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Part B –4

4.      Politics and early sense of the War

Excerpts & Historical Context: Parallel Lives in Perspective

 

 

JJK:         And you know how the rumors start.  The first thing I know, the rumors are going around that the Japanese are going to go from Hawaii, they are going to come through the Panama Canal, and then they're going to come another thousand miles and they are going to knock us off in Trinidad

 

Table of Contents

4.     Politics and early sense of the War.................................................................................................... 1

Roosevelt................................................................................................................................................................. 1

Interventionist versus Isolationist......................................................................................................................... 1

1940 Campaign and the Isolationist Press............................................................................................................. 1

They Loved or Hated FDR................................................................................................................................... 2

Early sense of War,................................................................................................................................................. 2

Jack Chased by Subs & Tom as Sailor on Neutrality Patrol saw action............................................................... 3

Pearl Harbor comes as a surprise........................................................................................................................... 3

Rumors in Trinidad................................................................................................................................................ 4

Receiving Confidence from those a day ahead....................................................................................................... 5

 

 

Roosevelt      

In Jan of 1937, FDR said that the  "The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little". This president was fiercely loved and hated for such statements and the actions that followed the philosophy expressed. . Schlessinger notes that it is hard to recall how hysterically Roosevelt was reviled by those who saw their power and income threatened by his New Deal. He also notes that others spoke in reverential tones of  FDR as "the greatest politician the USA had ever produced." [B04-N01]

              Interventionist versus Isolationist

Schlesinger contends that there have been a number of fierce national quarrels, but that none so tore apart families and friendships as the great debate of 1940-1941 over isolationism and intervention. [B04-N02]          

              1940 Campaign and the Isolationist Press

            There were a number of influential isolationist papers before the War which Roosevelt and pro interventionist forces had to contend with. The most famous included the trio of Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News and the Washington Times-Herald. [B04-N03] Roosevelt was fearful of defections at the voting booth of non-interventionist supporters and issued a statement that "your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars" [B04-N04]

 

            Jack was an early "interventionist" who wanted the USA to enter the war on the allied side against Hitler. So he grew to be a big supporter of Roosevelt.

They Loved or Hated FDR

The sports Illustrated story mentioned in earlier section reported that:

In 1938, Judge Jeremiah Mahoney, who knew Keefe through the NYAC, thought an active young man who had had polio could help his friend, President Roosevelt, in Warm Springs, Ga. "The judge used to call him. Franklin  says Keefe." [B04-N05]

 

Jack discovered that some loved and some hated FDR. He heard  both views from his friends at the New York Athletic Club when he was considering going to Warm Springs.  Some wanted Jack to drown the president if he had a chance to face him in the pool, others wanted him to give Roosevelt the ball and help him to score when they were playing water polo.

Early sense of War,

Jack was discussed the early sense of how the war was progressing and mentions his brother Tom's active involvement in the Atlantic during the "neutrality patrols"

[excerpt below, for full see JW00se30.htm para 07]

JJK:                 Well, the war was on in Europe for two years before I went overseas.  It was September of 1939 that they invaded Poland.  So, I was very much aware of the war.  We were all aware of it.  Because, the previous year in May and June of 1940s we had the Dunkirk experience, with the British and French had just been able to get hundreds of thousands of men back to England without any equipment.  All their guns and all their armaments and so forth.  Cars, Jeeps all had to be left behind. So we were aware of what was going on.

 

 

 

Jack Chased by Subs & Tom as Sailor on Neutrality Patrol saw action

[excerpt below, for full see JW00se30.htm para 07]

JJK:                 As a matter-of-fact, my brother Tom, he was on a destroyer in the North Atlantic.  And I remember saying to him one time, that I was “4F” but I was the first member of the family that had been chased by U-boats.  I had been out in the Caribbean about the 20th of December when the U-boats were knocking all of the ships off.  In 1941, right after Pearl Harbor day.  So, Tom started to laugh. He says listen, I hate to take away the honor from you, but we weren't playing potsi out on the neutrality patrol.  Which started in 1940 I think.  And the destroyers were out there and they were dropping depth bombs on the subs even in those days.

AKK:               So, before officially war was declared, part of the neutrality -- and that's when FDR was trying to get support going, and he didn't think the country would buy it, at least not wholeheartedly?  He was trying to support the British.[jw00se30.rft -  p.5]

 

 

The Attack on Pearl Harbor which brought the USA Officially into WW2 was a big surprise to most Americans.  Jack’s interviews give a sense of what this was like for people already stationed overseas and the rumors that were ever present during this time.

Pearl Harbor comes as a surprise

[excerpt below, for full see JW00se30.htm para 07]

JJK:                 Well, I tell you, we were more interested in what was going on in Europe and Pearl Harbor came as a complete surprise.  I remember, I had charge of the motor pool at Trinidad on the base for the engineers.  And I was out on a trip that day, and it was a Sunday.  I got back to the base that night at 8:00 and it was dark.  Discipline was lax, before we left you know.  And all of a sudden, I come in there and some guy with a bayonet stops me.  He says let me see your ID Card.  I said, what the hell do you mean your ID card?  You know just ignored it.  So, he says: let me see the ID card !  I saw well, he's got a rifle there must be something serious.  So I showed and he said all right.  So I went back into the barracks and I said to the guy, what's this crap about some guy wanting my ID card.  He says, war with Japan.  I said what!  He said war with Japan.  Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.  So I went down to the radio shack. I didn't believe it.  And then I heard of course.

 

 

Rumors in Trinidad

[excerpt below, for full see JW00se30.htm para 07]

JJK:                 And you know how the rumors start.  The first thing I know, the rumors going around that the Japanese are going to go from Hawaii, they are going to come through the Panama Canal, and then they're going to come another thousand miles and they are going to knock us off in Trinidad.  (Chuckle).Oh, that's how they start.  Rumors no matter where you go. 

 

 

 

War Years:

Figure 10 = 4j      14 Dec 1941         Jack Keefe with bicycle and Beard

                On the road to Macqueripol Trinidad, South America

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 11 = 4k     Sept 1944              George Keefe [Jack’s younger brother in Army Uniform  Fort Dix N.J. He survived the war but died in a car accident a few years later.

 

 

Receiving Confidence from those a day ahead

[excerpt below, for full see JW00se30.htm para 07]

JJK:                 A little thing I always noticed when I was overseas was if you are in a place for three or four days all of a sudden you are a veteran, you know everything about it.  You would pull into a camp and would say to the guys there what about this?  And they would say this, this, this, boom, boom, boom, boom.  And then you would say how long have you been here?  [And they would say] ' I have been here about a week"  (chuckle).  It was kind of amazing. They knew a little and you wanted somebody to give you a little faith in what you were doing.  Because they knew what was going on.

 

               

[For some stories on Jack's and Wanda's involvement in Post War politics see also section B-08]

END Notes for B-04

End Note [EN] Part-Sect-Note

Author

Source & Link to Bibliography in Part G

Abbreviated reference to Source

Page

B04-N01

Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr.

A Life in the 20th Century

AL20C

Pp 098, 123, 124

B04-N02

Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr.

A Life in the 20th Century

AL20C

Pp 241

B04-N03

Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr.

A Life in the 20th Century

AL20C

Pp 265

B04-N04

Jeffries, John W.. 

Wartime in America: The World War II Home Front

WA

Pp 149

B04-N05

Demak, Richard

A Master of a Swimmer, Undeterred by Polio, Jack Keefe is a top backstroker at 71, Sports Illustrated 23 march 1987,

SI66-12

Pp 86, 90