Church was out for most congregations on that Sunday afternoon 75 years ago. The local newspaper carried the big news for the day. In Orange, the big city of the county, Southwestern Bell Telephone had eliminated operators and switched over to a direct dialing system. Then came the radio news and the new phone system was put to the test.
At 1:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on December 7, 1941, the major radio networks interrupted programming for the announcement–Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor.
The next day, local Southwestern Bell manager J.H. Bailey announced that 15,382 local calls were made on the new system. Usually on a Sunday, the local calls averaged 7,200. The city’s population in the 1940 census was 7,472.
Orange, like the rest of the country, went into a combination of shock, fear and patriotism. Everyone in town knew war was likely coming. The U.S. Navy had built the expansive Consolidated Steel Shipyard. The local newspaper reported the shipyard had cost $5 ($850 million in 2016 money). The shipyard had a contract to build 12 destroyers and six were already under construction.
Another sign of war had been headlines about the draft. On the Friday before the attack, a headline reported “upturn in induction rate is predicted.”
The Sunday became “the day that will live in infamy,” as President Franklin D. Roosevelt said. What happened in Orange was reported in the local paper on Monday, December 8.
“Orangeites Await News of Relatives, Friends Involved in Pacific War,” one headline read. Local young adults and where they were serving was listed. Lt. Blake Forest, the son of Mr. and Mrs. N.B. Forest and the grandson of Sam Jackson of Orange was on the Battleship Tennessee at Pearl Harbor. The ship was hit by two bombs and was repaired. Forest was not listed among casualties of the attack.
Agnes Barre, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. V. Barre, was a U.S. Army nurse in the Philippines. Her brother, Lester, was on the USS Marblehead in the Far East. Friends of Agnes would have begun to worry. The December 8 newspaper had headlines about Japanese parachute troops landing in the Philippines. According to headline size, the Philippines attack was the second biggest news. Congress declaring war was the banner headline.
Other big news was about K.A. Susuki, a Japanese citizen who was the head of the Orange Petroleum Company and a Japanese steamship line who lived at 905 Orange Avenue. Police Chief J.B. Hudson and an FBI agent took him into custody and then took him to the county jail.
Susuki wasn’t surprised. The newspaper reported that after he heard about the attack, he called the police station and told officers if it was necessary to arrest him, he would be at home.
K. Kishi, “a former baron of Japan,” had lived in the U.S. for 40 years, most of them in Orange County. He had founded a Japanese farming community. The city reported about eight adults from Japan and about 10 American-born Japanese children lived in the county. They all “expressed deep regret” about the Pearl Harbor attack, but feared no harm here. They considered themselves Americans and the people of Orange as their friends.
Camp Livingston in Louisiana had sent 40 soldiers to Orange as a special guard detail for the local industries and bridges.
The community was getting together to brace for wartime conditions. County Judge Frank Hustmyre and Mayor Abe Sokolski (Orange was the only incorporated city in the county) had called for a central committee for “Civilian Defense” to be formed. They also planned for a medical division.
They invited representatives from the Texas Defense Guard, Red Cross First Aid Committee, police and other law enforcement, the fire department, shipyards to meet. Even representatives from “home demonstration clubs” were needed.
Judge Hustmyre had already sent out a request to the FBI for help protecting the local shipyards.
On December 8, 1941, the United States was in World War II. Life was never the same again for Orange.
-Margaret Toal, KOGT-
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