American Audio: Reactions to Pearl Harbor Days After the Event
Listen to real reflections by Americans at the Dawn of WWII
The twentieth century brought a new form of witness to events, through so-called “Man on the Street” interviews. Persons informed about recent, newsworthy events would offer their reactions. This novel medium, popularized through radio and later television, is archived at the Library of Congress. Among their collection are interviews of Americans in the days following the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor, by local radio and universities across the United States. These responses, for some, may be surprising.
One audio-clip of reactions by Americans in Bloomington, Indiana (recorded by the Radio Department of Indiana University in cooperation with the Library of Congress) and recorded on December 10th, 1941, three days after the attacks, include claims of “betrayal” and astonishment that the United States government could have been caught flat-footed by the Japanese. One person calls for deeper cooperation between countries to avoid such events and blamed the United States’s failure to join the League of Nations following the Great War.
Interestingly, another man questioned the post-WWI culture the U.S. The younger generation had been inculcated, he believed, to think there was nothing worse than war. One can sense a growing acceptance of an American military response during the course of the discussion. Despite no declaration of war yet against Germany at the time of recording, a debate between whether such a declaration ought to be declared against Japan, Germany, or both, informs the dialogue. Also of note is the assertion, by virtually all participants, that the United States would play a more active role in the world following the new war. This is rather astonishing in its prophecy, particularly considering that not one American G.I. had yet been placed onto Japanese or German (or Italian) soil.
One participant observed that “if we [the United States] are going to set up an international association of nations, then we must be in it. We must give that association some form of teeth, so that it will work.” A woman notes that some of the blame for international crises lay at the feet of the victors of World War I, including the United States. “Hitler himself is a product, we might say, of what we as an entire group of nations did then [at the end of WWI]. The German people—when you’re ready for something—naturally, you’re going to vote in someone.” This too is rather astonishing. These observations, proclaimed by later historians that Germany grew dangerous, in part, because of the actions of its enemies in the aftermath of the Great War, was clarified by an American woman just days after the Pearl Harbor assault. Many today would likely be surprised by the perceptiveness of those recorded. What may also be worthy of note is that although this woman recognized some complicity among the United States and its WWI allies for not having treated Germany more diplomatically after the first world war, there seemed to be no confusion or accusation about her “blaming America” or being somehow unpatriotic.
Audio Clip 1: December 10th, 1941, Americans Reflect Upon the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor
In another clip recorded in Bloomington, also on December 10th, a Mr. Calvert shared that—after realizing that the news of the Pearl Harbor attack was not some hoax—he and others were “first depressed, and then disgusted, and now it seems that we are ready to do anything that is necessary to stop this Japanese invasion.” When asked what his views were regarding American foreign policy prior to the attacks, Calvert quickly and clearly admits to having had an “isolationist policy,” but after “an attack on American property, I am of a different opinion.”
Audio Clip 2: December 10th, 1941, Americans Reflect Upon the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor
The conclusions themselves may not be as surprising here as the alacrity at which they emerge. These recordings, and others, demonstrate that the cliché was true: the United States was one country on December 6th, 1941, and a very different country the next day and thereafter.
The clips included here are merely two of the many available to listen to through the Library of Congress archive. You can listen to more of these recordings here.
Audio clips courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Bibliography:
Allen, Robert Eugene Barton, Donald E Bowin, Mr Boyer, Merritt A Calvert, Miss Fargo, Miss Fossil, Mike Fox, Burt Laws, Mr Russell, and Paul Martin. "Man-on-the-Street," Bloomington, Indiana. Bloomington, Indiana, 1941. https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1941004_sr04/.
[James M. Masnov is a Columbian Distinguished Fellow at George Washington University in Washington, DC. He has been a contributor at Pure Insights, the Brownstone Institute, Armstrong Journal of History, and the Oregon Encyclopedia, among other publications. His books include Imperfect Vehicles, available here, Rights Reign Supreme: An Intellectual History of Judicial Review and the Supreme Court, available here, and History Killers and Other Essays by an Intellectual Historian, available here.]
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