Granville Then & Now – December 2, 2021 – Granville man was there on 'day of infamy'

Granville man was there on 'day of infamy'

By Erik Pekar, Town Historian

This coming Tuesday marks 80 years since the attack on the Pearl Harbor Naval Base in Honolulu, Hawaii, on Dec. 7, 1941.

World War II began in Europe in 1939, and America soon began to aid Great Britain with military supplies through Lend-Lease. By late 1941, relations with Japan were souring.

On the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, more than 300 planes of the Imperial Japanese Navy flew to Hawaii and bombed the Pearl Harbor naval base. In this vicinity there was a sizable military presence; Pearl Harbor was and is the base for the U.S. military in the Pacific. Besides the naval base, there were also Fort Shafter, an Army base, and Hickam Field, another base.

A man from Granville was there on that day. Robert B. Hicks, then a 1st Lt., was stationed at Fort Shafter, and on that day he was in charge of his company’s area. Hicks had enlisted in the Army in April of 1941, for what initially was supposed to be one year of service. This program was known by different names and was famously referred to in song as “Goodbye Dear, I’ll Be Back in a Year.”

The first sign of something different was seeing high-flying planes. These planes acted differently than the ones from Hickam Field; Hicks recalled in a piece he wrote, published in the Sentinel of Dec. 5, 1963. “These planes peeled off, one by one in a screaming dive, regained altitude, and dove again.” A few of those already up got on a roof at Fort Shafter and saw black smoke billowing up at Pearl Harbor. They also saw black puffs as well. Any doubts of being attacked were dashed, as Hicks recalled, by a “wild shell exploding above and showering us with fragments.”

Hicks and his company readied trucks with ammunition and machine guns and set out for Pearl Harbor along the Kamehameha Highway. Confusion had resulted in the highway being crowded, but traffic control by MPs soon cleared the way for the military trucks. The crew searched the sky for planes, but the activity was centered over Pearl Harbor and Hickam Field.

Events soon changed as a loud sound hit the floor of the truck carrying Hicks. He turned around and saw a stream of tracer bullets; the location of the bullets’ hit points moved up the road, tore through the truck behind that of Hicks, sending it off the road.

“There was a Jap plane,” Hicks recalled, “which had crept up behind us unnoticed, trying to strafe us with his machine guns. I swung around, Corporal Mills steadied the gun, and we started to pour 80 caliber slugs into him. The rest of the crew used their rifles, and Lt. Gillette hung on the running board and blazed away. Smoke streamed from the Jap’s engine as he pulled away from us and sliding into a shallow dive he disappeared behind neighboring buildings and crashed.”

Arriving at Hickam Field, they passed burning buildings, and carried their guns to the roof of the administration building. There they “had a bird’s eye view of all the surrounding country” and for the first time could see the extent of the destruction. Hicks recalled, “one battleship was a mass of blazing oil, several other ships were listing badly.” There were many wounded, ambulances brought more and more, and the doctors at the hospital were doing all they could to help. A large lawn in the nearby vicinity had been “pockmarked” by bomb craters; ground defense forces soon took advantage and utilized the holes.

The attack soon ended, and Hicks recalled that afterwards they “settled down to a life of continuously being on alert.” Hicks would have been up for release in 1942, but with the new events he would not return until January of 1946, by which time he had risen to the rank of captain.

The aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor came swiftly. The following day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a short but rousing speech to Congress – fittingly characterizing the events of Pearl Harbor as “a date which will live in infamy” – and Congress passed a resolution declaring war against Japan.

For a very short time there was some concern for the British, as the Americans would now have to place their primary focus on a war with Japan and reduce aid to Britain. This concern was soon alleviated by the action of Germany dictator Adolf Hitler, who looked down upon and underestimated America as a country that they could easily beat and made the declaration of war against America on Dec. 10. The United States then declared war on Germany and Italy on Dec. 11. This allowed for continued aid to the British but meant that America would now be in a two-front war.

The quick-moving events after the attack on Pearl Harbor changed many plans. The one-year military program was ended, and those who enlisted stayed on. The draft had also been restarted around 1940, and conscription increased after December 1941; many more enlisted. The War Production Board was established in January of 1942. Within a year, construction projects would end and all industry would be making items towards the war effort. Granville would contribute to the war effort, whether by its own entering the military, or by helping out on the home front.