Even if you are familiar with the Second World War history, you may not be aware of the story, the facts surrounding what occurred at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii 77 years ago this week … the first major attack on America!
It was a Sunday morning … about 8 o’clock local time … when Japanese bombs rained down on the home base of the United States Navy’s Pacific Fleet … which brought the United States into what would soon be known as the Second World War.
Of course, this operation was designed to neutralize the Pacific Fleet in one giant blow, so as to keep the United States from any rapid response to the many imminent invasions planned by Tokyo throughout the Pacific region.
How was the United States caught so off guard? U. S. code-breakers were deciphering top-secret messages being sent from Tokyo to the Japanese embassy in Washington, so knew that Japan was planning for war … but not where it would strike first. Many in the U. S. intelligence community thought it likely to be the Philippines, and that Pearl Harbor was considered out of range. However, in early December, warnings were sent to all Pacific bases … but the one to Pearl Harbor wasn’t received due to human error. Whether receipt would have made any real difference is questionable. Meanwhile, six Japanese aircraft carriers with 184 aircraft were on the way in total radio silence to a take-off point 275 miles north of Hawaii.
Of the 19 warships sunk or disabled in the raids, miraculously most were able to be raised and enter the battle that lie ahead. Familiar to many, the photo above is of the U. S. S. Arizona Memorial. To me, the image says Pearl Harbor more than any other I’ve ever seen. The Arizona is one of two which remain to this day under the Pearl Harbor waters. Due to its extensive damage, the ship was considered a total loss and of little value. After much deliberation, it was determined that the remains of the nearly 1,000 sailors who died at the time it sunk would be best honored by being left in place.
The total number of military personnel killed was 2,335, including 2,008 Navy — half being on board the battleship Arizona, plus 109 Marines, and 218 Army. Added to this were 68 civilians, making the total 2403 people dead … nearly as many as who died in the dual attacks on New York’s World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001.
Often forgotten is that there were six military airfields in the Pearl Harbor area … all hit as well by Japanese attacking aircraft. A big disappoint for the Japanese — and a salvation for the United States — was that none of the Pacific Fleet aircraft carriers were in port, all being at sea on maneuvers.
That was Sunday. The next morning, December 8th, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was on Capitol Hill addressing Congress, and the nation via radio, declaring December 7th as a “day that will live in infamy” and calling on Congress to declare war on Japan!
The president spoke for less than 10 minutes … and it took only 20 additional minutes for Congress to pass a war resolution by nearly unanimous vote without debate, with the president adding his signature before the end of the day. What made this somewhat remarkable is that many of those who voted in favor of going to war were up to this time diehard isolationists — in fact, isolationism had been a dominant philosophy in the United States ever since the end of the Great War more than 20 years earlier.
I must remind you that by this time, the European continent and the Soviet Union had already been at war for two years, and that President Roosevelt had devised a program called the Lend-Lease Act, through which the U. S. provided desperately-needed war-related aid to nations, especially Great Britain, fighting Germany, Italy and Japan — which had entered into the Tripartite Pact — in spite of objections from the isolationists, without which the European situation might had already taken on a very different complexion.
This song, written by Don Reid and Sammy Kaye and recorded by the Sammy Kaye Orchestra just 10 days after the attack, says it all — the performance may be light-hearted, but the message is clear:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlwmhWiiD2I
History in every century records
an act that lives forevermore.
We’ll recall, as into line we fall,
The thing that happened on Hawaii’s shore.
Let’s remember Pearl Harbor
As we go to meet the foe.
Let’s remember Pearl Harbor
As we did the Alamo.
We will always remember
how they died for Liberty.
Let’s remember Pearl Harbor
And go on to victory.
It is an event in our nation’s history and a date that should live in infamy … but will it, is it in the memories of most Americans?
Repeating what I signed off with in my Pearl Harbor Musings of a year ago … as philosopher and poet George Santayana is quoted as saying: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it!
Remember Pearl Harbor . . . forevermore!
Good brief overview. The notion that Democratic President F.D. Roosevelt was somehow "complicit" and "induced" the attack is preposterous. FDR was adamant that we would NOT be the first to fire a shot if hostilities became inevitable. That was his personal viewpoint. Also, warnings of a possible attack somewhere in the Pacific had been issued to all personnel in the Pacific including Pearl Harbor in November. Further, my dad on the Tennessee was a navy diver who had to recover bodies from the Arizona the morning after the attack, and in his summary of the attack wrote that one bomb dropped on Arizona was a U.S. manufactured shell, having been sold to Japan years earlier for scrap metal (which critics could argue as "evidence" FDR "helped" them attack us. But then these same critics claim that FDR halting the sale of oil and other goods to Japan because of the invasion of China also precipitated the attack and was thus also "his fault." In other words, FDR who was regarded as a saint by my folks, is believed by some to be at fault for the attack because he allowed the sale of material to Japan and because he halted the sale of material to Japan. My dad would not allow such claims to be uttered in his presence. Thank God for Democratic President FDR of the United States for being who he was (and now is eternally)..
Thanks so much, Richard … for add this information to the documentation of this major event in U. S. and world history. Much as been written on the subject, but your insight comes from a very personal perspective. Appreciate your taking the time to write.