Where were you December 7, 1941?

Memories | Uncle George

[Uncle George]

Dec. 7, 1941 I was 10 years old and having fun running my toy putt-putt boat in the bath tub, you remember those steam boats you put a candle under the boiler and they run around making a loud putt-put noise. My mother came in very excited and told me Japan had bombed us at Pearl Harbor. I ran out in the front yard and many neighbors were outside loudly talking of the attack and we kids were scanning the skys for enemy airplanes because there was talk of Japan invading California and we were in the center of California. Everyone was frightened just as we were September 11, 2001. I have seen the "Sleeping Giant" awakened for the second time and I pray the Country will respond as it did in 1941. We had many less fifth column cells then but they were curtailed quickly then as our President is attempting to control these now. I remember the first soldier killed that was close to our family was my sisters boyfriend who enlisted quickly and died in battle early in the war. I remember her playing a little phonograph record he sent her as he left the U.S. We would all listen to him laughing and telling jokes and the tears would flow as we realized he and thousands more were dieing to protect this Country. Many Americans felt as we did because we took the loss of our loved ones, rationing of everything, around the clock war defence jobs without grumbling or complain. My father worked as a boiler fireman in a sawmill, lumber was a very essential product for defence. I witnessed an awakened giant in 1941 that that drew a Country together into an unbeatable force of all races and creeds that was to be my America for the rest of my life. I pray this Giant of today is the same that awakened on December 7, 1941.

[NYC GOP Chick]

Sorry, but that was 24 years and 16 days before I was born.

[BlessedBeGod]

I wasn't born until 16 years later -- on December 7, 1957, 10:33 AM EST.

[Roebucks]

Forgive my interjection, but perhaps you could expand this to include where we were on September 11th, 2001.

[Keith]

...no more than a gleam in my 16 year old daddy's eye...

[Landru]

Ahhh yes; a mere smile on my old man's face, I was then.

...be that as it may.

[Lazamataz]

Where were you December 7, 1941?

I was randomly-spread nutrients and molecules in various food chains, yet to be consumed by my infant father and yet-unborn mother, so I was not yet sentient or aware of December 7, 1941.

In fact, I may actually have consisted of a few molecules in a chicken leg you consumed that night.

[LurkedLongEnough]

Interesting post; I bet you'll get some neater answers than mine, but my parents hadn't met yet.

[Lazamataz]

Now, my question to YOU -- and one that is far more pertinent -- where were YOU on October 21, 1307?!?

[11th Earl of Mar]

I wasn't even a sperm yet.

[cynicom]

Like you, I was ten and remember the day very well. No one seemed to know where or what Pearl Harbor was. The next day in school we found out where it was but did not know where Hawaii was located. So much for ignorance. It did not take long for everyone to come to the realization that we were at war, world wide.

[Joe Driscoll]

I was not yet sentient or aware

Some things never change.

[wideawake]

Hmmm . . . my dad was 38 days old that day. My grandfather had died of lymphoma three months before.

But my great-grandfather was at his shop in Yorkville in Manhattan and someone came running in from a nearby restaurant to tell him what they had heard on the radio.

He told my father years later that everyone was genuinely shocked and wondering what would come next - New Yorkers were concerned that the Japanese might be making for California.

[kachina]

...no more than a gleam in my 16 year old daddy's eye...

Same here. I wasn't born until 1943, 3 months after my Dad went into the Marine Corps. He didn't see me until I was 2 years old.

[FairWitness]

I was 9 months old; my father was 41 and a farmer, so not draftable. My only memory related to the war was the interesting "stamps" (probably for sugar, gas, etc.) with pictures of tanks and other neat stuff on them, probably at the end of, and maybe even shortly after, the war.

[Lazamataz]

Some things never change.

Sure they have. You've grown, developed, become a better person.

[SunnyUsa]

"I was randomly-spread nutrients and molecules in various food chains, yet to be consumed by my infant father and yet-unborn mother..."

hahaha...I think alot of us weren't born then - and our parents were either kids, or not born either!

[thesharkboy]

I was born 25 years later, but I can tell about my favorite uncle. He was driving up a road parallel to the Ohio River to his girlfriend's house in Toronto, Ohio, when he heard the news on the radio. He immediately turned around and went home. He enlisted not long after that for the Army Air Corps and was a waist gunner on a B24 named the "Sad Sack" (probably a very common name for a plane). He served in North Africa, Italy, and Southern Europe, getting shot down twice. He was wounded by a bullet in the shoulder, received a Purple Heart and a few Bronze Stars.

He died a few years ago and I miss him every day. Every time I see a documentary about the raid on the Ploesti Oil Works, I think about his stories of their plane getting corn stalks in the engines. I'm planning to put his diary on the web soon, and will post it here as well.

[Ward Smythe]

...no more than a gleam in my 16 year old daddy's eye...

My dad would've been 12. Probably had the gleam, but didn't know why...

[Roebucks]

I was randomly-spread nutrients and molecules...

Okay, so which cheese spread were you?

A TAZZA MAL
A TAZZA LAM
ALMA TAZZA
LAMA TAZZA