Courtesy Photo | The banner of the Norfolk Naval Shipyard publication Defender from December 7, 1942,...... read more read more
December 7th, “the day that will live in infamy” as declared by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941 has been remembered at Norfolk Naval Shipyard (NNSY) for its key role in the war effort due to the fact that the ships that were modernized and built before and after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Stepping out of the elevators on the second floor of Bldg. 1763 brings people eye-to-eye with the crew of the USS Arizona (BB-39) as they were in May 1929 before the battleship was lost during the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The event has been remembered in Service to the Fleet in recent years with articles reflecting on the day, but how was it remembered here in the shipyard in the years immediately following the historic event? This time on Heritage Hour we look back and remember.
The NNSY publication Defender, the predecessor to Service to the Fleet, commemorated the first anniversary with a large two page spread of photographs showcasing some of the many achievements the shipyard accomplished in the time since the transmission came in: “Pearl Harbor under attack, this is no drill." Some of the major events that occurred included a War Bond campaign that broke national records; pay for the workforce was switched from cash to checks; and the introduction of women who, according to a journalist of the past, “dropped their kitchen utensils to exchange them for lathes and welding torches and hammers and chisels.” What began with Pearl J. Smithfield, Viola B. Henderson, and Frances A. Scholz, the first three women to step into the waterfront shops, became a lasting legacy.
During research for this article, there was a noticeable absence of remembrance when looking through the tenth and twentieth anniversary editions. As publication of the Service to the Fleet in December of 1951 fell directly on the tenth anniversary, the lack of any mention was truly surprising. Going back through the milestone years following the attack, a tiny article tucked inside the 1946 Service to the Fleet offered some enlightenment and proved a clear reminder of just how impactful the grief of loss from World War II was to this community. “[There] are few of us who do not mourn the loss of a loved relative or friend or shipmate. The row of graves on the hill behind Pearl Harbor, on Guadalcanal, on Tarawa, in North Africa, on the Normandy beaches, and the many unmarked but remembered graves in the depths of the sea remind us of the expensive penalty we have paid for the victory which was ours after four, hard, difficult years.”
The years have passed and it becomes easier to think only of the great battleships built and Allied warships repaired at the same docks that NNSY’s current workforce uses to carry out modern repairs to this very day. At its heart, December 7th should live on in infamy carrying on the memory of the ones who were lost on behalf of those who found the burden of grief too heavy in their time.
| Date Taken: | 12.01.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 12.01.2023 13:05 |
| Story ID: | 458901 |
| Location: | PORTSMOUTH, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 57 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, The Heritage Hour – A Glance into the Vital History of Norfolk Naval Shipyard LOG 12-23: Remembering Pearl Harbor, by Victoria Pendleton, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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