Answer man: Pearl Harbor attack put La Grande on high alert

Dec. 5—Seventy years ago La Grande's Walt Swart had the unenviable task of searching for light in an icy sea of darkness.

It was Dec. 19, 1941, almost two weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and blackouts were starting in La Grande in preparation for possible air raid attacks. Swart, a member of La Grande's Home Guard, a local civil defense unit, was responsible for La Grande's blackout drills. Wearing a military uniform and carrying a firearm, Swart walked throughout La Grande making sure no light could be seen coming from the windows of homes that evening and many afterward.

When Swart spotted light seeping through curtains he would knock on doors and warn residents.

"He would tell them to fix their shades. Everyone was afraid if any light was showing that we might get bombed, that the war would come to La Grande," said Dory Fleshman, of La Grande, Swart's daughter, who sometimes accompanied her father on patrols.

Then a La Grande High School sophomore, Fleshman was just learning what it meant for a nation to be at war after attending a historic LHS assembly on Monday, Dec. 8, 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Students gathered in what is now the Annex gym at La Grande Middle School to hear the live national radio broadcast of President Franklin Roosevelt's Day of Infamy speech.

Roosevelt's speech began with a sentence that may be the most famous words spoken by a president since Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address, "Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan."

Roosevelt went on during his six-minute speech to ask Congress to declare a state of war between the United States and Japan, which it did following the president's speech.

Fleshman said it took awhile to digest the magnitude of what Roosevelt was saying.

"I did not know anything about war," she said. "I was young and innocent."

Fleshman was stunned by what she was hearing.

"I was in shock. I was looking out the windows trying to understand what was happening," she said. "I was too young, I was trying to understand why people had to fight."

The students in the gym were situated by class, and Fleshman could tell the seniors were reacting differently to Roosevelt's speech.

"They understood what was happening," she said, adding that it seemed like many of the senior boys could not wait to enlist.

"They were excited and upset," she said. "They looked like they wanted to sign up right away."

Community steps up

Those who stepped forward to reassure the La Grande community in the days following the Pearl Harbor attack included Robert Carey, the chair of La Grande's civilian defense council, who told The Observer what local military experts had said to him.

"It was pointed out that even though La Grande falls within the 'target area,' there is little possibility of an air raid in the near future unless the United States suffers very serious reverses," Carey said in a Dec. 8, 1941, story.

In the midst of this fervor many stepped forward in what must have been challenging settings when the weather was bad. They included one of Fleshman's friends, a girl who spent long hours on top of the old Sacajawea Hotel, helping watch for enemy aircraft.

Other jobs taken on by the community included the guarding of public utilities. A Dec. 8, 1941, Observer story stated that guards were being posted at La Grande's city reservoir, at the railroad and at telephone and electric plants 24 hours a day. The American Legion was posting the guards and asked all unemployed veterans to volunteer.

As another precaution, police reserves and air raid wardens were activated in La Grande. Later in December they helped conduct air raid drills at places such as La Grande's elementary schools.

In one December air raid drill, students were asked to return to their homes within 15 minutes. About 85% of the children succeeded.

Such statistics were reassuring in light of how seriously people were taking the threat of an attack from Japan. This spurred the old Eastern Oregon Review newspaper to publish a list of 15 things to do in the event of an air raid. Readers were urged to get sandbags so that if incendiary bombs were dropped sand could be put on them to prevent fires from igniting. Readers were also urged, in the event of a poison gas attack, to run to portions of their homes with the fewest windows and doors and to place rags under door openings.

At the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, there were at least 30 young men from Union County stationed overseas in the military. The number included several men at Pearl Harbor. It was later announced that none were hurt during the attack.

The news was a relief to the La Grande community but it did not relieve residents of the fear that death might rain from the sky at any moment.

"Knowing that a bomb could be dropped on you was so terrifying," Fleshman said.

Dick Mason is an Observer reporter. Contact him at 541-624- 6016 or dmason@lagrandeobserver.com.com.