The Pacific Theater Where America And Japan Clashed
Jn June 3, neavy bombers lashed at Dutch Har
t, Unalaska, in the first big attack on the North
erican continent. The next day, U. S. Army and
7 fliers sighted an enemy fleet apparently
ined for Unalaska. They sank one cruiser and
aged another.
leanwhile the main enemy force neared Mid
1 heading for Hawaii. Admiral Fletcher and
airal‘Raymond A. Spruance, commanding two
: forces, were there to meet it. The American
i command had out-guessed its foe.
was an engagement like that of the Coral Sea.
fleets never actually sighted each other. Tor
i' and dive bombers from the Enterprise, the
niedly repaired Yorktown, and the Hornet did
fighting. The “Torpedo Eight” squadron from
Hornet took on four carriers and scored hits,
only one pilot survived. Torpedo planes from
Enterprise and Yorktown picked up the attack
hit two carriers. Then dive bomber's raced in,
ting two flattops out of action and damaging a
A so badly it was easy prey for a U. S. sub
fine.
My one enemy carrier remained, and it sent.
Planes screaming against the Yorktown. But
irprise and Hornet pilots, striking back, left
carrier in flames. Then they ripped a nearby
fleship and cruiser.
nny Flying Fortresses from Midway damaged
eavy cruiser, hit a battleship and a destroyer,
inflicted more wounds on a damaged carrier,
the night of June 4 the Japanese were in flight,
svy and Army planes kept up the assault for
flays, smashing four more cruisers and a de
lEer- By then the banged-up Yorktown had been
(n in taw, and when the destroyer Hammann
,efl alongside to put a salvage party aboard,
enemy submarine sneaked in close and sent
'torpedoes into the Yorktown and another into
flaitunann. The Hammann went down and the
’flay the Yorktown joined it.
“e Battle of Midway was what the Navy had
“waiting for. It was the most decisive trouncing
Japanese fleet had received since the Korean
Yi-sun smashed Nipponese forces off the
“an coast in 1592.
A part of the Japanese fleet now could be chalked
off. The threat of an invasion of Hawaii was averted.
A week later, however, Army pilots over the
foggy, desolate Aleutians discovered the Japanese
had invaded those islands.
America now could worry about the threat of
an enemy push onto Alaska.
THE HOME FRONT TOUGHENS UP
'T'HE American home front got tough in the first
* six months of war.
Draft calls were increased and the draft age
widened to include men from 18 to 45. Recruiting
stations—Army, Navy, Marine, Coast Guard—were
swamped with volunteers. A great movement of
troops to vital defense areas like Australia, Alaska
and the Panama Canal zone got under way. On
January 26, the first troops of the American Ex
peditionary Force stepped off the gangplanks in
North Ireland.
When the blow fell at Pearl Harbor, America
was producing 2,000 planes a month. The “two
ocean Navy” was taking shape in 11 government
shipyards and 110 private yards. About 30 ordnance
factories were in production, with 30 more under
construction or planned.
That was a mere beginning. When America found
herself at war she set her sights on the greatest
production goals in history.
President Roosevelt .grimly announced: “We shall
carry the attack against the enemy—we shall hit
him and hit him again wherever and whenever we
can reach him.” He called on the nation to spend
$100,000 every minute on war production. He called
for the output in 1942 of 60,000 planes, 45,000 tanks,
8,000,000 tons of shipping
Old men came out of retirement to handle rivet
guns. Women left their kitchens to run lathes. Girls
walked past their class rooms, put welding helmets
over their heads and went into shipyards. A Wo
men’s Army Corps, the WAACS, was set up to pro
vide workers for non-combatant jobs to “free the
men to fight.” A similar organization—the WA^ES
—was created for the Navy. Like units were planned
for Marines and Coast Guard.
With the short of the bulldozer setting the tempo,
engineers, concrete mixers, steel workers, elec
tricians moved onto the plains of Kansas, the corn
fields of Indiana, the cattle ranges of Texas, the
groves of California to rear monstrous, mne-long
factories that soon began to spew Out planes, guns,
tanks and thousands of other items of equipment
Production of automobiles, refrigerators, wash
ing machines, clocks, vacuum cleaners was shut off.
The Office of Price Administration fixed price ceil
ings on virtually everything the nation ate, wore
or used. Sugar was rationed—and prospects were
that many other things would be doled out by ra
tion before the war was over. Lingerie manu
facturers began making mosquito netting. Watch
makers were fashioning fuses.
Soon merchant vessels—“Liberty ships” and tank
ers—were being added at the rate of one a day.
Real rifles and machineguns were being put in the
hands of the forces in training. Powerful tanks,
versatile “jeep” cars, landing craft began to speed
from the assembly lines.
A tremendous synthetic rubber program got
under way to offset the Japanese capture of most
of the world’s natural rubber resources in Malaya
and the Netherlands East Indies. Scientists and ex
plorers working for Henry A. Wallace’s Board of
Economic Warfare struggled to find substitutes or
new sources for quinine, tin and hemp.
THE U-BOATS STRIKE
TTITLER could not hit remote America with hit
* * Luftwaffe, but he knew he had to do some-*
thing to cut down the v#lue of American produc
tion going to England and Russia.
The surface vessels of his navy already had been
proved unsafe on the seas. The great battleship
Bismarck had been sunk after a thrilling 1,750-mile
sea-air chase in 1941, and while the British had lost
their big cruiser Hood in that engagement, the Ger
mans hesitated to risk their remaining ships in an
other battle.
• So Hitler called on his U-boats to do the job.
One month after the war began Nazi submarines
were prowling the Atlantic coast and the Gulf of