Page 48 - WashingtonSyCip_Bio_Excerpt_2nd_Edition

Part One

Just a few months earlier, in October 1941, the only war that mattered to the city
was the World Series, which had come down to a cross-town tussle between the
New York Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers in the “Subway Series.” New York
film critics were gushing over what they considered to be the best film of the year,
“Citizen Kane.” Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland were hamming it up on “Babes
on Broadway,” released December 5. The airwaves hummed with the easy melodies of
the year’s top hits: “Amapola” by Jimmy Dorsey, “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” by the
Andrews Sisters, and “Chattanooga Choo Choo” by Glenn Miller.

But over all these happy tunes loomed the shadow of war, and here and there early
warnings were sounded. For example, Life magazine’s December 8 issue—prepared
just before Pearl Harbor—featured a 13-page essay contemplating the likelihood of
America going to war, even venturing to calculate the distance in air and sea miles
between Tokyo and Manila. “Will the Island of Luzon then become the great theater
of war, and General MacArthur the outstanding khaki-clad figure in it?” asked the
writer Clare Boothe. “Or will peace descend upon the Pacific while the US plunges
into the war across the Atlantic?”

When the war finally came, America snapped to attention and Wash would’ve felt
the surge of energy—part nervousness, part bravado—that ran through the city. New
York local historian Christopher Gray reports that “The news of the Japanese attack
on Pearl Harbor came to New York on Sunday afternoon, December 7 . The FBI
th
immediately sent out protective guards to public works like the Kensico and Croton
dams, and the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where the battleships Iowa and Missouri were
under construction.” The atmosphere was electric. Says Gray: “Anti-aircraft guns were
set up in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, at Fort Totten, in Queens, and other locations.
The Port of New York Authority canceled vacations and leaves, and put guards at its
bridges and tunnels.”

Swarms of civilians turned up to join the fight. “On Monday,” Gray continues, “the
recruiting office at the Post Office at Church and Vesey Streets was swamped by men
trying to enlist—women volunteers gave out coffee…. Almost six thousand people
signed up to become air raid wardens—bringing the city total to 125,006.”

For Wash SyCip, stranded in Manhattan many thousands of miles from home and
family, the question was what to do next. For much of 1942, having been cut off from

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