IT HAPPENED ON DECEMBER 7, 1941.
One part of America learned while listening to the broadcast of the Dodger-Giant football game at the Polo Grounds in New York. Ward Cuff had just returned a Brooklyn kickoff to the 27-yard line when at 2:26 P.M. WOR interrupted with the first flash: the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor.
Another part of America learned half an hour later, while tuning in the New York Philharmonic concert at Carnegie Hall. Artur Rodzinski’s musicians were just about to start Shostakovich’s Symphony Number 1 when CBS repeated an earlier bulletin announcing the attack.
The concertgoers themselves learned still later when announcer Warren Sweeney told them at the end of the performance. Then he called for “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The anthem had already been played at the start of the concert, but the audience had merely hummed along. Now they sang the words.
Others learned in other ways, but no matter how they learned, it was a day they would never forget. Nearly every American alive at the time can describe how he first heard the news. He marked the moment carefully, carving out a sort of mental souvenir, for instinctively he knew how much his life would be changed by what was happening in Hawaii.
This is the story of that day.
