Pearl Harbor a mistake: Japanese vet

The Japan Times ^ | 12-6-05 | MIYA TANAKA

[HarmlessLovableFuzzball]

IMPERIAL LEADERS 'IMMORAL' Pearl Harbor was mistake: attack vet, 89

By MIYA TANAKA

KOGA, Ibaraki Pref. (Kyodo) To Zenji Abe, 89, a former dive-bomber pilot, Pearl Harbor was a place where he headed to risk his life to defend his country. But more than 60 years later, it has turned into a place where he can nurture ties with American friends who had once been his foes.

News photo Zenji Abe poses in front of a bomber in Iwakuni, Yamaguchi Prefecture, in late December 1941, after returning from the Pearl Harbor attack.

He can clearly recall the day when he joined the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in the early morning hours of Dec. 7, 1941. The spry white-haired veteran spoke about his experiences in an interview at his home in Koga, Ibaraki Prefecture, where he lives with his wife.

"I put a photo of my (former) wife holding my 6-month-year-old son in my uniform's inner pocket. . . . I didn't feel fear, or such excitement as 'I'm going to beat the Americans!' Instead, I thought it's just like (an) exercise," Abe, then a 25-year-old lieutenant and squadron leader, said.

Taking off from the Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carrier, Akagi was part of the second wave of planes. The raid crippled the U.S. Pacific Fleet by sinking or severely damaging eight battleships, including the Arizona -- a symbolic figure of the largest U.S. naval loss in history.

"I nosedived from an altitude of about 3,000 meters and practically a 60-degree angle. It was like plunging headfirst and I released a 250-kg bomb," Abe said, adding that he was "lucky" that he survived..

[RayChuang88]

They missed the fuel depot and the dry docks, and most importantly, the aircraft carriers. Most of the ships they sank were back in the war within a year. It was a total failure of their tactical objectives.

The failure to sink the aircraft carriers was the major reason why the Japanese war strategy started to fail from mid-1942 on.

[mad_as_he$$]

Yes it was a mistake. But the mistake was not launching the third wave and missing the carriers. If they had gotten the carriers the war would have been at least a year longer in the Pacific.

Remember Pearl Harbor!

[demlosers]

I think they also ignored the moored subs, which did sink more Japanese shipping tonnage than any other US weapon system.

[Old Sarge]

What's Japanese for "D'oh!"

[CardCarryingMember.VastRightWC]

Yamamoto, as head of the Navy, argued strenuously with the cabinet against starting a war with the U.S. He knew they couldn't win. Having gone to college in America, having traveled across it by train several times, having seen its mighty industrial power, and knowing something of the American character from the friends he made and the family he lived with, Yamamoto knew that Americans had the means and the temperament to go into all-out war mode and defeat any attacker in the world.

Well, at least we did in 1941, anyway. It's hard to imagine now, but way bach then, there were actually huge numbers of patriotic Democrats who even had spines and integrity.

I'm increasingly pessimistic about the possibility that Democrats will ever again become net assets to America. Our best hope is that they will continue to abort themselves out of existence faster than they can recruit new members.

[demlosers]

"If they had gotten the carriers the war would have been at least a year longer in the Pacific."

One year would have been the rosiest scenario. The rest of remaining US Pacific fleet would been in HUGE trouble.

[HarmlessLovableFuzzball]

It'd be a pleasant change to hear the Islamofascists admit that what they're doing is terrible mistake. it.

The Japanese learn from their mistakes. You are comparing the Japanese to a bunch of mindless fanatics who believe its still the 6th Century ?

[nightdriver]

"Pearl Harbor was a place where he headed to risk his life to defend his country."

I'm sorry, I refuse to grant Miya Tanaka's premise that he was "defending his country."

It was a dastardly and unprovoked attack, no matter that FDR was thumbing his nose at them.

[saquin]

Pearl Harbor a mistake: Japanese vet

Gee, ya think?

[sasportas]

Without our carriers there wouldn't have been a battle of Midway. The entire west coast of America would have been open game.

[krb]

One wonders if the outcome of WWII had been different if he would still feel the same way.

Well, this one wonders at any rate :-)

[HarmlessLovableFuzzball]

Gee, ya think?

Is your comment directed at me, or toward the author ?

[saquin]

Is your comment directed at me, or toward the author ?

To the Japanese vet who said it. Sorry, I thought that was clear.

[A.A. Cunningham]

Zenji Abe poses in front of a bomber
in Iwakuni, Yamaguchi Prefecture, in
late December 1941, after returning
from the Pearl Harbor attack.

Iwakuni is now home to Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni. To the victor goes the spoils.

[Buffalo Head]

"I'm sorry, I refuse to grant Miya Tanaka's premise that he was "defending his country."

Then you must be very unfamiliar with history prior to WWII.

We had essentially declared economic war against Japan to protest their military ventures in China and southern Asia. We had cut off the import of strategic materials to them, including petroleum and steel. Their options were striking back or withering away.

[BIGLOOK]

Battleship replacements didn't help the Japanese war effort either.

[Patriot Hooligan]

"History - in every century, records an act that lives forevermore. We'll recall - as in to line we fall, the thing that happened on Hawaii's shore." Unknown (to me)

"...So, we've got to teach history based not on what's in fashion but what's important--why the Pilgrims came here, who Jimmy Doolittle was, and what those 30 seconds over Tokyo meant." President Ronald Reagan farewell speech in 1989

"Give me a fast ship for I intend to go in harms way."
John Paul Jones

"For a time, the Flying Tigers provided the only victories against the Japanese anywhere in the Far East... This handful of men had shown that the Japanese were not invincible." - Duane Schultz, author of The Maverick War

"Before we're through with them, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell.!
Admiral Halsey - December 1941

"Casualties many; Percentage of dead not known; Combat efficiency; we are winning."
Colonel David M. Shoup - (Tarawa) - 21st November 1943

This is a fight between a free world and a slave world. - Vice President Henry A. Wallace

"It is the function of the Navy to carry the war to the enemy so that it will not be fought on U.S. soil." - Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet

"Americans do not surrender." General George S. Patton

I'd like to thank all the veterans and their families both past and present for the FREEDOM My family and I continue to enjoy.

"I consider it no sacrifice to die for my country. In my mind, we came here to thank God that men like these have lived rather than to regret that they have died." General George S. Patton

[WKUHilltopper]

"Pearl Harbor was a place where he headed to risk his life to defend his country."

Defending your country from what?? The USA? You all were on the offensive, not us bucko!

[BurbankKarl]

The only mistake is the carriers were out to sea!

[beaver fever]

Yamamoto said that in his diary. He was actually convinced that it was in fact a disaster before he left port.

He embarked on the campaign because the Japanese Army were planning his assassination and he was safer on his own ship.

There is a very good biography on Yamamoto that is worth reading. I can't remember the author but it is very comprehensive and propaganda free.