On Monday, December 8, 1941 at 9:00 am, Principal Vern Hall announced over the school intercom, “Would everyone be quiet? There’s a special announcement from Washington DC.” Mr. Hall then put on President Roosevelt’s radio broadcast so all could hear the president address the nation and speak about “A date which will live in infamy.”

With the coming of spring, there was great uncertainty with regard to the Class of 1942’s graduation activities. About half of the senior class joined the military before graduation, and even greater numbers would be absent from succeeding graduations. When an FHS student enlisted in the military and departed from FHS a small American flag was placed at their desk and at the graduation ceremonies those who were serving in the armed services were represented by an American flag at their spots on the graduation stand.

Prior to the war, in 1941 a new building was completed to provide a woodshop, auto shop, and classrooms for FHS (below is a current view of the building now used by our art department). After the outbreak of the war the building was used to train pilots for the military. An airfield had even been proposed for what is now the athletic grounds. An interesting feature of the building was a bay of windows on the north side, providing a view of the runway that never was. On the northeast corner of the building was a half circle of windows that provided a room for a link trainer (a mechanical flight simulator that trained pilots for instruments-only night flying). After the war, the building used by the military was returned to the high school and provided wood, metal, and machine shops as well as additional classrooms. Two military style Quonset huts were added to the west of the campus and one of the huts is currently used by the FHS wrestling team.

Fremont itself became a makeshift recruit training ground at the start of World War II. Army recruits were based in Washington Park in Sunnyvale and also at FHS. The troops were strictly admonished not to fraternize with the FHS students, particularly the FHS female students. However, necessity is the mother of invention and some of the female students would write notes to the soldiers, wrap the note around a rock, tie it with a string, and throw the rock to the football field where the soldiers were practicing their drills. Many relationships and several
marriages resulted from these interactions. During the war there were no FHS dances held on campus, however some teachers organized a dance at the Sunnyvale City Hall for the soldiers and invited FHS female students. Afterwards all were reprimanded due to the costs of gasoline and electricity.

In February of 1942, President Roosevelt announced that citizens of Japanese descent were to be moved and confined to camps inland from the coast of California. Many FHS students protested this act as an unfair violation of their rights to an integrated community. Still, Japanese-American Fremont students and their families disappeared, sadly leaving their homes and their school behind.

Below is a photo of two Japanese-American FHS students — Henry Nose (Class of 1948) and Willie Yoshimoto (Class of 1949) who volunteered in the FHS laundry and lived in the cramped FHS laundry during 1945-1946 while they awaited their families’ return from concentration camps.

With thanks to former FHS art teacher (1968-2007) Dan Keeslar who contributed
greatly to this report. Mr Keesler was our art teacher, I remember him.  This information was provide from the Fremont High School web page