Exciting Navy Stories, Winter, 1943

Although I do not have the entire issue, I was able to get hold of one of the stories, entitled 'The Fighting Yank.' This is a fiction story about the attack on Pearl Harbor, and, other than the attack itself, is utterly fictional, not even close to what happened after the attack.

The first part of the story occurs just before the attack. An American soldier named Morgan is visiting a place called the Bamboo Gardens, run by a Japanese named Yamato (the old name for Japan), who 'was called a Jap who could be trusted.'

Morgan is from the battleship Pennsylvania, and on a Sunday morning has gone to the Bamboo Gardens. Once the bombing starts, Yamato changes.

'The Jap was being transformed from a genially smiling billiken to a fiendish imp, and with a Jekyll-Hyde brevity. Under the startled American's gaze he was swiftly emerging from the suave shell that all of Honolulu had known as the friendly Mr. K. Yamato.'

Thus begins a section on the 'ugly Japanese,' showing how the Japanese went from being merely disliked and somewhat hated, to being the sneaky, treacherous, nasty, vicious beings that they were seen as after the war started.

It turns out Yamato had been working for a long time for this day. “Liberty Sunday! Liberty, hah! It ends now, the years we work and wait and plan.”

This reflects what many felt about the Japanese in the U.S. and its territory Hawaii before the war, that they would immediately leap to the words of their Emperor and attack the U.S. citizens and sabotage the U.S. military.

Morgan fights Yamato. 'The lower part of the Jap's face was blood-smeared, but fanaticism still gleamed behind his thick glasses.' This shows how many people considered the Japanese to be fanatics.

Yamato kills one guy, but Morgan gets him. 'A final leap, a slanting smash with the billy club, and Yamato's treacherous skull popped like a smashed coconut.'

Morgan then gets into a Japanese plane that had temporarily landed, hides, and ends up on one of the Japanese carriers. (Now we're into the utterly fictitious part).

Morgan overhears some of the Japanese talking.

'Out of Pearl Harbor we drove their fleet!...Outside our brave subs are waiting! So nice!'

'Soon we shall take California! Stupid, helpless, but so rich yes!'

Actually, the Japanese did manage to attack California and other West Coast places, but they were by individual subs or planes, and by the numerous balloon bombs. As far as an all-out attack on California, it wasn't really even in the works at this time and would have been considered, even by the Japanese, to be more hopeful than actually possible.

Later, Morgan hears:

'Nothing is more glorious than to die for the Son of Heaven. Straight into big ships this time we fly.' In other words, they were planning a mass kamikaze attack, something which was not used until around a year or so later in the war.

The Japanese refueling the planes are referred to as 'greasy baboons.' Later, the Japanese are referred to as 'nasty little yellow devils.'

In relation to a Japanese submarine that was being attacked by a plane: 'More black specks boiled up like startled cockroaches out of the open hatch.'

The events of the story are, other than the actual attack on Pearl Harbor, utter fiction, but the story does show just how strong the feelings were about the Japanese military at the time.

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