MANHATTAN LIGHTS IN WORLD WAR II

By Linda Lee Greene, Author & Artist

Since the maiden descent from the top of One Times Square of the New Year’s Eve Ball, only in 1942 and 1943 was the tradition put on hold, and then it was due to the wartime “dimout” of the lights of New York City. While during those pivotal years of World War II crowds still congregated at the head of the forked square, they were eerily quiet compared to previous years, and a moment of complete silence at the stroke of midnight punctuated the poignancy of the ringing chimes atop the 25 story building.

On the night of January 13, 1942, the lights of Manhattan are still alight just enough to make of her an irresistible target to those wishing her harm. As the eyes of the unsuspecting, never-sleeping city are turned westward toward their Japanese enemies in the Pacific, a deadly-hungry German U-boat lurks off Manhattan’s eastern shore. Smelling choice meat, silently it surfaces, and its commander, like an overjoyed kid let loose for the first time with his daddy’s hunting rifle, takes aim and fires a whistling torpedo into the hull of an American oil tanker moored at Gotham’s watery fringe. His Aryan face flushed red with the adrenalin-rushed blood of his coup d’ état, with an all but silent hiss, his sleek submarine breaks the frigid skin of the water once more. Stealthily it slips back down into the murky sea, noses to the warmer waters of the south, and hunts for another twelve hours off the Atlantic shore of dazzling America. The German commander of that vessel stalks his quarry well. He adds seven more defenseless American ships to his kill-score by the time the night is through.

The many years of the Great Depression hollowed out the coffers of the United States, a condition worsened by its program of providing war supplies to Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and other allies during their several years of fighting Germany and its war partners. Following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, and Germany’s subsequent declaration of war against the United States of America, a sense of near hopelessness clouds the nation’s war effort, a despair owing to an American military that is almost non-existent, and what there is of it is ill-equipped and ill-trained to take on two formidable enemies in two separate theaters of war. In addition, Japan at Pearl Harbor crippled critically America’s Pacific air and sea fleet, involving the loss of life of 2,500 servicemen. In addition, Japan captured both American and British territory throughout the Asian Pacific, as well as the independent kingdom of Thailand. Between December 1941 and the spring of 1942, the Japanese are the dominant force in the Pacific and impose their will against a stretched and an anemic Allied military.

Prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, American military commanders believed Hawaii to be beyond the reach of the fighting forces of Japan, and the same attitude held true regarding the continental USA. But if Japanese naval and air forces are destroying Allied interests in the Pacific and German U-boats are blowing up ships on the east coast of America, what might they do to Seattle, Sacramento, San Francisco, and San Diego? the American populace asks itself. Shaken to its core and in fear of a fate similar to that of Pearl Harbor, western Americans shroud their dwellings with blackout-curtains, issue official air-raid instructions, and stack the exterior walls of buildings from their foundations to rooflines with sandbags.

            His country barely holding on against German Luftwaffe bombings, in London, Great Britain’s Prime Minister, Winston Spencer Churchill solicits greater material aid from the United States and an increased number of escorts of Allied merchant ships as they maneuver the supply lanes of the frigid North Atlantic. Made perilous by wolf-packs of deadly German U-boats, like the oil tankers moored along America’s eastern shore, the merchant ships are easy prey for the cunning submarines.

Engaged in the bulk of the fighting against German troops along her lengthy and frozen front, General Secretary of the Soviet Union, Josef Stalin resents his place at the bottom of the food chain of American aid, even as he revels in his role as the savior of the west at that time. It is a position he plans to use to his advantage at the end of the war when it comes time to divvy up the conquered territory. In his only resemblance to Stalin, other than hatred of the Nazis, Churchill has his eye on some choice new territory as well. Only Roosevelt bears no interest in gaining territory, even though his country will finance and supply the bulk of the equipment and the warriors of the conflict.

            America’s fighting men, most of whom are still in late-stage adolescence according to modern-day definitions, are called to service in the war through the first draft in the history of the country, and the people – bewildered – fearful – saddened, drop to their knees in prayer, and stunned mothers and fathers console one another as their homes systematically and rapidly empty of the brightest and best of their beloved, young sons. Reliance on their families, neighbor/friends, and faith in FDR sustains them, as well as the creed of their souls that “there never has been – there never can be – successful compromise between good and evil,” as their commander-in-chief reminded them from Washington, DC in his State of the Union Address at the opening of 1942. His cultured voice, reaching out across the radio waves and into the living rooms of his people, reassured them and inspired their commitment to the war effort.

Thus, America begins the long and torturous journey toward victory on the battlegrounds of World War II, the conflagration that is perceived by the force of its very magnitude as the lowest point in the history of the world.©

Image: Manhattan Skyline 1942

Multi-award-winning author, Linda Lee Greene’s eBooks and paperbacks are available for purchase through Amazon.com. A CHANCE AT THE MOON, her latest multi-genre novel featuring romance, intrigue, and paranormal elements is described below:

Amid the seductions of Las Vegas, Nevada and an idyllic coffee plantation on Hawai’i’s Big Island, a sextet of opposites converge within a shared fate: a glamorous movie-star courting distractions from her troubled past; her shell-shocked bodyguards clutching handholds out of their hardscrabble lives; a dropout Hawaiian nuclear physicist gambling his way back home; a Navajo rancher seeking cleansing for harming Mother Earth; and from its lofty perch, the Hawaiian’s guardian spirit conjured as his pet raven, conducting this symphony of soul odysseys.

Was it chance or destiny’s hand behind the movie-star and gambler’s curious encounter at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas? The cards fold, their hearts open, and a match strikes, flames that sizzle their hearts and souls. Can they have the moon and the stars, too? Or is she too dangerous? Is he? Can their love withstand betrayal? Can it endure murder?

While the cards at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas fail to distract them from their troubled pasts, on the side, the actress and the gambler play a game of ‘will they won’t they’ romance. Meanwhile, an otherworldly hand also has a big stake in the game. Unexpected secrets unfold brimming with dangerous consequences, and finally, a strange brand of salvation.

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