1942.10.03 “The Dawn Came Up Like Thunder”
by Charles (Chuck) George Werner (1909-1997)
8 x 10 in., ink in board
Coppola Collection
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Werner
Charles (Chuck) Werner won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1939 for a cartoon he did for the Daily Oklahoman titled “Nomination for 1938” which allowed for the transfer of the Sudetenland to Hitler's Germany (October 6, 1938). At age 29, Werner was the youngest person to win the Pulitzer. Werner left the Daily Oklahoman to be the Chief Editorial Cartoonist at the Chicago Sun in 1941 before leaving for the Indianapolis Star in 1947. Throughout his nearly sixty-year career, many U.S. Presidents expressed interest in Werner's cartoons, including Lyndon B. Johnson and Harry Truman requesting cartoons for their presidential libraries.
Sketch for an apparently unsubmitted editorial cartoon. The original 1942 date and some severe bombings carried out by the Japanese point strongly to the battle for Guadalcanal, which is widely regarded as one of the most intense and sustained battles in the Pacific.
The title for the cartoon comes from a song lyric in “The Road to Mandalay,” that was, in turn, from the Kipling poem Mandalay. The poem is the song lyric, and one lines reads “An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!”
The song was quite familiar, and the reference was understood. At least two memoires about Midway and Guadalcanal used a take on “the dawn like thunder” as their titles.
Throughout the last week of September and the first week of October, Tokyo Express runs continually delivered troops from the Japanese 2nd Infantry Division to Guadalcanal. The Japanese Navy promised to support the IJA's planned offensive by delivering the necessary troops, equipment, and supplies to the island, and also by stepping up air attacks on Henderson Field and sending warships to bombard the airfield.
A 2008 memoire by R Mrazek: October 3, 1942. The nightly Japanese bombing and shelling attacks on Henderson Field usually didn't cause a serious loss of life, but no one could predict where they would land. A direct hit was fatal. The pilots and crews had learned it was better to be safe than sorry. Pete Peterkin always made a point of scouting out a deep hole before it got dark. One afternoon he found a big crater made by a Japanese bomb that looked perfect. As soon as the nightly attack began, he ran and dove into it as the bombs started falling.
