At 2:30 p.m. Eastern time, Dec. 7, 1941, Americans across the nation had their regular radio programs interrupted with an announcement that changed their world — President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced that Imperial Japanese forces attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in the Hawaii Territory.
The first of two waves of Japanese fighters dropped bombs on ships in Pearl Harbor around 7:53 a.m. Hawaii time, 9:53 a.m. in Arizona and 12:53 p.m. in New York and Washington D.C. A second wave came less than one hour later, around 8:50 a.m. Hawaii time.
The next day, Roosevelt declared that a state of war existed and called on the U.S. Congress to respond. Congress voted to declare war less than an hour later.
Dec. 7, 1941, became “A date which will live in infamy.”
Although he was only 5 years old, Sedona resident Jim Bishop remembers the event.
“Everybody was screaming and crying. I knew something terrible had happened. I remember all of the fathers leaving the next morning. My father said good-bye and I didn’t see him for four years,” Bishop said. “When my dad walked down the pebble driveway, I couldn’t contain my tears.”
John Cornelius, a Village Oak Creek resident, was 22 years old and already in the service. He was in Los Angeles with his parents, seven brothers and two sisters.
“At noon on Sunday we heard about the bombing. I ran to the radio. We all did. We were glued to it. It was so dramatic, nobody said anything. We couldn’t believe it,” Cornelius said. “After the shock settled I got excited because I knew I had to immediately go back to my unit.”
Cornelius’ unit was stationed on the Pacific coast and told to dig fox holes along 50 miles of beach north of San Francisco.
“We’d check the sea waiting for the Japanese subs, but they never came,” he said.
The declaration of war launched the United States into World War II, which it had stayed out of for more than two years. Until that fateful December, most of Europe had fallen to fascist Italian and Nazi German armies with the exception of Great Britain and the Soviet Union, which were both struggling to survive. American involvement bolstered the forces of the Allies, who pushed back and defeated the Axis Powers by the summer of 1945.
While the drums of war faded and the world moved on to fight other wars in other parts of the world, those who serve in uniform still need help to heal their wounds.
On this Monday, Dec. 7, flags will fall to half-staff and Cornelius, now 96, will be at Weber’s IGA in the Village of Oak Creek, collecting money to donate to the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Prescott. Cornelius has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars through donation drives to help his comrades in arms.
We encourage our readers to stop by and give back to men and women in uniform in honor of all the soldiers who came home safe or gave the last full measure of devotion.
