In remembrance of our forefathers that died bravely defending our Constitution.
Posted on 12/07/2008 7:21:06 AM PST by Dubya
Japan has launched a surprise attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and has declared war on Britain and the United States.
The US president, Franklin D Roosevelt, has mobilised all his forces and is poised to declare war on Japan.
Details of the attack in Hawaii are scarce but initial reports say Japanese bombers and torpedo-carrying planes targeted warships, aircraft and military installations in Pearl Harbor, on Oahu, the third largest and chief island of Hawaii.
News of the daring raid has shocked members of Congress at a time when Japanese officials in Washington were still negotiating with US Secretary of State Cordell Hull on lifting US sanctions imposed after continuing Japanese aggression against China.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
My Mother and her parents were living near Los Angeles, and around Dec. 5th had driven over to visit a sick relative (who lived near some orange orchards, out in the sticks, is all I remember). The radio in the house was broken, so they didn’t hear about the attack right away. Sometime later (evening of the 7th or 8th), they were driving back to their home, and were stopped by a policeman who wanted to know who they were, where they were going, how come they were out at night, etc (there was real fear then that the Japs would attack the west coast). It was only then that they found out about Pearl Harbor, from that policeman.
My thanks to all those that responded to this attack.
May it never be forgotten.
Why didn’t you post the rest?
Murtha(D-PA) strongly condemned out of control the American Military personnel who, WITHOUT ORDERS, manned guns and fired back and the raiding insurgents.
Friends of the Ocean, a leading environmental group demanded the US Navy refrain from willfully sinking Japanese Naval vessels in order to avoid polluting the oceans with vast oil slicks.
The NYTimes demanded that “TALK RADIO” refrain from its policy of whipping the young men of the nation into a patriotic frenzy.
CBS, NBC, ABC, and the cable networks strongly criticezed the President for using such “Racist” comments as “Day of Infamy” and “Dastardly Attack”.
And so on.
Is it because no particular national force could be associated with the attack on civilians? Or is it because people are conditioned that it is unacceptable to “hate” anyone regardless of their antagonistic ways?
Or is it because one political party saw that they had to bury that rage to regain power?
How would the world be different if starting on 12/8/1941 the Republican party made it their policy that they would do everything possible, including losing the war with Japan and Germany, to get control of the Congress in 1942 and the White House in 1944? What if the constant drum beat was "Why have we gone to war in Germany when the "real war" is against Japan? What if a significant portion of the Republican Party insisted that Pearl Harbor was a set-up, that there weren't even any Japanese planes there?
Do you know the handle of the FReeper from Texas who is older than Moses?
I was 7 years old when we heard (by way of mouth) that Pearl Harbor was bombed. Living in the country, with no electricity, not radios or TVs it took a while to understand the reality of it all.
Then fathers, uncles, cousins and neighbors begin leaving to serve in our defence.
Wow, 67 years later, most of those men and women are gone now. How we have learned to appreciate them and wish we had thanked them more while they were still with us.
Yes they were a great generation!
Today is also Civil Defense Day, as proclaimed by President Eisenhower in 1958. Civil Defense Day was intended to raise public awareness about bomb shelters and other passive defenses available should the US be attacked, and to educate the public as to how to cope with an attack. December 7 often featured “open house” at civil defense facilities as well as public displays of anti-aircraft missiles and other defense weapons.
Following the election of John F. Kennedy, the government apparently lost interest in promoting Civil Defense Day.
They are the same people, just changed parties!!!!!!!!!
They are the same people, just changed parties!!!!!!!!!
Let’s hope the MSM gives today as much coverage as the Hiroshima bombing anniversary. (Yeah, I know, I know.)
A long but good read is “Long Day’s Journey Into War” by Stanley Weintraub. He took events of that day from all over the world, hour-by-hour right, then the day after, and as a nice payback, a few survival stories from those at Hiroshima.
As you read the unfolding events, 20-20 hindsight makes it clear (you want to yell out “LOOK, DAMMIT! THEY’RE COMING!) that we were going to be hit, although you can see why our mindset blinded us into thinking it would be Malaya and the Philippines.
As a sidebar, you can’t help but wonder if Somebody Upstairs wasn’t tweaking the dials to make this event happen no matter how many omens there were. In a perverse way, if we had to suffer this attack, it was the best of bad luck. Given that the attack was inevitable, consider:
1) If the embassay Japs had translated the message in time, we would have been informed of the attack before it happened and the “Sneak Attack” slogan would have been nullified and perhaps the country wouldn’t have been as outraged and unified.
2) They sank our ships in shallow water. Within six months, with the exception of two, all battleships were raised and ended up modernized and taking part in the war. Had the fleet been at the alternative anchorage it would have been in much deeper water and harder to salvage.
3) Had we been alerted “just in time”, the fleet would have gotten out and been in REALLY deep water, and most probabably overwhelmed and sunk (think Prince of Wales and Hood), precluding any salvage attempts.
A terrible day no matter how you slice it though, and it does call for a moment of silence and thanks. Yamamoto’s apocryphal comment that they had “awakened a giant and filled him with a terrible resolve” was another way of saying “Don’t p!$$ off the Americans.” Would that the world today still had that fear.
Meanwhile, the strong Democratic leadership in Congress has called for a “measured response”, and has asked the President not to respond with hostilities, but, rather, to send a delegation to the UN to ask for sanctions against the nation of Japan to include an oil embargo. The House Democrats warned that our nation’s action brought this Japanese measure against ourselves and further warned Americans everywhere to embrace the Japanese in their time of national frustration. Upon hearing the President mention a declaration of war the House Democrats scoffed, “War? The President is nothing but a warmonger and we will not tolerate American service men and women being used as pawn in a political game of a financial strategy. There will be no war.”
In remembrance of our forefathers that died bravely defending our Constitution.
He ended up enlisting in the Army at the ripe age of 17 and after basic was sent to the South Pacific where he took part in the invasion of Okinawa. After the war was over, he was assigned to a MASH unit as sort of a Radar O'Reilly to the Commanding Officer.
His only regret? He didn't save one of the paper's for himself.
Thanks for posting that. My brother, when he re-enlisted in the Navy, choose the USS Arizona Memorial as his site of re-enlistment.
What’s interesting is what would we have done had not Hitler declared war on us? As a matter of fact, Hitler had to be persuaded by the Japanese to declare war on the US after the Japanese promised Hitler help against the Soviets, which of course was a promise the Japanese had no intention of honoring.
...and anyone that goes to the Memorial need only walk a hundred yards over to the almost unknown USS Bowfin submarine museum, and tour the actual sub.
Not a problem, I owe it to the memory of my father that I never met in person who was in the Army and my uncle who was in the CIA for many years.
Though I had quoted by a Navy enlister at New Orleans of having the second highest mechanical aptitude he ever saw I had severe hearing problems and I never pursued a career in any branch, I was however a civilian adviser for an unnamed branch of the Government in the early 80’s for central american operations.
Never Forget.
Eye, a hearing deficiency kept me out the Navy too. And I had very high marks on my tests. *sigh* Some things are just not meant to be, eh?
I went to Hawaii last July, where I saw the USS Missouri for the first time. I still didn't get to see the Utah memorial...I don't know if civilians can visit it.
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