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DAY OF INFAMY, 1941Donald Herzog Is One WhoRemembersWas ThereBY MARCIA MORRISON“Wars begin in the minds of men. .Today is Dec. 7, 1951, an anniversary that needs no explanation. The 10th anniversary of a day “that shall live in infamy.”Look back 10 years. If you were asked what you were doing on that day chances are you could remember. Maybe you were just spending a quiet afternoon reading the Sunday paper while the kids were stretched out on the floor with the funnies and one ear tuned to the quiet Sunday broadcasts. Maybe you were visiting. Maybe you were a little under the weather that day. But you remember.You remember the interruption on the broadcast. And you remember if you were a kid then, the stunned, serious, hurt look on the faces of your parents. You remember that at 7:55 that morning began one hour and 55 minutes of bombing, killing or wounding 3000 Americans and a war began. And “Remember Pearl Harbor” took its place in the annals of war slogans.Rapids newspaper, sent home some momentoes of his experience on that day.Mrs. J. W. Herzog. 1411 Collins. and her son, Dick, and daughter, Mary, still have the machinegun bullets at their home “that came close” to Herzog on Wheeler field, Hawaii, where lie was stationed with the 44th pursuit squadron. Herzog vividly remembers that morning on Wheeler field when he was walking from Mass to the messhallwhen he heard the sound of planes. He looked up and saw that they bore the emblem of the rising sun.district court in Austin adjourned to listen to President Roosevelt’s message to congress, and Austin high school students gathered to hear over the sound system in their rooms that a state of war existed. Then, Dec. 11, war was formerly declared against Germany and Italy. World war II had begun 23 years after the armistice of the war that was to end all wars. More that 5000 Mower county boys participated in the war that began 10 years ago today and 105 of them lost their lives in it.HE RUSHED IN and shouted, “The Japs are coming!” Most of the men thought that he was joking. And then the bombs came and the jerky sputter of the ma-chineguns. Herzog dived next to the wall under the eaves. He said that the planes came so close that he could see the faces of the pilots. He took the machine-gun bullets from the block that saved his life. And he remembered.AT THE TIME there were more than 400 Mower county men serving in the army, navy, marines and air corps. Some 30 of them were listed as being at stations in or near the scene of conflict. Donah J. Herzog, now workiig in real estate and as the sports writer for the ParkBack home his family along with those of the 29 other Mower county boys listened and waited. Waited to hear. Ten days later the Herzog family received the telegram from their son telling them that he had lived through the worst tragedy in American history.ON THE FOLLOWING dayThat war ended with a blast bringing fear to the hearts of men. It ended and another began five years later only this time it was called a “police action” under the banner of the United Nations. Six Mower county men have died in this police action and some 1200 of them are now in service.It is now 33 years after the armistice of the war that was fought to herald an era in which its soldiers would not have died in vain. Today is 10 years after Dec. 7, 1941. And men are engaged in both physical and ideological conflict.“. . . and it is in the minds of men that the ways of peace must be constructed.”(The quote is from the preamble to UNESCO—the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.)ilt;(I1lt;3(1It
Newspaper Details
Austin Daily Herald
Austin, Minnesota, US
Fri, Dec 07, 1951
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 09 Jan 2019
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