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Pearl Harbor attack took place 80 years ago Dec. 7, 1941

Eloise Ogden/MDN This is the front page of The Minot Daily News announcing the attack on Pearl Harbor 80 years ago. There was no newspaper published on Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, so the first stories about the attack were in the Dec. 8, 1941, edition.

Minot and area residents were unaware when more than 3,000 miles away Japanese fighter planes attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, during the early morning hours (7:55 a.m. Hawaii time) of Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941.

The Minot Daily News’ first announcement of the attack ran in the Monday, Dec. 8, 1941, edition of The Minot Daily News with the banner headline saying Congress had promptly declared war with but one dissenting vote. American casualties were placed at 3,000.

Sens. William Langer and Gerald Nye of North Dakota were among the U.S. senators voting in the U.S. Senate 82-0 to declare war on Japan after President Roosevelt requested immediate action as an answer to Japan’s “unprovoked and dastardly attack” on Hawaii, read the Associated Press story in the Dec. 8, 1941, edition of The Minot Daily News. The House voted 388 to 1 with the single adverse House vote from Jeannette Rankin, a Republican congresswoman from Montana.

In the city of Minot, the newspaper reported telegrams arrived Sunday night and Monday canceling furloughs of soldiers home from Army camps. A number of reservists were waiting to be called up for active duty. Several Minot National Guardsmen discharged in recent weeks, because of the 28-year-old age limit law or because of dependency at the time of their induction, reported they expected calls to report back to camp.

The news of military action in the Pacific was brought especially close to Minot for many Magic City families with sons and relatives on active duty with various branches of the military in the Pacific region.

The newspaper also reported Minot’s approximately dozen adult Japanese men residents, half of them longtime residents of the city, issued loyalty to the United States and expressed hope that the military machine of Japan would be crushed. Some of the men were born in this country.

“What were they thinking about to attack the United States?” said one of the men, the newspaper said.

The next day the newspaper said at least one Minot man was affected by Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau’s order to freeze the assets of Japanese nationals in this country. A local cafe owner said his bank had informed him of the freezing of his account. The man had been in this country nearly 35 years and in Minot about 26 years. The man said he was told the accounts of longtime residents of the United States would probably be released in a few days.

The newspaper’s editorial on Dec. 8, 1941, was headlined “Without honor, integrity or courage.”

The editorial began:

“The United States is at war today.

When we say “at war” we use that expression in a sense which all Americans understand.

An attack by Japan without warning on outposts of United States territory in the Pacific, followed by Tokyo’s announced declaration, took us clearly into armed conflict with no alternative.”

The following day the newspaper published a partial list issued by the War Department of casualties resulting from Sunday’s bombardment of the island of Oahu, Hawaii, by Japanese air units.

The war would continue into 1945.

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