| REFLECTIONS OF THE PAST With BY LYON |
| THE KIMMELS GO TO WAR September 8, 1995, a couple of days after V-J Day 50th |
| 1940 and 1941 the war drags on. I'm at Oberlin mostly going to classes and being a college student but after hearing many good Chapel speakers of all stripes. My father has moved from his strong pacifist attitude to active support of entry to stop Hitler's Axis. In the summer the Cunibertis are sympathetic to Mussolini and Italy's air force and their cause. While at Oberlin, Norm Rich is anti-Semitic, makes Waggner into a Nazi hero and generally defends Hitler's program. The rest of Oberlin has pretty much abandoned its historic pacifist approach to favor American entry into the War to support Britain. Short of entering the War where the German U-Boats are devastating the supply lines weekly sinking our merchant ships which were carrying food, supplies, war goods and ammunition, we have taken to arming these ships which travel largely unescorted with small cannons and gun crews fore and aft to ward off blatant German surface attacks. this was mostly psychologically effective. Again looking to provide Britain more vital support but not joining the War, we negotiated the loan of 50 W.W.I. old destoyers to Britain to help in the Battle of the Atlantic. America First! was the battle cry of one of the organized groups opposing entry into the War...recalling the horrors of having been dragged unwillingly into W.W.I. In one of my favorite war cartoons, Col. Robert R. McCormick, publisher of The Chicago Tribune, is pictured playing an organ in the form of the Gothic TGribune tower, "Sleep, America, Sleep" emerging from the flying buttresses. Although President Roosevelt clearly favors entry, he realizes that public opinion remains sharply divided and has no sufficiently large galvanizing disaster to pull people together. That is, until Pearl Harbor. The twelve men living at Beacon, our small house on North Woodlant St. in Oberlin huddle around the gothic radio listening to the President's speech to Congress on the attack and proposing declaration of war on the Japan and Germany. We know the world will never be the same. Later accounts of the attack implicate Admiral Kimmel who was head of the Pacific Fleet at Pearl. He was relieved of his command and eventually court marshaled and retired into oblivion, pretty much the scapegoat. Japanese officials had been in discussion with the White House until a few hours before the attack. There were claims that Roosevelt knew there would be an attack and allowed it to happen to find provocation for our entry. I doubted this, he had been Secretary of the Navy, loved it and ships and I doubt he would have allowed such a sacrifice. Oberlin talk changed to all levels re the War. My class still had 6 months to go to graduate. Would we be able to stay here that long? What will happen to us afterwards. I'm not sure when drafting young men for duty started but draft boards were now operating all over the country. Some people talked of wanting to make sure they not emerge from the War without having war service on their political vita. My Beacon house mate, Hunter DuPree, opted for Navy V-7 which would allow him to graduate and then move right into Navy officer training. I was considering a MIT industrial psychology doctoral program which seemed to fit my professional interests but I felt uncomfortable about doing it during the War. Talked to Obie president, Earnest Hatch Wilkins he suggested "go for it" and let the draft board decide to let me stay or not. Became a moot point, I didn't get the fellowship. I hung in and graduated. Navy training and duty got me to Perth Austrailia where, on relief crew, I met Manning Kimmel, Executive Officer of the RATON, son of Admrial Kimmel. A big strapping, friendly, jolly bear of a guy who, having completed 2 outstanding patrols with the RATON, was being rotated off to prepare for a command. He was around long enough for me to dance with one of his girl friends...we were dream dancers together and to pickup a couple of his tenets, "A shower isn't a shower unless you can piss in it." "Nothing is so overrated as a piece of ass or so underrated as a healthy shit." The next thing I knew he was skipper of the ROBALO with my PRARIE STATE classmate, Joe Lutman, and I never saw him again. Was he still working off the legend of his father's trial? How did it effect his attitudes, performance, choices and assignments? The ROBALO was lost in 1944 with Manning and Joe aboard...a high price to redeem their name. The War changed my life, too. |
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