The Day the Cat Jumped [antikvár]

THE DAY THE CAT JUMPED It was a sleepy Sunday morning in the Philippines. General Jonathan Wainwright reached for the phone to call his aide. He spoke excitedly into the mouthpiece. 'Johnny!' 'Yes, generál.' The cat has jumped!' Johnny understood the code. A Japanese generál would have said, 'We've climbed Mount Niitaka!' Both meant the same thing. Pearl Harbour had just been attacked. Correspondent Joseph Harsch was on assignment in Honolulu at the time. He was awakened by the explosions. They reminded him of the air raids he had experienced in Berlin the year before. He woke his wife. 'Darling,' he said, 'you've often asked what an air raid sounds like. Listen to this - it's a good imitation.' But only a few miles away an orderly rushed out of Admiral Kimmel's office and said to anyone who would listen, 'He's tearing his hair out, saying "What should I do? What should I do?" ' A young seaman boarded the USS Oklahoma, which had been hit by six torpedoes below the waterline and was about to capsize. He, with a few others, was cutting through with acetylene torches in an attempt to rescue somé of the trapped men. He said, 'We could hear tapping all over the ship. SOS taps, no voices, just those eerie taps from all over. There was nothing we could do for most of them.'