Pearl Harbor Attacks Interrupted Many Lives

Some world-shaking events stay forever in your mind. You can remember what you were doing when you first heard the news — like 9/11, for example, or the day Kennedy was shot. Or the circumstances in your life when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941, known forever as “a date which will live in infamy.”

That morning Japanese planes appeared without warning over the U.S. Naval and air installations at Pearl Harbor and other points in the Hawaiian Islands and within the space of two hours delivered an aerial bombardment that literally crippled our Pacific fleet.

The United States had annexed the islands in 1898, and in 1911 completed the improvement of Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu for a Naval base, dredging a wide channel from the sea across the sand bar and coral reef at the mouth of the inlet and constructing piers and other installations to make the facility available to the largest Naval vessels of the time.

In the fall of 1941 war was raging in Europe while peace in the Pacific was tenuous as the Japanese military continued a war with China that had dragged on since 1937. Japan badly needed oil and other raw materials and was scheming to continue its southward expansion to seize these necessities. Some 18 months earlier this threat of Japanese aggression had caused Franklin D. Roosevelt to transfer the United States fleet to Pearl Harbor, while negotiations between diplomats of the two nations continued for months.

The United States made a series of proposals to stabilize the situation, but in late November Japan signed a five-year extension of a pact with Germany and Italy. Meanwhile reports of heavy Japanese troop concentration in Indochina led President Roosevelt to ask the Japanese government for the reasons for those troop movements. But all negotiations were fruitless. Early on Sunday morning, Dec. 7, as Japanese diplomats waited to exchange polite talk with Secretary of Sate Cordell Hull in Washington, D.C., bombs were already falling on Pearl Harbor.

Much of the U.S. Pacific fleet was at anchor or in dry dock at Pearl Harbor. Officials believed that an attack would come in the Indies and the Philippines, but never anticipated trouble in Hawaii. But the Japanese sneak attack on this out-of-the way spot was led by carrier-based airplanes and by submarines. Nearby military and Naval airfields were also attacked. Eight American battleships and ten other Naval vessels were sunk or badly damaged. Almost 200 American aircraft were destroyed with approximately 2,400 Americans killed. The attack marked Japan's entrance into the war on the side of Germany and Italy.

On that long ago December Sunday my husband and I were living in an apartment on Godfrey Street in Mystic. Sunday afternoons for us were sacred to great music, the broadcast of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra from Carnegie Hall. This was well before the days of television — this was a radio broadcast. A large cabinet radio with an impressive speaker stood in one corner of our living room and every week we listened to the program, with the dulcet tones of the announcer explaining the selections, followed by the mellow sound of the orchestra. Until that day it was a serene and peaceful scene.

But on Dec. 7, 1941 the strains of music were interrupted with the announcement that the Japanese were bombing Pearl Harbor and in that instant our lives changed forever. The planes hit just before 8 a.m., Hawaiian time, part of the greatest aerial striking force ever seen in the Pacific. As reports of the damage trickled in, we were stunned and angry. War seemed imminent, and we wondered what the future would bring. Whenever I think of Pearl Harbor, I think of the interrupted concert and the end of an era.

The next day President Roosevelt appeared before Congress and in a memorable address called for a declaration of war against Japan. Always a wizard with words, he referred to the “unprovoked and dastardly attack” and also coined the “date of infamy” phrase. On Dec. 11 congress formally declared war against Germany and Italy and the country was embarked on war against the Axis powers. Almost immediately the blackouts began along the coast and my husband became an Air Raid Warden. The long years of World War II and rationing were at hand. Philharmonic concerts were forgotten as we listened to the dismaying news of Japanese conquest in the Pacific. For a time morale was low as the unprepared nation swung into wartime mode. It was only later that we learned that William Seely, a Groton lad, was one of the casualties of the day. And only recently I found out that my friend Charlie Rippel was involved in the action at Pearl.

But the memory of our losses at Pearl Harbor and the indignation and horror of that day bolstered America's determination to fight on. We sang the popular song “Remember Pearl Harbor” and displayed posters of a tattered flag shining above the ruins. Eventually, after long dark years of worry, the indomitable spirit of America prevailed and the Axis powers were defeated.

My Father was 17 years old that day, and shortly thereafter lied to a Navy recruiter to enlist to serve his country. He served in the South Pacific throughout the War. Every December 7th I think about him: a young kid who travelled away from his family thousands of miles from downtown Allentown Pennsylvania to serve his country in the jungles of New Guinea, Manus, and the Philippines. Every December 7th I call him up, ostensibly for small talk, but I think we both know why I call.
Where did we get such men? I think about the passage in Manchester's GOODBYE DARKNESS in which he talks about the Marines wading 400 yards through machine gun fire to the beaches of Tarawa; he wonders that men would have the courage to do that, and laments that there no longer ARE such men.
I think Manchester is wrong. I think of Pat Tillman, and Johnny "Mike" Spann, and the faces of the soldiers in Fallujah. I think the difference between our response to December 7th and September 11th resides in that we now are dealing with a new factor, the traitor within: a liberal news media and educational system, both of which seeks to destroy any notion that America is honorable, and noble, and GOOD. Thank God for Free Republic and other alternative media sites that can put the brakes on this "Fifth column" in our midst.
So on this December 7th, once again, Here's to you, Dad! May we in this generation keep up the good fight, and turn out to be half the men that you were!

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.