across the harbor toward Watchorn Basin and out past the reaches of
the outer harbor, clear to Reeves Field we could see this same work
going on in a hundred different places on a hundred different
planes. Also here and there could be seen oil lighters with
their flexible hoses reaching up to and into wings as they dispensed
gasoline to the moored and silent war birds.
Our concentration on the scene before us was presently interrupted
by a voice at our side. Turning, we saw sitting close by, a little
fellow in a black hat perched atop a big round head, dark clothes
and the inevitable horned rim spectacles. Black brows and
squinty little slanted eyes were the main features, along with buck
teeth and a blob of a nose, of a particularly unattractive
face. He seemed vaguely familiar. Evidently a Jap. But
certainly a Jap.
"You say--how many planes--you see, huh?" Pad and
pencil poised, the little guy waited for the answer. We still could
not place him. We didn't answer.
"You say . . . Maybe so two t'ousan' . . . Maybe
twen' five hundled planes?, quizzed the little Nipponese, unabashed
by our close scrutiny, as we tried to place him in our memory among
the many Japanese faces we had seen in the Harbor District, during
four years of residence there.
For some unbeknownst reason we found ourselves answering this
fellow. We told him, "Look here, there are many thousands
of planes there and many more are coming, every minute, every
hour, every day." This sudden reply seemed to agitate the
little fellow some what. He jumped up and
spluttered--"Oh, too many--too many. Where they go,
huh? Yu know where they go?
We didn't. But we found our voice saying, "To Tokyo,
tonight!"
That got the Jap. He jumped and shook his head and hurried away,
saying "Oh! Oh! Too many, too big! Oh, too
bad!" He scurried in toward shore, his short legs taking
him up and down over the uneven rocks at greater speed than we would
have thought possible. We murmured to ourselves, "Make the most
of that, Mr. Moto."
Mr. Moto? So that's who he was. Sure, unconsciously the
name had come back to us. Why that was the face in all of the
cartoons of today, depicting the Japs in general. But he had
been here in person? There was such a squint-eyed
monstrosity! Impossible.
We scrambled to our feet, much perturbed, and looked around and lo
and behold the Harbor was suddenly empty and did a fade out, right before
our eyes--
We woke up in our little trundle bed in the Valley and the little
woman had given us the old elbow with the wifely admonition,
"Daddy! Get off you back, Your snoring again."
Dutifully rolling over, we snuggled down warmly against the chill of
an open window, nearby, and drowsily we wondered about all of these
mighty planes we had seen while in the arm of Morpheus, and again we
said to ourselves, "Make the most of that, Mr.
Moto."""""
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