Looking back — After the attack on Pearl Harbor, in Cape Girardeau, 80 years later

The Southeast Missourian archives contain several accounts written within the first two months after the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on a Sunday morning.

The dates below generally refer to the published date of each story.

One of the earliest accounts reports the Pearl Harbor death of 19-year-old Lloyd Dale Clippard, the first Cape Girardeau County serviceman killed in World War II.

Clippard's body was never recovered from the sunken U.S.S. Utah. He was one of 58 men who did not survive the attack of two Japanese torpedoes. The ship remains in the harbor today.

Two weeks after the attack, on Dec. 21, a memorial service was held for Clippard at Teachers College, now Southeast Missouri State University.

Materials needed

• Jan. 10, 1942: The Cape Girardeau County Tire Rationing Board announced the first allotment of tires and tubes to county and truck owners.

Rationing was instituted after the Roosevelt administration launched a campaign to collect rubber from any and all domestic sources.

Under the wartime regulations, no more than one fourth of the month's total quota of tires and tubes may be allotted in any one week.

• Jan. 17, 1942: The Southeast Missourian reported a search for steel scrap to help make new guns and battleships to fight the Axis (Japan, Germany and Italy) powers.

In Cape Girardeau, nine cannons were identified as potential targets of the campaign to gather steel: two were located at Fort D, three on the Teachers College (now SEMO) campus, four in Courthouse Park, two east of the Common Pleas Courthouse (now part of the new City Hall Complex) and two near Themis and Lorimier streets.

Two months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the lights were turned on an hour before daylight at this Cape Girardeau shoe factory as the nation adjusted to a wartime footing. The two-block-long building was entirely lit up perhaps for the first time in its history Feb. 9, 1942.Southeast Missourian file

Restrictions issued

• Jan. 12, 1942: Cape Girardeau County Sheriff Ruben R. Schade was ordered by the U.S. attorney general to collect and hold — until the end of the war — all radio transmitting sets capable of receiving short-wave broadcasts plus all cameras belonging to aliens in the county.

"I request all police officers bear in mind that most persons affected by these regulations are law-abiding and loyal to our government," the order read.

The story said the number of aliens in Cape Girardeau County could not be determined.

• Jan. 14, 1942: A protocol for schools to follow was laid out in the event of an air raid after a meeting government officials held with the principals of Cape Girardeau public schools and the Lutheran Parochial School.

"In the case of an air raid, each student will leave the classroom as they would during a fire drill. Children will be conducted to a safe place, either in the basement or in a lower corridor of the building. The chance of a direct hit on any individual building is very small. Teachers must guard against the blast or nearby high explosive bombs and incendiaries as well as falling fragments of antiaircraft shells. Children must not be allowed to leave the building unless an incendiary gets out of control. Then they will be escorted to their homes. Buildings in the shelter must be protected to prevent shattered glass," the story read.

• Jan. 17, 1942: During a special meeting at Trinity Lutheran Church, German language worship services were discontinued.
• Jan. 20, 1942: The U.S. Coast Guard intensified patrol duty along the Mississippi River. Carrying a camera, even by those who have worked along the waterway for years, is strictly taboo. Riverboat handlers will be searched upon entering certain zones.
• Jan. 27, 1942: Unnaturalized persons now living in the U.S., if they came from countries now at war with the United States, must apply at the post office or at the county seat for an alien certificate of identification. Those 14 years of age and older must — upon their own initiative — apply for such paper. Aliens from countries warring against the U.S. must carry their identification papers with them at all times.