A tale of two home-front attacks

Lolita Harper

COSTA MESA -- The attacks on Pearl Harbor left a vivid image in the

minds of many. But unlike the Sept. 11 attacks, visions of Japanese

fighter pilots raiding the U.S. Navy were replayed in the minds of

Americans, not on their television screens.

On Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, television had not even been invented. People

turned to radio programs for not only news and events, but entertainment.

Donald Baird, 82, said he was living in New York when Pearl Harbor was

attacked and remembers when the radio announcer interrupted the program

with updates about the invasion. Although the attacks took place at 11

a.m. Eastern Standard Time, it wasn’t until Baird tuned in to his

friend’s radio singing debut at 3 p.m. that he heard the news.

“It took awhile to get to our side of the country, but I’ll never

forget that moment,” he said.

Baird was living in Costa Mesa at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks.

But although he was, again, on the opposite side of the country when

tragedy struck, not even an hour had passed before he heard about it.

Baird not only knew what was going on, but witnessed it through live

television coverage.

“My wife woke me up and told me a plane had crashed into the World

Trade Center. I jumped out of bed and saw the second plane hit the other

tower,” he said.

Visual images of the Pearl Harbor attack were available in the days

following. Pictures were printed in the newspaper and newsreels were

shown at the movies, but the coverage was not 24 hours a day.

Radio announcers described the attack on U.S. Naval ships very

thoroughly, said 74-year-old Jack Hermance, but the reports were sporadic

and served merely as updates.

Hermance said the round-the-clock coverage of the World Trade Center

onslaught was hard to ignore and kept him from his day-to-day routine.

“At first, it was all right, but after a while I needed a break,” he

said.

He defended the media, saying there was more to cover on Sept. 11.

Four flights went down at different times in different places, and

reporters were constantly adding new information and piecing the events

together. Pearl Harbor was a single and deliberate attack, he said.

Maryanne Bane was only 7, but she remembers vividly the night her

father came home and told the family about the Pearl Harbor invasion.

“He sat us down and said that America was going to war. Then he turned

on the radio and let us listen to the news,” Bane said.

Bane, now 67, went to the movies every Saturday and remembers the

newsreels between the double features, but the news was a welcome update

-- not like the daunting coverage of the East Coast attacks, she said.

“I just sat glued to my TV for about three days. I wished it wasn’t on

so much because I couldn’t get away from it,” Bane said.

She was able to still play and focus on her school work after the

Pearl Harbor attack but wonders what effect the uninterrupted news

coverage of the Sept. 11 attacks has had on children.

“I’m sure I had it better as a child because I could escape. [But

after Sept. 11,] it was traumatic to go day after day with nothing but

news from ground zero. It was draining and stressful,” she said.