Hide Article Text (OCR)
Tuesday, Dec. 23. 1041TOURING WITH PYLESan Francisco Takes OnSigns Of City At War•j:-Day By Day Things Are Changing AndICity Gets Ready For Bombings—Maybe**By ERNIE PYLEcan FRANCISCO.—San Franciscogradually taking on the •ard signs of a citvof the stores in Chinatown are closed and padlocked by the Government—because they were owned by Japanese!The opening of war hit Christ-the cityjmas shopping an awful smack. Peo-thc same Ple apparently were afraid to venture from their homes. But .city officials and the papers have been drumming it into the public that the best way to conduct the war is to keep going about your , natural business. The first scare is over now and people are coming out again. You can hardly get through the stores.The big stores, incidentally, have all put in new wartime hours— 8:45 to 4:45—in order to give people time to get home before darkin case of a blackout.* * *out-\va r.When rived.looked as usual. I rode in from the airport a man who here and been away a wee k. he saidatI withIar-livesVr‘ V•»by.with surprise, “it looks just like it did when I left.But day by day things are changing. The warlike effect isn't great yet. but there are and there.There are piles of sand on the streets, and you see buckets of sand in apartment houses and public buildings. Permanent air-raid sirens are being installed. Bars and other public places are blacking out their windows. Hundreds of Neon signs have been turned off for the duration, and the city has lost some of its Christmas-tree color.So far. only one building in town has been sandbagged. That is the telephone building. It probably was done at the Army's request. Two helmeted sentries standguard.The sandbags are stacked in a pyramid-like slope clean up to the second story. Whoever supervised the job must have visited England. for it has been done well. And as soon as the bags were in place, carpenters built a boardframework over them, to preventweathering.That is one thing that often makes London look ratty. In a damp climate the bags will weather and fall apart in less than six months. The sand dribbles out and gives a moth-eaten effect. The English have boxed in many of their sandbagged places.* * *Ernte Pyletouches hereNO BARRAGE BALLOONS BUT PLENTY OF FLAGSHERE are no barrage balloons over San Francisco. Yet there is something else that gives vaguely the same effect. I just happened to notice it today when I lookedTout the window.The dav is clear and the wind§poleflag1is blowing. And from theof every high building in town there flies a huge American flag. The wind blows them out straight, and they make quite a startling picture against the whitish sky. I stood at my window and counted more than 40. just as I used to count barrage balloons from my window in London.You seldom see an airplane over San Francisco now. There are no guns on rooftops, as you see in London. But on some of the grassy hilltops you can see sound detectors and guns.There are no gas masks for thepublic. You don’t see many uniforms on the streets—probably because nobody is getting leave these days. Occasionally you see a soldier in a tin hat.There are no barbed-wire entanglements here. From high office buildings, looking down on the docks, you can see a white ocean |liner painted completely black in one day. And then in another day or two it has disappeared. The public has been barred from the Embarcadero, or waterfront.There are no criss-crossed strips of paper on windows to prevent shattering, but there probably will be soon. There is one big building here whose front is entirely of glass. I'll bet passersby in the last week have remarked 20,000 times. “Boy. what wouldn't a bomb do to that!$behaarcoveisiIV HEN BOMBINGS START THEY'LL HAVE THE SIGNSTYPICAL war placards are ginning to spring up. You see the famous “Open for Business as Usual sign that became so popular in England.When I first saw these signs here I thought. ‘‘Aren’t they a little premature? There haven't been any bombs yet. Then I discovered that the signs had been up for some time, and they don't mean business as usual despite the bombings. They mean business as usual despite the strike.be-The people of San Francisco must have read pretty thoroughly aboutA hotel and restaurant strike England, for they seem to knowhow to talk war correctly, and how to put an authentic “war facehas been going on tor months.The hotels are operating anyway, - .,and that's what the signs mean. on their still peacefu ci .thev!»•*When the bombings docome! ODD THIEFA loose parkometer was takento the Police Station today from the 100 block on South Oregon street. Officers believed someone had tried to steal it.won't have to get newsigns.In Chinatown all the stores left open have signs saying, “This Is a Chinese Store.And the discovery that knocked me cold is that about two-thirds
Newspaper Details
El Paso Herald Post
El Paso, Texas, US
Wed, Dec 24, 1941
Page 8
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 12 Nov 2018
Other Publications Near El Paso, Texas
El Paso Times
Psycho Fax and Revelations
El Paso Herarld Post
El Paso Handbill
El Paso Herald Post
