Pearl Harbor Story December 2018 Clifton Magazine

December 7, 1941 “I fear all we have done is to

awaken a sleeping giant

and fill him with a terrible resolve.”

— Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto after the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor

Photo Courtesy of Mark S. Auerbach

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By Jack DeVries Harry Murtha was inside a soda shop next to the Clifton Theatre when he learned the news of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. Like many, he returned home to gather with family by the radio.

“Outside of newspapers, we followed the war through radio. Announcers like Gabriel Heatter, Raymond Gram Swing, and Lowell Thomas—and of course Walter Winchell—became household names. The only time we saw the war was at the movies. Between features, they’d show Movie Tone News, and we’d see films of the soldiers.”

The first wave of Japanese attackers swarmed over Hawaii just after 6 am that Sunday, making it a little past 1 pm on the East Coast. When the bombardment began, the Clifton Theatre was packed with moviegoers, fans were watching the Paterson Panthers play in Hinchliffe Stadium, and couples filled the dance floor of the Meadowbrook in Cedar Grove.

Everything stopped as the terrible news was announced—news that would change lives and cities forever.

On December 8, Clifton and the surrounding towns mobilized for war. The Herald-News reported reservists being summoned in Nutley, a defense group meeting in Passaic, and armed guards “increasing 300 percent” at the Curtiss-Wright Propeller Division Plant in Clifton.

On Garret Mountain, the “five-cents-a-look” binoculars were removed because it “enabled anyone to survey the entire vital Paterson defense area scene.”

On orders from an unnamed government representative, the Clifton Police were dispatched to seize control of the Takamine Plant at 193 Arlington Ave., which produced vitamins and chemical products. Eben Takamine, son of a Japanese scientist Dr. Jokichi Takamine and an American mother, operated the plant.

W.A. McIntyre, the plant’s vice president, told the Herald-News the company was “entirely American controlled” and confident he could convince the soon-to-arrive federal agents that “their position was incorrect.”

Fear of an air attack gripped New Jersey.

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Air raid sirens were made ready, and Clifton Fire Chief James Sweeney told his men to prepare their equipment and know where emergency water sources were. Sweeney said their jobs would become more difficult if bombs tore up the streets or they were handicapped by blackouts.

In the months that followed December 7, Clifton and the rest of the nation transformed itself to support the war effort. Factories operated on a three-shift, 24-hour day schedule. Bowling alleys opened all night to accommodate late-shift workers and movies opened at noon and ran long past dark.

In the years following Pearl Harbor, Murtha and other students got a living history lesson.

“I was part of the first class to graduate from Clifton High after the bombing,” he said. “One of my classmates, Ray Zangrando, who also played football for the Clifton Arlingtons, was one of the first from my class to join the fight, enlisting in the Navy.

“There was no way to describe the unity in this country,” Murtha added. “We needed to be united. In the first months of the war, we took a terrible beating.”

Soldier’s Story Cipriano “Chip” Zaczagnini and his father were at their Botany home when news of the sneak attack came over the radio. “As soon as I heard the Japanese hit Pearl Harbor,” Zaczagnini recalled, “I said to myself that I was going to join the Navy.”

In 1941, Zaczagnini was working in the Botany Mills.

He remembered the mood in Clifton just after the attack.

“There was a lot of anger because the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor out of a clear blue sky,” he said. “A lot of men lost their lives that day.”

Including civilians, the Japanese killed 2,403 Americans at Pearl Harbor and wounded 1,178. Eighteen U.S. Navy ships were sunk or damaged.

The Japanese lost 185 men in the attack, along with 29 planes, five midget submarines, and one large sub.

Three weeks later, Zaczagnini went to Church Street in New York to enlist.

“I had everything ready and took the papers home to my father for him to sign, since I was only 17,” he said.

“But my father wouldn’t. He served in the Italian Army in World War I and didn’t want his son going off to war like he did. My mother had passed away a few years before, and it was only the two of us.

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Editor’s Note: This story originally ran in 2006 and is a time capsule, telling the story of the nation and Clifton’s reaction to the bombing of Pearl Harbor and its aftermath. Though nearly all of the Cliftonites quoted in this article have passed on, their stories remain compelling and are an excellent representation of the Greatest Generation’s patriotism and sacrifice during World War II.

“A few months later, I turned 18 and was drafted into the Army.”

After going through basic training in Florida, Zaczagnini was sent to Army bases in Arkansas and Alabama before being shipped overseas.

“We left New York and went over on a convoy to England,” Zaczagnini said. “I was part of the 66th Infantry Division. On Christmas Eve, 1944, we were boarding a troop transport, a Belgium ship called the Leopoldville, to go to France to fight in the Battle of the Bulge.

“Just before we left, my Company commander, Captain Cain, told me to go with the LST (a ship used to transport ground equipment like tanks and trucks). I was a machine gunner, and there was a jeep on the LST with a machine gun on it.”

As Zaczagnini sped toward France aboard the LST, the Leopoldville came under attack in the English Channel. The ship was torpedoed by a German sub, struck in the spot where Zaczagnini’s company was riding. Cain and 800 other men died as the Leopoldville sunk.

“If I had been on that ship,” said Zaczagnini, “I wouldn’t be here today.”

When the 66th reached France, a switch was made because of the heavy losses caused by the Leopoldville’s sinking. “Being our Division was so screwed up, they sent us to the ‘Forgotten Front’ and sent the 94th Infantry to the Bulge.”

The Forgotten Front was a pocket area around the French towns of St. Nazaire and Lorient. Trapped in the area were over 30,000 German troops—with the sea at their backs and Allied troops in front of them. Zaczagnini spent the rest of WW II fighting the Nazis and was later awarded the Bronze Star for his actions.

“Everybody’s scared in combat,” Zaczagnini said.

“What you see in battle is no joke. You know what they say, ‘war is hell.’ And that’s the right word, it is hell.

“I lost a good part of my friends there, either in battle or on patrol. The Germans had those big guns, the ‘88s.’

If you heard them, you were safe, when you didn’t hear them, that’s when you had to worry.”

Brother’s Sacrifice wouldn’t let him. At 18, he tried to enlist, On December 7, Frank Niader was 10 but was rejected because the welding had years old and living in a Hickory Hill, affected his eyes. A few months later, his Pa., a rural coal-mining town. His famieyesight improved and William became a ly, which included older brother William, Marine.

15, and sister Olean, 17, would be deeply Niader says that late in the war, his brothimpacted by the events following the ater was fighting with the 7th Regiment of the tack on Pearl Harbor.

First Marine Division, trying to capture a “My parents were Ukrainian,” said hill on the island of Okinawa called Kunishi Niader, “and they understood what war Ridge. On June 12, 1945, while attempting was, what terror was. They were fearful. to rescue a wounded Marine, a mortar shell Joseph Sperling, the first My brother, sister, and I didn’t understruck William. He died without ever reClifton serviceman killed stand. We felt isolated—a world away gaining consciousness. in WWII. He died at Pearl from Pearl Harbor.”

“Two days before the war officially endHarbor while serving aboard the USS Curtis.

That would change. After Niader’s ed,” said Niader, “we got the news. I was 42-year-old father contracted “miner’s around the corner on Orono St., playing lung,” the Niaders moved to Clifton in October 1942 to with my friends. My Aunt Annie came for me and said, live closer to family.

“You better go home. Your brother’s been killed.

“Clifton was much different then,” said Niader, “big, “What happened next was like a dream. I remember open, and full of farms. I remember everyone getting ingoing home and seeing my parents crying, but I can’t volved in the war effort. We’d bring scrap metal to the recall much more than that—it’s like I blocked it out.” factory on Lisbon and Van Houten.”

Since then, Niader has done everything he can to Niader’s brother William became a welder for the remember. He’s contacted 40 Marines who fought at Trowbridge Company near Mt. Prospect and Van Houten Kunishi Ridge, learning about the days leading up to Aves. He wanted to join the Marines but his parents William’s death and the memorial service the

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Marines held for him on a hill overlooking the East China Sea. His research has also assisted writer Stephen Ambrose, author of Band of Brothers and many other military books “I am incredibly proud of my brother,” he said.

He arrived in this country at 18 from Italy. To become a U.S. citizen, he enlisted in the Army.

He was aboard a troop transport heading for France when World War I ended.

Giunta would soon learn about war.

Upon graduation from ClifLife Interrupted ton High in January 1942, she Mario Giunta heard the took a job in Wright Aeronautinews of the Japanese attack on cal in Paterson, starting first in Pearl Harbor on the dance floor. the mail room, them moving to “I lived in Passaic then and secretarial work.

William Niader with his parents in Clifton. was 18 years old,” the former “I worked six, sometimes Clifton Police detective said. seven days a week,” Giunta “A group of us would chip in a nickel for gas from the remembered. “They encouraged us to work as much as Merit station in Passaic and go to the Meadowbrook on we could. I worked with many mothers whose sons were Sundays—for $1.25, you got a lettuce, tomato, and cold serving in the military.” cut sandwich, and dancing from noon to four.

Working in a room with rows of typewriters, it was “I don’t remember which band was playing, but they Giunta’s job to transcribe the notes of engineers testing stopped the music and announced the Japanese had just airplane engines. bombed Pearl Harbor. Then the music started again.

“I wouldn’t type the swear words,” said Giunta. “I was What happened didn’t really sink in until we were riding afraid they would get in trouble. home and talking about it.”

“Then one day, an engineer named Doc Graninger told About three days later, Giunta and his friends went me, ‘Type what I tell you. Put in all the swear words. We to New York to join the Marines as a group. Giunta was need them to tell what’s happening.’ And he was right. accepted, but his friends failed their physical for a variThey’d use a term like ‘goose’ the engine, which soundety of reasons. Next, they tried the Navy. Again, Giunta ed funny to me, but meant something to them.” passed, but his friends were rejected.

Giunta, who worked at the defense plant until the war “Finally,” he said, “we got to the Coast Guard, and ended, remembers the spirit of the time.

I said this was it for me. I passed, and they failed, so I “Flags were always flying,” she described. “No matter joined. They later got drafted in the Army and got jobs what you did, you asked yourself if it was helping the like radiomen where things like bad eyesight wouldn’t boys. People were always looking to help.” affect them.”

Giunta’s contribution to America’s war effort did not end with her day job.

Heart and Soul On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, she helped lift The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor changed the lives spirits by singing with the Duke Collins Band as vocalist of many on the home front—including the life of Clifton “Mary Miles,” performing at places like President’s Hall, High’s former head drum majorette and Mario’s future the Polish Home, and the Passaic Armory. wife, Marie (Vullo) Giunta.

“On stage,” she remembered, “I’d look out and all I “I was home when I heard the announcement,” said could see was uniforms. Hundreds of soldiers would be Giunta. “My mother, aunt, and father all had tears in their there.” eyes. I said, ‘What’s all the crying about?’ My mother Giunta became a friendly voice back home to many said, ‘You don’t understand about war. A lot of young service men. boys will be killed.’”

“They would write to Duke when they went over Her father understood the fear of war better than most. seas,” she said. “One day, he said, ‘My wife has

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two small children to care for, and Changed Forever she doesn’t have time to answer all Like the September 11 attacks, these letters.’ I told him to give them the bombing of Pearl Harbor will to me. never be forgotten. That single day “At lunchtime at Wright’s, I’d and the war that followed not only eat my sandwich with one hand and saved the free world, it changed type letters with the other. They’d America and Clifton forever. send me back little gifts, like mili“Pearl Harbor and World War II tary emblem patches and other cute had a dramatic affect on Clifton,” things. I saved all their letters and said Murtha. “Back then, this was have them today. a blue-collar town and most kids “I also began corresponding never gave college a thought. That with a girl, Lilly Stevens, in Brischanged with the GI Bill—one of tol, England. My brother-in-law the greatest pieces of legislation we Paul stayed with her family since ever created. there were no barracks for many “When the soldiers returned, American soldiers. they got their high school diplomas Mario Giunta and his future wife, Marie.

“We’ve continued to write to and went on to college because the each other all these years—all beGI Bill paid for them. The resulting cause of the war.” flood of lawyers, doctors, and other professionals would The war also impacted Giunta’s personal life. Though have never been possible without it. And these people she was in love with future husband Mario, whom she’d changed Clifton.” known since age 14, her family would not permit the Murtha also noted another impact of the GI Bill—the couple to marry or become engaged. She waited while incredible amount of homes built in Clifton. “This used Mario patrolled the North Atlantic with the Coast Guard to be a rural community,” he said. “I remember working until the fighting ended. on a farm during the summer to pay to go to my prom.

“Some girls got married right away when they knew But after the war, that changed. Steve Dudiak built so their boyfriends were going into the service,” Giunta many of those ‘salt shaker’ homes because people could said. “My family wouldn’t allow that. They were afraid afford them with a mortgage through the GI Bill.” that I might become a widow, maybe with a young Seventy-seven years ago, the events of quiet Sunday child.” morning changed the world—much like the events of a Later, Giunta saw her life come full circle. “Now I’m bright, blue Tuesday morning did on September 11, 2001. the one with the tears when I think about things like the Through the stories of those who lived through Pearl World Trade Center or fighting in Afghanistan. And my Harbor, and the years of sacrifice which followed, the grandchildren don’t understand why.” present generation has a noble example to follow.

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