It was New Year's Eve, a traditional day of celebration in the Western World, and those using the Christian calendar in general, which at this time was the whole world, save for church calendars using the "old calendar". Often a day of revelry, this one no doubt was in spite of the war, but the war would have weirdly warped it in at least some fashion.
It's also one of resolutions, then and now.
Making any?
As earlier noted in our
Today In Wyoming's History: December 31 entry:
1941 Big Piney, Pinedale, Nowood, and Star Valley became the first Wyoming Conservation Districts when their Certifications of Organization were signed by Wyoming's Secretary of State Lester Hunt.
At least when it falls on a weekday, as it did in 1941, it's also a work day, although not all private employers observe that in the same fashion.
The Japanese were working, with ongoing advances throughout the Pacific and Far East. And they were back in action in the Hawaiian islands, where Japanese submarines shelled Kauai and Maui.
Allied leaders agreed to a Germany First policy in the war and form a combined US/UK Chiefs of Staff organization.
While looking back it was obvious that the war had turned, for those living in the time, facing constant Japanese expansion by the day, the decision to take on Germany first must have been daunting indeed. This is how the map of Europe then looked:
This was, moreover, even worse than this might at first suggest. Spain was still solidly aligned with Germany at the time, and had given airfield rights to German maritime patrols and port rights to German submarines, although secretly. Sweden was in fact a neutral, but its raw materials were going to Germany.
And then there was the Japanese offensive all over the Pacific and Southeast Asia.
In Manila, residents were destroying alcohol in fear that Japanese troops would engage in a drunken rampage, news of what had occurred in Hong Kong having reached them.
Venezuela broke off diplomatic relations with Germany, Italy and Japan.
Things must have looked awful. And indeed they were.
But the seeds of victory were already there, even though revelers this evening would have had real reason to doubt it. Germany had not defeated the Soviet Union, which was fighting back now that winter had arrived. The British were advancing in North Africa, which constituted a real second front even if the USSR would never admit that. The British were also conducting raids along the Atlantic coast pretty much whatever they wanted to, demonstrating that even though the Germans commissioned a new U-boat nearly every day, they still weren't able to drive the British from the sea or even really dominate the surface of the Atlantic.
The Japanese, for their part, were on the march, but the case still remained that they were not into a decade long war with China which they had not defeated. No matter how much the Japanese advanced, that remained a daunting fact. Until they could actually take China out of the war, China would consume the bulk of its ground forces and men committed anywhere else took away from that. They were advancing, but only because their navy had never been committed against China. It was proving highly effective against the U.S. Navy, the Royal Navy, and the Dutch Navy, but even there, it had not struck a decisive blow against any of them.
Closer to home
My family has never been big on New Year's Eve, which makes me guess that my parents families weren't either. For Catholics, January 1 is the Catholic Holy Day of Obligation, the Solemnity of Mary, and December 31 has always had a Mass of Anticipation. Without knowing, my guess is that this would have been the day my parents' families would have chosen to go to Mass, but I could well be wrong. I'd definitely be wrong if my then 12-year-old father had to serve a January 1 Mass.
My parents would have still been enjoying a holiday break from school, and probably dreading the return to school the following week.
