President Franklin Roosevelt asked Congress for a declaration of war against Japan on Dec. 8, 1941, the day after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
But he didn't have to urge Oklahomans to volunteer for military service. They were joining as fast as military recruiters could take them. One eager Tulsan even called a Navy recruiter at home on Sunday night (Dec. 7) but was told to call back the next day.
The Tulsa Army recruiter said nine men had been accepted but about 200 had sought to enlist on Dec. 8. The Navy accepted 35 from the 100 who wanted to enlist and the Marines accepted 25 on that first day of the war. Those numbers were swelled by 47 more Tulsa-area men ready to fight the next day. And the numbers of volunteers continued to grow daily.
Many Oklahoma civilians were already in uniform.
They were members of the 45th Infantry Division, a National Guard unit made up of Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado men, that was among several Guard divisions totaling 60,000 men that had been federalized in September 1940 for a year of training -- a year that was extended so that the division was still on active duty when Pearl Harbor was bombed and until the end of the war in 1945.
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The division was sent to Fort Sill but was moved later to Camp Barkeley near Abilene, Texas, for training until being sent to Europe in June 1943 for 511 days of combat in Sicily, Naples-Foggia, Anzio, Rome-Arno, Southern France, Ardennes-Alsace, Rhineland and Central Europe.
Federalization of the Guard left Oklahoma with only the 155-member highway patrol as a statewide force. After hearing about the Pearl Harbor bombing, state Safety Commissioner Walter B. Johnson canceled all leaves of highway patrol troopers, and the officers were directed to remain in contact with their superiors when they were off duty.
The OHP officers were directed to patrol in the areas of refineries and defense facilities, such as the Douglas bomber plant in Tulsa, the gun powder plant at Chouteau and the Air Corps depot (now Tinker Air Force Base) in Oklahoma City, and to stay within a reasonable distance of them.
A few days later, Tulsa's city commission authorized the purchase of two new patrol cars and the hiring of two new officers to join seven officers assigned to patrol Spavinaw Lake and to make twice-daily patrols along the 70-mile water-flow line from Spavinaw to Tulsa.
Police Commissioner Russell Cobb said one of the new police cars would be stationed at the dam and would be equipped with a two-way radio capable of communicating with police in Tulsa.
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Only in Oklahoma is a series from the Tulsa World Archive that was written by former Tulsa World Managing Editor Gene Curtis during the Oklahoma Centennial in 2007. The columns told interesting stories from the history of the country’s 46th state. The Tulsa World Archive is home to more than 2.3 million stories, 1.5 million photographs and 55,000 videos. Tulsa World subscribers have full access to all the content in the archive. Not a subscriber? We have a digital subscription special offer of $1 for three months for a limited time at tulsaworld.com/subscribe.