Words Worth Remembering: Thanksgiving 1944
On Wednesday, November 1, 1944, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Proclamation 2629, announcing the day that Americans would pause and give thanks for all life’s blessings, as they had done for centuries.
Five months had passed since Allied troops landed on the sandy beaches of Normandy in Nazi-occupied France. “Almighty God,” FDR had prayed on June 6, “Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.”
The beaches, as Winston Churchill had predicted with gloom, “became choked with the flower of American and British youth,” and the tides ran “red with their blood.” Many did not survive the lowering of the tailgate, let alone the beaches themselves. “Men’s souls,” FDR had predicted, “will be shaken with the violences of war.”
But the Allies prevailed, albeit at a steep cost. By November, Nazi Germany was beaten back in Europe, and the end of the world’s greatest conflict seemed near at last.
When FDR signed his proclamation in November, he did so with perhaps the greatest sense of gratitude and significance since Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving proclamation in 1863. “In this year of liberation, which has seen so many millions freed from tyrannical rule,” the president proclaimed, “it is fitting that we give thanks with special fervor to our Heavenly Father for the mercies we have received individually and as a nation and for the blessings He has restored, through the victories of our arms and those of our allies, to His children in other lands.”
The proclamation, brief but powerful, poignant but hopeful, continued: “For the preservation of our way of life from the threat of destruction; for the unity of spirit which has kept our Nation strong; for our abiding faith in freedom; and for the promise of an enduring peace, we should lift up our hearts in thanksgiving. For the harvest that has sustained us and, in its fullness, brought succor to other peoples; for the bounty of our soil, which has produced the sinews of war for the protection of our liberties; and for a multitude of private blessings, known only in our hearts, we should give united thanks to God.”
Although war raged on in Europe and even more so in the Pacific, it was a truly American thing that Thanksgiving continued to be a central part of a yearly tradition, even more so given the fact that had the Allies not secured a foothold in France the Nazis would have inched closer to dominating Europe for years.
Just as Lincoln had done during America’s greatest conflict, so FDR did in the free world’s darkest hour: he reminded those fighting and those cooking, those mending and those suffering, those praying and those working that it was again time to “give united thanks to God” for all that was good and all that, although bad, perhaps could have been worse.
On Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 23, The New York Times echoed FDR’s message, writing that “as we do not think it wrong to give thanks in normal years, each with their private tragedies for thousands of families, we can still give thanks in time of public crisis and tragedy.”
The Times spoke of “a little boy with a red sled” whose “energy was remarkable, his appetite appalling.” That boy was one of many who went overseas to fight tyranny and may not return. “He may not be home,” the Times wrote. “But the picture of him endures, and we save Thanksgiving for him, and in his honor,” hoping that should he return, “he will be glad to know that the day has been continued.”
This holiday season, we should remember the spirit of Thanksgiving 1944, ever grateful that we get to feast and rest in a land whose liberty and prosperity were paid for by the many who came before and by the many who hold the line today and ever dedicated to giving thanks no matter the condition of the hour.