IB I CHRONICLESnTHE WAR YEARS by Anthony HarrigannWorld War II seems both near and far away. In onensense, it seems like only yesterday that I was 17 yearsnold, in uniform, and in Georgia and California. In anothernsense, that period is ancient history. We have traversed ancentury or more in human experience since the earlyn1940’s.nThe conflict was a vast maelstrom that changed the worldnmore than anyone imagined at the time. The war involvedncolossal sacrifice for those who were thrown into baffle. Itnshattered peaceful lives. It sent Americans from quietncommunities into the most remote regions of the globe. Itnbrought the United States out of the Great Depression andnturned sharecroppers into riveters in shipyards. It caused anmajor migration from the sleepy Southern back country tonthe industrial heartland of the Midwest, thereby producingnsevere social upheaval in the decades to follow. It spawnedndifferent social and economic realities, a different andnhigher technological order, different politics, and differentnsets of notions about how people should behave toward eachnother. Those of us who were born in the 1920’s foundnourselves catapulted into another age.nI saw nothing of the violent side of World War II, actualncombat, or the faraway places, though at the flme, thenmilitary encampments of Galifornia seemed very far awaynindeed. I also recognized nothing of the change that the warnwas working in American life. I never anflcipated the socialntransformation that would result from the conflict. I didn’tnsee anything beyond my own small journey in the directionnof adult life.nI was 16 years old on December 7, 1941, when thenJapanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and I heard news of thenattack on the radio in our living room at 10 Legare Street innCharleston. In the afternoon I sat in my friend CraignBennett’s automobile and listened to the follow-up reportsnon the car radio. The next day we gathered in the assemblynhall at the High School of Charleston and listened tonPresident Roosevelt’s broadcast in which he referred to “anday of infamy.” The perfidy of the attack made a deep andnpermanent impression on my mind. More than 40 yearsnlater, I continue to view our Japanese “allies” with deepnsuspicion, as many Frenchmen in their innermost heartsnmust view the Germans.nIn the months after Pearl Harbor, Charleston organizednfor attacks that never came. My friend Rufledge Webb andnI, accompanied by his father, did spells of duty as air raidnwatchers on the roof of the Sumter Hotel. We scanned thenskies for the Junker bombers that were thousands of milesnaway. Other Charlestonians were organized on a block-byblocknbasis, prepared to lead their neighbors to shelter in thenevent of attack. The harbor mouth was closed by a steelnsubmarine net, as were the creeks, for Lowcountry residentsnfeared invasion by minisubs such as the Japanese had usednat Pearl Harbor. People were deadly serious about the peril,nand anyone who let a light shine in a blackout received anAnthony Harrigan is president of the U.S. Business andnIndustrial Council.nnnstern reprimand. Off the Carolina coast, German submarinesnwere active, destroying tankers that carried preciousnfuel. And one night Charlestonians heard the rumble ofnnaval gunfire at sea. They went to the High Battery tonwatch for signs of the naval action, but there was nothing tonbe seen. There also were rumors, as there had been innWorld War I, that certain Charlestonians with Germannnames were ferrying supplies to U-boats off the coast.nThe next fall, while at school in Massachusetts, the warnimpinged in only the most minor of ways—a dormitorynheated by wood instead of coal, sugar rationing, odd typesnof meat in the dining hall, old men serving as trainnconductors, servicemen on leave in downtown Boston, andnthe ubiquitous headlines telling of battles in places withnstrange-sounding names. The war was a minimal presence,nhowever, and didn’t interfere seriously with my newfoundnappreciation of Mozart and Faure or my interest in schoolnpolitics and a beautiful girl with the nickname of IDB (fornidle brain). By the end of the year, however, there wasnmuch talk among my classmates of future military service.nIt was simply a matter of when one would go and in whichn^’S^^P^lIn