It was December 1941, and Christmas was coming. But so was the war.

Eighty years ago, just as today, local families were preparing for Christmas and local businesses were courting their patronage.

The Hagerstown City Council was mulling money matters and new equipment for the fire department, and the county court system was dispensing justice to those who had violated the law.

The downtown movie theaters were featuring films starring Bette Davis and Tex Ritter, and civic organizations of all stripes were planning holiday parties and concerts.

Back in 1941, there was no Sunday newspaper in Hagerstown.

So there was no paper on Dec. 7.

But on Saturday, Dec. 6, The Morning Herald and the Daily Mail had been full of ads targeting Christmas shoppers and society columns about upcoming holiday events.

Both papers also included news about Nazi activity in Europe, where the Russian winter was bringing Operation Barbarossa to an ignominious end ("31 Below Zero As Armies Locked In Battle For Moscow," the Daily Mail proclaimed), and about Japanese activity in the Pacific.

"Japan responded today to President Roosevelt's request for an explanation of the massing of troops in French Indo-China and its reply in no way relieved the gravity of the acute Far Eastern crisis," reported the Associated Press in the Morning Herald's lead story.

"In a terse 150-word note, the Tokyo government said its forces were in the French colony as a precautionary measure, induced by Chinese troop movements across the border," the report continued. "It said their presence there has the approval of the government at Vichy, France."

That government, of course, was the Nazi-backed government of Marshal Philippe Petain of "unoccupied" southeastern France that was installed after Germany had defeated French troops the year before. And there was no indication in the communiqué of an imminent attack on U.S. territories.

Although the U.S. Pacific Fleet was Japan's main hurdle to its conquest of southeast Asia, American officials were focused on a potential Japanese invasion of Thailand — unaware, apparently, that orders for an attack on the Pacific Fleet had been issued a month before.

Nevertheless, war clouds hung locally as the paper reported news of defense preparations and the movement of troops through Hagerstown on their way to a more permanent post. And not for the first time.

Otherwise, the news included details of the sentencing of a man for burglary, a discussion by the Hagerstown City Council of the fire department's budget and new Christmas lights for downtown Hagerstown. And there was an editorial admonishing folks to purchase and ship their gifts early in order to ease the load on retail and postal workers.

Likewise, The Daily Mail noted the Far East was "ON ALERT" for Japanese thrust, but there was no particular anticipation of a looming attack on the United States.

In fact, the Mail featured an Associated Press story from Tokyo reporting that a member of the Japanese privy council "urged today the appointment of a special Japanese-American commission to consider the entire Pacific problem and attempt to solve it without recourse to arms."

There also was a report about the death of a Hagerstown railroad conductor who'd been struck by a train, cuts to the National Youth Administration program in Washington County and a disturbing tale of a 7-year-old Catoctin Furnace girl who narrowly escaped serious injury when her 6-year-old brother fired a shotgun toward a group of children playing in their yard.

But the paper also reported that Herald-Mail carriers had begun delivering National Defense Savings Stamps to subscribers who'd ordered them. The stamp sales helped finance the nation's defense efforts — which would be needed sooner than anyone realized.

Because by the newspapers' next publication date, the world had changed.

Dec. 8, 1941

"JAPAN DECLARES WAR ON UNITED STATES," screamed the boldfaced, all-caps headline of The Morning Herald. "PACIFIC ISLANDS ARE ATTACKED."

The front page noted that President Roosevelt was slated to speak that afternoon in response to the Japanese air attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu Island in Hawaii, and was full of war bulletins and reactions from across the country.

Closer to home, word from Leister Mobley, chairman of the Washington County Defense Council, was that the council was ready "to accept applications from volunteers under various classifications of defense activities just as soon as official word for further expansion … of the work is received from the headquarters in Washington."

Mobley said the county had 500 defense volunteers already. Some had received first-aid training, and police and firemen were being trained in Baltimore. They'd be preparing to fill roles as fire and air raid wardens, medical corps and salvage corps services, decontamination, rescue and messenger services.

The Herald reported that victims were not yet known, but that the War and Navy Departments would notify families "promptly" as soon as definite word was available.

But in the meantime, the front page also noted that temperatures had dipped to 23 degrees overnight, and a park service official planned a visit to Antietam National Battlefield.

Ironically, the society news on Page 2 noted that missionaries to Japan would discuss Christmas in that country during the missionary meeting at St. Paul's Brethren Church "in the form of a Japanese tea," while Page 4 contained the ominous warning that the FBI was "Prepared To Seize All" Japanese citizens.

Even reports on the sports pages shared space with war news.

By the time The Daily Mail hit the streets that afternoon, the grim work of notifying families had begun — and had reached Clear Spring, where the father of Army Sgt. Joseph Herbert learned that his son had been killed in the Pearl Harbor attack.

The paper also was scrambling to identify other local servicemen serving in the Pacific.

"Young Herbert's father was one of several hundred parents, wives and sweethearts of Hagerstown and Washington County soldiers stationed in Hawaii or the Philippines, who have been waiting apprehensively since yesterday afternoon for some word of their loved ones," the Mail reported.

Between 150 and 200 Washington County men were serving there, the local recruiting office said.

The front page also included the text of President Roosevelt's message to Congress seeking a declaration of war — beginning with the now-familiar phrase, "Yesterday, December 7 — a date which will live in infamy."

Elsewhere on the page were reports that Britain had also declared war on Japan and that 100 Americans and Britons had been arrested in Tokyo — and that five people had been injured in a three-car collision that occurred on Sharpsburg Pike at just about the time the raid had begun on Pearl Harbor.

Hagerstown police, the paper reported, were searching for boys accused of stealing lights from the Christmas tree at the corner of South Potomac Street and Wilson Boulevard.

Readers learned on Page 3 that outgoing telegram and cable messages from the United States would be censored — and who won the prizes at the recent Smithsburg Poultry Show.

The next day, The Morning Herald reported that the war declaration had been signed and that the president would address the nation that evening. And "whenever war news justifies," the paper pledged, "the Morning Herald and Daily Mail will publish extra editions.

"These editions will only be published when reliable facts are obtained," the announcement added. "There will be no extras based on rumors or vague and uncertain information." That was why, the paper explained, there had been no extra edition on Sunday — too much information lacked verified details.

The attack on Pearl Harbor claimed 2,340 service personnel in addition to Joseph Herbert, nearly half aboard the USS Arizona, according to the Pearl Harbor National Memorial. Nearly 50 civilians died, mainly in Honolulu — some from the bombing and some from friendly fire. They included men, women and children. The youngest were two infants aged 7 months and 3 months.

All in

Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini declared war on the United States on Dec. 11, announcing a new alliance with Japan. The Dec. 12 edition of the Morning Herald reported Gov. Herbert O'Conor had activated the Maryland State Guard; local members had been ordered to report at 8:30 that morning.

Life went on in Washington County; the Herald also announced that Harry Snyder had been elected president of the county Bar Association the night before.

But it wasn't going to be the same. Hagerstown Mayor Richard Sweeney asked for cooperation in the city's first blackout, scheduled the following Sunday night, and Police Chief William Peters conferred with Superintendent of Schools Benjamin Willis about fingerprinting students for identification in case the children got lost and confused during blackouts.

Still to come were expansions of manufacturing at Fairchild Corp., Pangborn Corp. and other local factories through the development of the "Hagerstown System" of producing aircraft and other materials for the war effort, the deployment of more soldiers and sailors across the globe and the proliferation of women in the wartime workforce.

But Christmas was coming, and Leiter Brothers, Fleishers, Hoffmans, Eyerly's and other premier shops purchased large ads reminding everyone not to forget the perfect present — and perhaps take the shoppers' minds off the carnage that awaited.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: An uneasy holiday season began here in 1941. Then the war crashed in.