When enemy warplanes dropped bombs on the U.S. Naval Base in Hawaii and dragged this country into World War II on Dec. 7, 1941, Henry “Al” Shelleday of the Mount Laurel community in West Milford was a member of the U.S. Army Signal Corps stationed at Fort Shafter in Honolulu.
There were 2,300 Americans who died in the attack that day and 1,000 who were wounded. Shelleday was one of the lucky people who survived.
He helped the Signal Corps develop one of the greatest aids in winning the war: radio intelligence. The contributions of the Signal Corps remained little known long after the war ended until clearance to release related documents was given years later.
Weather reports for that fatal day in 1941 said the temperature at Pearl Harbor at 7:30 a.m. was a pleasant 73 degrees, winds were out of the east at 21 mph and clouds covered just 30 percent of sky. It was mostly sunny. Light precipitation throughout the early morning ceased at 5:40 a.m.
Certainly, Hawaii was an exceptionally nice place to be on a day in 1941!
In West Milford, it was a rather mild, overcast winter day with a light dusting of snow on the ground. It was Sunday and tradition for many township families was to attend church services, then return to their residences for a home-cooked family dinner.
This was before computers; cell phones or television sets were part of most everyone’s lives. People learned of the enemy attack by radio, the means of communication at the time.
After hearing about the attack, people went to bed that night wondering what the future would bring and knowing that nothing would be the same as it had been.
Bombs had rained down at Pearl Harbor just before 8 a.m. Published reports say the massive attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy included torpedoes and high-level bombing supported by fighter planes.
There were 353 planes from six carriers conducting attacks at Pearl Harbor and nearby naval and military airfields and bases in two waves.
When the pilots reached their intended destination about 200 miles north of Hawaii on Dec. 4, they wrestled with a way to fly the attack planes toward Hawaii above the clouds where they would not be seen. For their mission to succeed, they needed clearing so they could see their target.
Reports said as they struggled to listen to a Honolulu radio station, they accidentally heard a disc jockey say Hawaii was having a partly cloudy day with clouds mostly over the mountains. With that news, the Japanese pilots were ordered to depart for Pearl Harbor.
Shelleday’s Signal Corps unit at Fort Shafter experienced the first strike. The radar site on Oahu had detected a large number of aircraft approaching from the north. Little did anyone realize that this was the opening event of the U.S. entry into World War II, which started in 1939 with the German invasion of Poland.
The Army Signal Corps was responsible for signal security and intelligence throughout the war. It operated radar units, including the SCR-270B Radio Detection Finder, at various locations.
Shelleday continued to serve with the War Department Radio Station until the war ended.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt was finishing lunch in his oval study on the second floor of the White House at 1 p.m. when Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox told him of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
The next day, he addressed the nation and called the attack “a date which will live in infamy.” The president asked Congress for a declaration of war and unanimously got that with only one negative vote in the House - that of Jeanette Rankin, a Montana pacifist.
Immediately after the attack, the Signal Corps started setting up radio stations across the Pacific at strategic locations to facilitate military communications. It played a vital role beyond transmitting messages by interpreting and analyzing radio traffic.
New Zealand was important in communications during World War II because of its South Pacific location. As part of the Signal Corps, Shelleday worked to set up radar communication networks with this vital relay point, allowing for efficient intelligence gathering and coordination of military operations across great distances. The system enhanced the ability for code breaking and illustrated the significance of radio communications in the war effort.
After the war, Shelleday returned to West Milford and had an electronics business, Shellrich, where he sold appliances and the first television sets in the area.
His first business location was in what was known as the Davenport Shopping Center at 1433 Union Valley Road at the intersection of Macopin Road. Part of that location remains as a grass field. A building still there opened as the Jersey Roots cannabis dispensary last year.
The Davenport family had a large building behind the stores where lumber was sold.
Besides Shellrich, other storefronts in the complex included Bob Shorteau’s butcher shop with a back room where he published and printed the Mountaineer, a local newspaper.
The first location for the West Milford library was in a store at the end of the shopping area.
The lumber yard and satellite stores were destroyed in a massive fire on a winter night in the 1950s. It was so cold that the water in hoses held by the volunteer firefighters froze, making them unusable to put out the raging fire.
Shelleday cared a great deal for military personnel and their families. He volunteered to provide free radio service to enable people to communicate with their relatives in the nation’s military.
The service to military people and their families that he offered was in connection with the Military Affiliate Radio System that was in the First Army from Maine south to Kentucky and west to Ohio.
Helping others was important to him. For example, when the public address system failed during a West Milford High School graduation, he made the necessary repairs and the ceremony went on as scheduled.
He was a talented musician, and his main instrument was the trumpet. He performed with the Artie Shaw Band when it was led by George Auld. He also played trumpet with the Vincent Lopez Band, Mel Hallett and Alvino Ray.
Shelleday’s earliest recollections of his lifelong history with radios went back to 1923 in Portland, Ore., when he and a friend started experimenting and learning about possibilities of radio communication.
The walls in his basement in the home he shared with his wife, Marcia, were covered with various awards he received for his radio work.
In 1966, he said his radio equipment was valued at $12,000. That may not sound like much money today, but 60 years ago, it was significant.