Remembering Pearl Harbor and other WWII moments

Even though she was born before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Virginia Lyman Lucas was in her 50s before she realized how little she knew about American actions that “saved Western civilization from the oppression of tyrants.”

A marathon movie-watching weekend opened her eyes to the gaps in her knowledge – and changed her life.

The Spotsylvania County woman became fascinated, not just with Hollywood’s version of the war, but with researching the real stories and people depicted on the silver screen.

The 84-year-old has written two books about “World War II at the Movies” which include commentaries on 48 films as well as factual tidbits. For instance, she lists the items infantrymen carried in backpacks – helmet, boots, machete, pistol and the like – when they parachuted into France on “The Longest Day.”

She holds movie discussion groups on the first Saturday of the month at Salem Church Library, including one on Saturday, Dec. 7, about “Tora! Tora! Tora!” which she calls the quintessential film on the Pearl Harbor attack. The event will be held at 2 p.m. at the library, at 2607 Salem Church Road in Spotsylvania, and includes discussion, visuals and movie clips.

It’s all part of Lucas’ attempt to “raise the WWII IQ” however she can, and she welcomes the chance to give her presentation to veterans, seniors and other groups. She can be reached at vlucas17@gmail.com.

“I don’t think you can be a full-fledged patriot unless you know about everything that happened in World War II,” she said. “I don’t mean that in a preachy way. I just mean that as part of our patriotic DNA, we owe it to ourselves to know the details.”

In terms of America’s involvement in the war, that storyline began 83 years ago at a naval base near Honolulu, Hawaii.

Before 8 a.m. on a Sunday morning, hundreds of Japanese fighter planes mounted a surprise attack at Pearl Harbor, and managed to destroy or damage almost 20 vessels, including eight battleships and about 300 airplanes.

More than 2,400 Americans died in the attack, including civilians, and another 1,000 people were wounded. The day after the assault, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan, and America was thrust into a worldwide conflict that had begun in September 1939.

After years of research, Lucas considers FDR and Britain Prime Minister Winston Churchill her “bookend heroes.” She admires the strong spirit of Churchill, who overcame being loathed by his father and neglected by his mother. Roosevelt ran a country and won a war in a wheelchair, after polio paralyzed him.

She’ll mention FDR on Saturday and show a movie clip from “Pearl Harbor” in which the president demands, in the days after the attack, that America “hit the heart of Japan the way they have hit us.”

His advisers tell him it’s impossible, that naval forces are crippled, and that losing any more aircraft carriers would leave the country defenseless.

FDR, played by actor Jon Voight, then scooched his wheelchair back from the table, unhooked his leg braces from the chair and with a mighty effort, stood. “Do not tell me it can’t be done,” he declared.

It’s that kind of spirit that Lucas admires, both in Americans whose names are etched on monuments as well as in the “ordinary individuals who did extraordinary things.”

That’s why she watched war movies five or six times before she started her internet research. She often read a summary of a battle or particular action, then verified and fact-checked the statements on military websites.

She uses an extra-large computer monitor because she was born legally blind and has developed other visual impairments. But she manages. She lives in a senior apartment complex and uses public transportation.

Audio books are her best friends, and she listens to biographies of world leaders several times, just as she rewatches movies. She cross-references events named within books, to be sure they’re accurate.

“Virginia is an engaging, enthusiastic and knowledgeable presenter,” said Kara Rockwell, the adult services department head at the Salem Church Library. “I love working with her. I have learned so much and personally, I’m always interested to see what she will cover next.”

Lucas has found interesting stories beyond the movie titles, including one that was born at Pearl Harbor.

When America retaliated in April 1942 with the bombing of Tokyo, as FDR demanded, the strike was led by Army Lt. Col. James H. Doolittle and known as the Doolittle Raid.

Eight raiders, including a pilot named Jacob DeShazer, were captured by the Japanese and held in prison camps, where they were tortured, starved and kept in solitary confinement until the end of the war.

DeShazer hated the Japanese Kempeitai, the secret police that were the equivalent to the German Gestapo. But while in the POW camp, he asked for, and received, a Bible which the prisoners passed around.

In the midst of the brutality, DeShazer “found peace with God,” Lucas said.

After the war, DeShazer felt led to visit Japan and share his message of forgiveness. He learned how to become a public speaker at college then returned to Japan to preach the gospel, distributing pamphlets about his experience.

One of the people who saw the flyer, called “I Was a Prisoner in Japan,” was Mitsuo Fuchida. He was the lead pilot in the first wave of bombers at Pearl Harbor. He ordered his radio operator to send the infamous message “Tora! Tora! Tora!” to inform his Japanese supervisors that the bombers had completed their surprise mission.

As Fuchida looked over the pamphlet, he became intrigued by a god that espoused love and kindness over the sword. The pilot converted to Christianity in April 1950.

The next month, he went to visit DeShazer, who had started a church in Nagoya, Japan, the same city on which he had dropped bombs as a Doolittle Raider. The two men became friends.

Lucas loves the way the story came full circle. In a similar vein, the Navajo Indians who were beaten if they spoke in their native tongue on the reservation used their language to develop a code that Japanese and German enemies never broke.

The Navajo language “saved so many Marines in the island-hopping campaigns of the Pacific and brought the war to a close much quicker,” Lucas said.

These are the kind of gems she tries to mine through her research.

“It’s not enough for me to transfer information,” she said. “There has to be some feeling that comes out of it because it’s all there, in all of these stories.”