By Sara Quam
Dec. 7, 1941, is etched into memories as the "date which will live in infamy." Similar to Sept. 11, 2001, it marks a catastrophic event that led the United States into war.
On its 60th anniversary Friday, the bombing of Pearl Harbor resurfaces in the minds of those who lived through World War II.
Some make comparisons between the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon in 2001.
But in the Dec. 12, 1941, edition of the Rock County Herald, comparisons were drawn between the first world war and how America entered the second.
A front-page story in the Dec. 12, 1941, Herald said, "It is a far cry, in more ways than dates - between April 6, 1917, when America declared war against Germany, and Dec. 8, 1941, when Congress declared a state of war to exist with Japan, following this yesterday with a similar declaration covering Germany and Italy.
"Not only is warfare conducted on a bigger, more lightning-like and more destructive scale these days, and is vastly more mechanized than it was in 1917, but there is a difference also now in the way the American public in general and Rock County citizens in particular are receiving the news of current hostilities and the actions of their elected representatives in relation to them.
"To be sure, the daily papers are still issuing extra editions and rushing them here, but no longer must the public depend upon the dailies as they did in the days of 1917. These days find them fairly 'glued' to their radios while at home, listening to them while traveling in their cars, keeping within hearing distance of the receiving sets while at the office and stepping frequently into faces and other places of business while on the streets in order to catch the latest bulletins."
Also on the front page of that edition was a list of Luverne people in combat zones:
Arthur J. Riss was in Manila as a member of the Bureau of Education;
Merle Wynn had been working in Honolulu, but at the time of the attack was 500 miles south;
Helen Haug was a nurse in the Navy dispensary in Honolulu;
Russell Ormseth was stationed with the U.S. Marines at Guam, which the Japanese claimed to have seized at the Herald's press time;
Marion Frakes was also stationed in Honolulu with the Army (brothers Dale, Allen and Gordon also served in the U.S. Navy, but were in different locations);
Lawrence Dehmlow was stationed in Hawaii with a Navy repair ship;
Marvin DeLapp was aboard a submarine and was last heard from while the vessel was between Manila and Singapore;
Franklin DeLapp was reported to be in Pearl Harbor;
Orville "Pat" Barclay, Magnolia, was also believed to be somewhere in the Pacific island region with the Army.