N.C,'s Liberty Armada-- Part 12: Pearl Harbor Was the Next Day

The dignitaries at the SS Zebulon B. Vance's launching retired to a luncheon at the Cape Fear Country Club.  Workers like Elverton Shands headed for home.

Scarcely 24 hours later, Shands was listening to the radio.  "It was the Washington Redskins nd the Bears game," he recalls.  A newscaster interrupts the game to report the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor.  "Well, I knew my father was in the Navy.  ...And I came downstairs and I said, 'Daddy, where's Pearl Harbor?'"

His father told him.

And the war was on, and the Liberty Ships were on their way.

--GreGen