71 years ago today, those words shattered the early morning quiet that blanketed Oahu. It was truly a day that will “forever live in infamy.”
Wednesday is the anniversary of the most important of my parents’ life. It wasn’t their wedding anniversary. It did not even mark a Big Game win for Cal over Stanford. It was the day that Admiral Nagumo launched 423 planes in a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
Volumes have been written about that historical event. Of course, the emphasis today—especially in schools and newspapers, seems to be on the interning the Japanese who lived on the West coast, instead focusing on the horror of the sneak attack.
It is interesting that little is written about the tens of thousands of Japanese (Brazil had the biggest Japanese population outside of Japan back then) who were “relocated” or incarcerated in both Canada and much of Latin America.
And of course no one mentions the Italians (Joe DiMaggio’s father was forbidden to use his fishing boat and the family couldn’t run their restaurant—after dark, you know) who were incarcerated or the over 50 concentration camps which held German “Aliens”.
It is thought that though there were 120,000 Japanese which were relocated, some 35,000 Germans and Italians endured the same fate at the beginning of the war. Due to political clout, most of them were released fairly early, however.
It wasn’t many years ago, that my daughter could speak of the internment, but had learned nothing in school about the horrors, nor the significance of December 7th.
It appears that each generation has its seminal event. Ours was November 22, 1963. The sun has never, again, shown as bright as it did that Friday morn in Dallas.
Those born after us know all too well what 9/11 means. Or if they don’t know what it means, at least they remember the horrors of that day.
That my kids may always know–what my parents could never forget–here’s a little reminder about what happened at 7:53 am, three score and ten years ago.
As flight commander, Mitsuo Fuchida (he later became a born again Christian) shouted “Tora! Tora! Tora!” 51 Val dive bombers, 49 Kate torpedo bombers, 50 high level bombers and 43 Zero fighters attacked air fields and battle ships docked in at Pearl. Through fluke (or, if you believe the conspiracy theorists, plan), our three aircraft carriers, the Lexington, Enterprise and Saratoga were safely at sea, out of harm’s way.
The air raid lasted until 9:45 a.m. Eight battleships were damaged–five sunk. 2,335 servicemen were killed. 1,177 boys aboard the USS Arizona battleship were drowned and burned to death after a 1,760 pound bomb penetrated the forward magazine.
America was at war.
My father’s brother-in-law, John Charles Daly came on CBS radio to announce to the world, “We interrupt this program to announce the Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor by Air…..)
By December 11th, Italy and Germany had declared War on us as well. Now many make the case that Roosevelt tricked us into war–that we forced Japan’s hand when we cut off her oil supplies from the East Indies.
And the conspiracy theorists have fun because there is ample evidence that we had broken the Japanese Purple Code and that we knew that the words, “East winds rain”, were the signal for the attack to begin.
Still, no one bothered to tell Admiral Kimmel or Lt. General Short. Knights Valley’s Bob Ogg, (Seaman Z in Toland’s Book Infamy) told me over lunch at Brennan’s in Calistoga, some years ago, that he had intercepted the radio signals from Tankers north of Oahu, on Tuesday, and again on Saturday. He was listening from a tower he’d built in El Cerrito. (Now that’s really another column).
Short’s predecessor, General Charles Herron never feared sabotage from the locals–so he dispersed his assets. Many claim that had that policy been followed (rather than clustering assets) the devastation could have been greatly minimized.
Kimmel and Short were disgraced, unfairly. Commissions investigated them. As commanders, they were ultimately responsible. However, given that Washington had crucial information which was not relayed to them; it was a bit disingenuous to have destroyed their reputations for events that were not wholly of their making.
In fact, in 1995 The Dorn Commission wrote, “Responsibility for the Pearl Harbor disaster should not fall solely on the shoulders of Admiral Kimmel and General Short, it should be broadly shared.”
A suprise? In 1908 when Macarthur was at West Point they studied War games which featured the Japanese attacking the U. S.–through Hawaii–and this was before anyone had heard of air craft carriers, let alone aircraft.
On December 7th, America was changed, utterly.
My father was in Harvard Business School. He tried to enlist. They wouldn’t take him. Due to a football injury, his right arm wouldn’t straighten out. Finally, the Marines relented and he ended up on Saipan and was headed for Japan when the bomb was dropped.
Like many young girls of that time, my married him in ‘43 because he was going overseas and might not return. (When I took the kids to the Cal/Hawaii game a few Thanksgivings back, as we left the U.S.S. Arizona, we ran into a Classmate of my mom’s and her second husband. They had just been visiting her first husband–up in the Cemetery on the Pali with the other Pearl Harbor boys who died that day). Everything we are today is because of what happened back then.
This is not to point fingers. Decisions were made by combatants on both sides that caused death. All life is precious. We pray for all soldiers and civilians whose lives were wasted, regardless of what side they were on.
But our prejudice is focused one jar head who suffered, daily, as a nameless cog in the Marines’ 3rd Division on Pacific Islands he couldn’t even pronounce. We cringe when we hear the well meaning, but uninformed neo-revisionists, who criticize Truman’s decision regarding the bomb.
No bomb. Odds are, no Jim Pop (my dad).
The innocents at Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not deserve to die anymore than the innocents in Nanking.
Or anymore than the young boys sound asleep on the Arizona. War is Hell. Bringing it to an end–Heaven.
