Posted on 12/05/2004 9:29:02 AM PST by Chi-townChief
On Tuesday the nation will pause again to remember and memorialize one of the darkest days in American history — Dec. 7, 1941, "a day that will live in infamy," as pronounced by President Franklin Roosevelt in his war message to Congress the next day.
On that early, quiet Sunday morning in Hawaii, Japanese war planes suddenly swooped out of the north skies and bombed American planes lined up on the ground and battleships docked in Pearl Harbor. Five of the huge ships were sunk and three others heavily damaged. Several other ships and most Hawaii-based combat planes were knocked out. More than 2,400 American sailors — asleep, resting or doing early morning duties on the ships — were killed in the deadly sneak attack. The American Pacific Fleet was all but obliterated, giving Japan temporary free military reign in the Pacific, China, Southeast Asia and the South Seas.
As it turned out, the attack was a huge tactical mistake: it fully united a nation previously deeply divided over whether, and to what degree, we should help nations under attack by Hitler in Europe and Africa and Tojo in the Far East. Infuriated by what Roosevelt called Japan's "unprovoked and dastardly attack," the Congress declared war with only one dissenting vote. Hitler, in concert with Axis agreements with Japan and Italy, three days later declared war on the United States, as did Mussolini. Thus began America's bloody but eventually triumphant, 3½-year involvement in the defense of freedom, in the most expansive and costly war in world history.
For most Americans living in the late 20th and early 21st century, Pearl Harbor was but a page in history or a long-ago memory for those very young when it occurred. But on Sept. 11, 2001, Pearl Harbor took on new and vigorous meaning for all Americans when once again more than 2,000 of our number died in another unprovoked and dastardly attack in our own land. Once again we were plunged into war — this time a new and unconventional kind of war, the continuing war on international terror.
So Tuesday is a more meaningful day of infamy for all of us as we still hold fresh memories of that more recent infamous day. Tuesday is a new reminder that the price of freedom is very expensive indeed. And as the insurgency in Iraq continues, our troops under fire daily on the other side of the globe, the lesson continues to be learned as another observance of Pearl Harbor Day disturbs our national sensibilities once again.
- Michael Moore directs Fahrenheit 12-7
- Noam Chomsky and other "intellectuals" begin to ponder how U.S. imperialism caused the Japanese to attack us
- Chris Dodd scolds FDR, "It happened on your watch!"
- Liberals scream in the streets, asking why are we fighting in Europe when Japan is the country that attacked us
- Susan Sarandon says, exasperated, in a TV commercial: "I'd like to know what Germany has ever done to us!"
- John Kerry says, "When I was defending my country for four months, FDR used his family connections to get a cushy job stateside."
The possibilities are endless.
I confess to ignorance. Do you know who that "dissenting vote" was?
Pacificist Jeannette Rankin who also voted against war in 1917. (I cheated and looked it up)
Thanks.
Cherchez la femme................
jeanette rankin montana
Thanks. I guess I could have looked it up. Feeling lazy on Sunday.
~/<;o)
"No Blood for Rice"
May God continue to Bless America as we strive to foster freedom and liberty throughout our world.
.
Will be there again in about ten days. Looking forward to escorting some brand new young visitors to Oahu with mandatory stops at both the Arizona Memorial and the USS Missouri. As many time as I've walked that memorial and gazed down on the oil stained water of the Arizona, I never walk away without a tear in my eye and a lump in my throat. We came of age that day.
Talk about the best of bad luck -
Had the fleet been warned, they would have probably set sail and many of them would have been sunk in deep water, beyond salvage. In fact, the Japs were hoping the ships were at another, deeper anchorage which would have compounded the salvage operations.
If we had been warned, the attack would not have been a "sneak attack" and the country, instead of being united in outrage, probably would have had a large "I TOLD you so!" crowd weakening the war effort. As it was, the America First people (isolationists) folded their tent the first day of the war, recognizing that it was a whole new ballgame. Something today's liberals won't/haven't realized yet.
Hitler, IMHO, made the Mother-of-all-Blunders by declaring war to back up the Japs even though the Axis agreement was only in effect if one of the three partners were attacked. Had he not done so, we probably would have concentrated on Japan first, with disastrous results for Great Britain and Europe. Once the Brits finally caved, from where could we stage our invasion of Europe, as we would eventually have had to do?
Untrue. The F4F Wildcat and P-40 were not inferior to the Zero. The kill ratios of both aircraft vs. the Zero were in our favor.
The zero out-turned, out-climbed, and absolutely out-performed the F4F in every category except in diving and self-sealing gas tanks.
When Commander Jimmy Thach developed the "Thach Weave", whereby a pair of airplanes covered each other's tail, we THEN began to come to parity with an inferior airplane at our disposal. With superior tactics, conceived out of necessity.
It wasn't until the capture of an intact Zero, where the pilot broke his neck upon landing, that we had a chance to develop a truly superior airplane, by test flying their machines.
Not in my opinion, but in the opinion of the many authors in my library.
Actually, some did; the difference was that almost nobody listened to them.
Chris Dodd scolds FDR, "It happened on your watch!"
Many did say this, and not entirely unjustly.
Liberals scream in the streets, asking why are we fighting in Europe when Japan is the country that attacked us
This would have a real problem, had not Hitler (and Mussolini) solved it by declaring war on the U.S..
Susan Sarandon says, exasperated, in a TV commercial: "I'd like to know what Germany has ever done to us!"
Again, this was said, both at the time and later.
Michael Moore directs Fahrenheit 12-7
Here, things were very different: Hollywood, with few exceptions, was against the Nazis heart and soul.
My mother had a book published in 1934 that stated that they would attack Pearl. All it boiled down to was an ambush.
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