If an earthquake of incredible magnitude, followed by an equally gigantic tsunami had struck the United States on December seventh of 1941, the effect could not have been more shattering. The entire country reeled. The greatest, richest, most powerful nation on earth had been struck a low blow and had been badly wounded. The ghastly news spread to people without radios and to rural areas. Today the very name "Pearl Harbor" brings back the memory of that terrible day to all of us who were alive at the time and old enough to understand what had happened. Two days later, after an impassioned speech by FDR, Congress declared war on Japan and on the Axis countries. The U.K. under Churchill was our first ally. The other was Russia. Hitler in his greed, had made the mistake of invading it and Stalin was now his mortal enemy.
The ferocious attack caused instant panic along the west coast. What city would the Japanese hit next? Air raid wardens were needed and they sprouted like weeds. Four days after the bombing, about three o'clock in the morning, the citizens of Los Angeles were roused by screaming air raid sirens. Searchlights lit up the whole sky. Some people swore they heard planes overhead. Early morning papers were full of the "air raid" story. It turned out, and those papers had to admit it sheepishly, that a lone plane had been caught in the searchlights and its unfortunate pilot had been the cause of this immense hullabaloo.
FDR's calming, business-like speeches had their effect. Panic subsided considerably as the nation accepted the grim fact that it was at war and it was a war which we MUST win. The situation could not have been much worse. Hitler and Mussolini had overrun western Europe. Northern Africa was being invaded. Until Pearl Harbor, not so much attention had been paid to the Japanese threat. Suddenly they were all over the Pacific, grabbing Manila and the Bataan Peninsula, taking Singapore, Malaya, Burma, moving into Australia--everywhere. The United States made a late start but it went to work, literally. Both men and women went into the armed services. Aircraft and weapon factories hummed. There were plenty of jobs now and people to fill them. We were warned against enemy agents. The FBI had cracked the Duquesne spy ring but Nazi spies were doing all they could to find out the secret of White Sands, New Mexico. Our armies in Europe, working with their allies, began to hold out against the Axis and push them back. In the Pacific arena naval planes went from giant aircraft carriers on bombing raids. At home, Democrats and Republicans worked as one against the common enemy. Very slowly the situation began to improve, especially in Europe. Paris was freed in 1943. There were victories in the Pacific theater too.
It was against this background that the election of 1944 took place. Thomas E. Dewey, governor of New York was the Republican candidate, winning the nomination over General Douglas MacArthur, Everett Dirksen, and Robert Taft. Ohio governor John Bricker was chosen as Dewey's running mate.
A fourth term for FDR was an iffy question but the war was going well and "You don't change horses in midstream". It was logical to keep him as president so he was the choice of delegates at the Democratic convention. He wanted Henry Wallace as vice president again but delegates balked and refused flatly to approve a man they considered too liberal. FDR's failing health was obvious. After much consideration, Senator Harry S Truman was selected. "Harry the Haberdasher" was little known and there was some sneering over his relatively humble position as a clothing merchant.
Roosevelt, in spite of his health problems, campaigned vigorously as did Dewey. The latter complained of too much government and too many business regulations. FDR claimed that the war was being won and the nation in good shape. It was a contest of a giant against a pygmy. He won his fourth term. In February, after he had taken the oath of office, FDR went to the Crimean port of Yalta for the Big Three Conference . The famous photograph of him with Churchill and Stalin tells the sad story. He looked shrunken and exhausted, a fragile shadow of his once commanding self. He looked like what he was--a dying man.
FDR came home from Yalta and went to Warm Springs, Georgia for a rest. On April 12, 1945, he died there as a result of a cerebral hemorrhage. His long-time love, Lucy Mercer, was with him.
We heard at the time that Eleanor Roosevelt knew and condoned this and never showed the hurt she felt but her biographer, Joseph Lash, said that she discovered it later and was deeply wounded.
An obviously shaken Harry Truman took the oath of office. He had had almost no contact with FDR since the election and had not been briefed on the Manhattan Project, the great secret of White Sands. He asked the entire cabinet to remain and from this group learned details of the exact war situation. Great strides had been made in the Pacific theater. Wake Island and Iwo Jima had been conquered by the U.S. Marines. Army and navy forces were triumphing everywhere. In June, after VE Day, the new president went to the Potsdam Conference in occupied Germany to meet with Churchill, incoming Prime Minister Clement Atlee and Stalin.
He immediately suspected the latter gentleman, and rightly so, of planning to take over all of eastern Europe. The end of the war was in sight but Japan wouldn't accept the fact. Home from the conference, Truman had to make his momentous decision. The Japanese refused to surrender. Theorizing that a quick finish would save more lives than the drastic secret weapon would kill, he authorized the use of the most horrendous bomb ever created. First Hiroshima and then Nagasaki were devastated---destroyed beyond recognition.
Whether or not it was moral to utilize such an immensely violent weapon as the atom bomb is a question that is still unsettled. It seems likely however, that its drastic use did, as hoped, save more human lives than it destroyed. Nagasaki was bombed on August ninth. On the fourteenth, Japan surrendered unconditionally. The war had ended. President Truman, by his firm action had established himself as one of the leaders of the free world.