History: September 2016 Archives

Local effects of the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack

How a central California newspaper reacted to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

"An article, titled 'What to do in the Event of an Air Raid,' listed several practical suggestions. A few were terrifying.

• When the alarm sounds, householders must extinguish all lights.
• Don't go into streets. Stay indoors and find a place safe from flying glass.
• All motorists must pull over to the curb. Extinguish lights, abandon car and seek shelter.
• Householders should supply themselves with bags of sand to be placed throughout their dwellings.
• Fill all household receptacles including bathtubs with water as a precaution against fires.
• The blast of a high-explosive bomb may cause injury within 150 yards. Get behind any solid cover and lie down.
• If an incendiary or burning bomb penetrates your house, DO NOT THROW WATER on the bomb as this will cause an explosion. Throw sand or dirt.

After 74 years, bones from Pearl Harbor tomb ship may be identified

Renewed efforts at Offutt AFB to identify the remains of USS Oklahoma crew who died on December 7, 1941:

"Inside an old aircraft factory here, behind the glass windows of a pristine laboratory, the lost crew of the USS Oklahoma rests on special tables covered in black foam.

"Their bones are brown with age after 50 years in the ground and, before that, months entombed in their sunken battleship beneath the oily waters of Pearl Harbor.

"Legs, arms, ribs, vertebrae. Some have blue tags tied with string, identifying the type of bone. Some have beige tags, indicating that experts also want samples for DNA testing.

"They are the unidentified remains of hundreds of sailors and Marines who perished 74 years ago Monday, when Japan launched a surprise air attack on Hawaii and plunged the United States into World War II.

"Now, seven decades later, the government is trying to put names to the old salts and teenage sailors who died when their ship was sunk by enemy torpedoes Sunday morning, Dec. 7, 1941.

"Over the past six months, with a fresh mandate from the Defense Department, the bones were exhumed from a cemetery in Hawaii and most were brought to a new lab here, where scientists have begun the task."