Edwin J. Johnson, Springville, Utah: an interview by Benjamin Bahlmann, February 8, 2002: Saving the Legacy tape nos. 489 & 490

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EDWIN J. JOHN ON F BRU R 2002 EJJ: Oh, ye . Now, there're new men right up where they' re hooting and firing. But back then ome time would go by before we'd hear anything about thing that happened. BB: Do you remember the Sunday that Pearl Harbor wa attacked? EJJ: Yes. BB: What were you doing that Sunday afternoon? EJJ: I was just around the house. Then this news came on. BB: Did somebody come around the house and tell you or did you actually hear it on the radio? EJJ: I heard it on the radio. BB: How did that change life for you? EJJ: It wasn't necessarily a big change. When the National Guard left, it was quite a bit different. [Editor's note: All the Utah National Guard units were federalized and activated for what was supposed to be one year's active duty on 3 March 1941, nine months before the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor. Along with the passing of the first peacetime draft law in US history in the fall of 1940, the activation of National Guard units around the country was part of last minute effort to bolster and build the puny peacetime US armed forces to a million men by January of 1942. This goal had not yet been met when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. The US entry into the war resulted in an all out mobilization effort. By 1945, over sixteen million American men and women were in uniform and tens of millions of others were fully employed in war related industries.] But as far as any other changes, we didn't notice much until later in the war, then we went onto the rationing. We had to have (ration) stamp to get shoes or everything else, tires. [Editor's note: Rationing of materials and items critical to the war effort, rubber, gasoline, oil, coal, sugar, leather products, coffee, 11