I am the Edison pH Protect by ask not what your country can has been shot these choose to be self-evident that all men are created Mr gorbachov tear down this wall [Music] [Applause] on the first Sunday in December 1941 Americans were doing what Americans did on any normal Sunday I've been to see another string of interminable westerns at U at the plaza which we went every Saturday and Sunday and uh guns of the posos was the movie that was playing my father and I were in the living room listening to the Giants football game my father was sitting next to me suddenly when they announced that Pearl Harbor was attacked we interrupt this program to bring you a special News Bulletin the Japanese have attacked Pearl Haba by air I came home to a household that was somber and quiet and the radio was on and U was told that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor which I had no idea where it was I'll tell you what struck my mind I thought it was somewhere in Oregon soon every American would know that over 2,000 of their countrymen had perished in the Japanese attack on Hawaii's Pearl Harbor and that nearly half the us Fleet had been destroyed well it was absolute horror people were just shocked when it happens you don't know what to think you're just standing there wondering what what happens [Music] now and it was terrifying we sat down looked at each other for a couple of minutes and Max said no more civilian clothes was a very bad time yesterday December 7th 1941 a date which will live in infamy United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked no matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated Invasion the American people in their righteous might will win through to Absolute [Music] Victory President Roosevelt told in America shocked out of its isolation and innocence that in order to win this war every man woman and child would have to become part of the [Music] fight never before have we been called upon for such a prodigious effort never before have we had so little time in which to do so much we may forget at the end of the century that America in the early 1940s was far from a superpower its Army was ranked 19th in the World Behind Holland and Portugal its industry was still in the grip of a lingering depression the war of course would change all that and many other things as well it would unite the country in a way never known before or since to understand the American Home Front during the War years you have to understand the texture of the times a time so naive that most Americans didn't know their president couldn't walk certainly a time before television an instant satellite transmission when War news took days or weeks to reach newspapers and the News reels the survival of democracy was by no means [Music] assured I remember as a young boy uh fear of the Japanese that submarines were going to come up in Santa Monica and you know there was a lot of fear then just 4 days after the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor Nazi Germany and fascist Italy declared war on the United States the world was a very dark place the German OTS were sinking tankers right off the coast of Florida and New Jersey within sight of bathers on the beach the oceans which had historically kept America invulnerable had been penetrated by enemies from both East and West we had to destroy those people to save ourselves and to save the United States and we all rushed off to the recruiting stations everybody I knew was who was my age or close to it was in the services if you were Brave you were in the Marine Corps everybody was in one thing or another almost all of us were in the Army the axes had to be defeated and we knew that nobody was going to do it except us yeah my father went to war and uh he was a managed a little grocery store uh IGA grocery store and um he went to Springfield Missouri to go through basic training volunteers and drafty shed their civilian identities in basic training camps that United Grocers from Kansas with mechanics from Monteray and bookkeepers from Brooklyn within 6 months many would be sent to battlefields around the world leaving behind parents wives and children I really adore Ed my father I mean it was a you know I admired him I loved him he was a wonderful father and um you know the thought of life without him was you know unimaginable to me was sort of the hand one was dealt and your father was going to war in a good cause and uh and I was very proud of [Music] him we got married and then he enlisted his goal was to be a pilot on a B24 and he achieved it he was commissioned as a second lieutenants he got his wings the uh same week his son was born we were all taught uh when you husband becomes an officer you're an officer's wife and you do not show any emotions when they go overseas you hold it back no matter what no crying and we did that it was tough but we did [Music] it from an army of 300,000 in 1940 American armed forces would swell to 15 million at the beginning of the war there was considerable fear that these hastily assembled citizen soldiers could hold their own against a highly trained and heavily equipped enemy news from the front had not been good 3 months after Pearl Harbor the Japanese had inflicted a series of humiliating defeats on an America whose confidence was shaken on February 23rd 1942 the president tried to calm and to Rally a frightened Nation This Is War the American people want to know and will be told the general trend of how the war is going the president had asked every American to follow his speech on a map I had huge maps on my wall from the backs of newspapers I marked it with crayon uh and uh I remember you know putting arrows and x's and circling towns we Americans have been compelled to yield ground but we will re it I remember his confidence and the tone of his voice and the closeness that you felt to him he was a beacon of light oh boy when he came on the radio D we and not our enemies will have the offenses we not they will win the final battle he had the capacity of moving us with words of inspiring the country of lifting the country to do more than it might do otherwise there is one thought for us here at home to keep up a moment the Fulfillment of our special task of production uninterrupted production so make your mind up when you get out of bed work your head so you can keep your government films pounded home the fact that America not only had to supply its own troops but meet the needs of its allies as well workers in cities across the country responded during the war at night the Mills would be going full blast and the sky would pulse red with the blast furnaces going going off and we were told at school and we heard on the radio and saw in the newspaper that Pittsburgh was helping to win the war in Detroit it took just 9 months to convert the entire capacity of the American automobile industry to war production they dubb Detroit as the arsenal of democracy the plants operated 24 hours a day around the clock you had bombers coming off the line every 5 minutes work till they almost fall out then somebody take your place I was working on the Jeeps to sprayed the Jeeps with this Olive paint can you imagine working 18 and 24 hours a day staying in the shop you run home and look at your family and run back to the shop again with existing Manpower strapped to the Limit there was another Pool of workers ready to be tapped Factory owners were very reluctant to hire women they argued they'll never learn how to operate these complex machines and if they come on to the assembly line they'll distract the men productivity will go way down and besides they shouldn't leave their homes it'll be the end of the home and the family but then by about 1942 or 1943 when so many men were in the armed forces they had to turn to women so suddenly the whole attitude toward women coming to work changed between 1940 and 1944 the number of women in war related Industries Rose 40% to a high of 19 million a full third of the entire civilan Workforce half of those women were wives and mothers who had never held jobs before mother was a nice lady who baked and cooked and cleaned house and uh whacked her kids around and make sure they stayed in line and uh suddenly she's running a machine at uh an aircraft Factory she felt she needed to do something I think there was an underlying unexpressed kind of patriotism not the kind that waves Flags but it was the kind that loved our lives that loved our country and we all worked for one reason to get those airplanes in the sky in Boeing Seattle plant half the workers were women in Just 4 years they turned out over 12,000 B17 bombers they call it the Flying Fortress most awesome plane oh what a feeling of accomplishment even if you only did a the riveting on part of it it was they couldn't have done it without you I became an ABS welder top of the line I wore a leather suit I had a helmet with glasses through it I pull this down I can see through the glass in the helmet I had sine torch to join pieces of Steel together I was determined that I was going to build ships to show Japan that we would hit back thanks in large part to these women workers American factories turned out 4,000 tanks and 4,500 planes every month and ships which used to take one year to assemble were now being completed in 17 days production expectations were not only being met they were being surpassed the War years at home said first lady Ellena Roosevelt were no ordinary time and no time for weighing anything except what we can best do for the country be beyond the sacrifices large and small being asked of every American the social Fallout from the war's demand for man and material would change America forever the American family would be restructured as mothers now left their homes and children to do their part on the nation's assembly lines there was this thing called the war effort and it took on a life of its own you had to be doing something for the war effort light that up there my father