Who was the enemy in '42?

[mackdaddyg]

I've been listening to a run of shows from early 1942. They have the usual jabs at America's enemies, but I've noticed that they're mostly in Mary's poems, and they're all directed towards the Japanese.

My knowledge of history is woefully lacking, so maybe I'm missing something...but it seems like, even though Pearl Harbor was only a few months before, Germany was still seen as an enemy, weren't they? Or was that a little later?

A strange question, I know, but I'm just curious about the radio listener's (and writer's) mindset back during the first few months of 1942.

No matter what, while I understand it's all relative of the times, it's still a little unnerving hearing some of these comments today.

[Mandolynn]

Certainly I wasn't alive during WWII to speak from experience, but it wasn't Hitler that bombed Pearl Harbor.

Also, anti-Japanese sentiment, apparently esp. on the West Coast where there was a large concentration of Japanese immigrants, was alive and well long before WWII. I found a novel by Gene Stratton Porter among my grandmother's old books called "Her Father's Daughter." Talk about being shocked by bald-faced racism... I could hardly believe the sentiments expressed in that book. At first I thought well, this is an exaggerated stereotype that will be disproven in the end, but no. The main character continues to rail against the Japanese student in the book, who does eventually turns out to be everything that the MC implies and even worse. And then I thought, well, this book must have been written during WWII as propaganda. But no, again I was wrong; it was actually written in 1921.

It opened my eyes as to how there came to be the forced detention of Japanese-Americans during WWII. (So far as I know, no Germans were penned up on a wholesale basis.)

What I learned in my German class in college was that there was much more anti-German sentiment during WWI, when German newspapers and German church services disappeared virtually overnight in the face of the "Loyalty Pledge." In WWI the German people were seen as the aggressors but in WWII it was more Hitler that was the villain rather than the average German citizen.

Anyway, trust me, Mary's poems are quite mild in comparison to Miss Porter's novel. And I'm sure her novel was just a reflection of her times.

If we're shocked by their sentiments today, that's a good thing, isn't it? Maybe in some ways things are better than they used to be.

[speedy]

Early 1942 was just after Pearl Harbor. Anti-Japanese feelings were running high. To the anger at the sneak attack were added a fear that the Japanese would soon be invading the west coast, as well as an undeniable racial component. The comments about "Japs" are a bit shocking to our modern ears, but must be judged in context. That was pretty much the way the Japanese were referred to throughout the war by most Americans. Newspaper headlines regularly used terms like Japs and Nips in headlines dealing with the Pacific war. So to hear it in these broadcasts is not surprising in the slightest. On a similar note, I just finished Milt Josefsberg's book on the Jack Benny show. In the book he has a short chapter called "Jack's Walk". In this chapter Milt discusses questions regarding Jack's "virility". I was genuinely shocked at how Milt tosses around words like "fag" and "homo" in discussing homosexuality. The book was written in 1977, and I know that things have changed a lot since then. Certainly the term "gay" was probably not being used back then. But to encounter a very intelligent, educated man like Milt using these terms was a bit shocking. Having said that, and this may seem strange, but he doesn't seem to use the terms in a mean spirited way. He uses the terms (which would be slurs today) in an almost matter of fact manner, as if these are the terms that anyone would use to describe homosexuals. I'm sure the book had an editor, and the editor obviously saw nothing wrong with the language used, since it was in the book. A different time I guess, but I did find it really shocking.

[Yhtapmys]

The book was written in 1977, and I know that things have changed a lot since then. Certainly the term "gay" was probably not being used back then.

It certainly was. I speak through personal experience.

"Jap" was a fairly common and innocuous abbreviation before the war, just as "Brit" was (and still is). It only took on its negative connotation because of the war.

Yhtapmys

[helloagain]

I think we should not lose sight of the fact that as Jack Benny lovers we are using history for entertainment. Same goes for old movie buffs. We have to understand the way things were at the time. During WWII, Japan and Germany were our enemies. I am of German descent, but I am not offened when I hear someone being called a 'kraut', or a recording of 'Der Fuehrer's Face'. I don't boycott TV stations who show 'Hogan's Heroes' because they make the German soldiers look like idiots. We all need to lighten up.

[mrdj]

I have been listening to many WWII news broadcasts in the past few weeks and even the major network reporters refer to 'Japs', 'Huns', and 'Krauts'. It's interesting to hear of battles in Africa taking place in British or French Somalailand, Eritrea, Italian East Africa etc.

[mackdaddyg]

Thanks all for the insights. Very enlightening!!

[Maxwell]

The book was written in 1977, and I know that things have changed a lot since then. Certainly the term "gay" was probably not being used back then.

It certainly was. I speak through personal experience.

"Jap" was a fairly common and innocuous abbreviation before the war, just as "Brit" was (and still is). It only took on its negative connotation because of the war.

Yhtapmys

As a whole, people were a lot freer with nicknames for ethnic groups back then than they are today. Play Billie Holiday's recording of Cole Porter's "Let's Do It (Let's Fall in Love)." The first words you hear her sing are, "Chinks do it/Japs do it/And in Lapland little Laps do it...."

In my home state of Illinois, there the high school in the town of Pekin (named after Peking, China) had the nickname "Chinks" until 1983. I'm kind of glad times have changed, but then again, the NFL still has the Washington Redskins, and the Cleveland Indians still use the "Chief Wahoo" cartoon image, so maybe we still have a long way to go.

[helloagain]

Yeah, you gotta watch out for those Laps.

[scottp]

I think they're really called Laplanders-- or are those cute girls who (hopefully) lose their balance when a streetcar makes a sudden stop?

[Mister Kitzel]

We were drawn into WWII because of a Japanese attack on an American Naval base at the end of 1941. The war in Europe started in 1938. The focus on the Japanese would be logical because we had been neutral up to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

[Yhtapmys]

I think they're really called Laplanders-- or are those cute girls who (hopefully) lose their balance when a streetcar makes a sudden stop?

Even Milton Berle wouldn't steal that one

Yhtapmys

[Maxwell]

We were drawn into WWII because of a Japanese attack on an American Naval base at the end of 1941. The war in Europe started in 1938. The focus on the Japanese would be logical because we had been neutral up to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The European War started in 1939 when Germany invaded Poland.

There was a lot of focus in Hollywood on the Japanese because of the fear of an invasion (not so irrational at the time) and fear that all of the Japanese-Americans on the west coast might constitute a fifth column (an irrational fear).

On the other hand, right from our entry in the war, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin agreed that the major focus of the war effort should be the ETO.

[epeterd]

Gay was used way back in the '30s, at least to some extent. Cary Grant used it in Bringing up Baby. When Katherine Hepburn's character's aunt asks him why he is wearing her big poofy robe, he says, "Because I went gay all of a sudden." And of course, there were rumors of his sexuality back in the day. And now too, for that matter.

[helloagain]

I have read a lot of quotes by those who knew Mr. Grant very well saying that he was not gay at all. Those rumors started back in the early 30s when, as a struggling young actor, he shared a house with Randolph Scott. And at that time, the word 'fag' was a slang name for a cigarette. L-S-M-F-T!!