ABSTRACT
Readers of the Friday papers awoke to tales of glory. According to official reports the Japanese fleet was in flight to escape an encounter with the US Navy "somewhere in the Pacific". News was positive from other Southeast Asia fronts. A British stand was stemming the Japanese drive into Malaya. The fighting above Singapore was depicted as "well under control" with losses lighter than expected. In this dark hour Winston Churchill addressed the House of Commons with a review of the war as he saw it. As he had in the past, so now he brought to the House grave tidings about the Prince of Wales and the Repulse. The Atlanta Constitution was succinct. In the world of 1941 there was society and there was Society. However small a segment of the population they were, the news of the doings of Society was carefully noted and lovingly recorded, if not in the tabloids, then in the major metropolitan dailies.
