A day meant to deter U.S. sows resolve
The sky rained bombs, and the world changed. And on the day the world changed, it also would be rescued.
Dec. 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor.
In a surprise strike, Japanese bombers attacked the U.S. naval base in Hawaii, killing almost 2,500 Americans, sailors and civilians.
The raid was designed to keep the U.S. from preventing the Japanese navy from attacking Britain in Southeast Asia, but the move had the opposite effect, precipitating U.S. entry into World War II. Almost immediately after the bombings, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill phoned his U.S. counterpart, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who told him they were “in the same boat” now. “Being saturated and satiated with emotion and sensation, I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful,” Churchill would write in his history of the war, “The Second World War.”
Churchill visited the U.S. less than one month after Pearl Harbor, too early for forecasts of how the war would go. No matter. The British prime minister was undeterred, predicting victory over the Axis powers.
“In the days to come the British and American peoples will, for their own safety and for the good of all, walk together side by side in majesty, in justice and in peace,” Churchill said before a joint session of Congress on Dec. 26, 1941.
He was right. It would take four years and more than 400,000 Americans killed, but the U.S. would help the world defeat Japan and Germany. And the world would celebrate.
Between Pearl Harbor and the end of the war, however, the dread and anxiety was like air. It was everywhere. And it would not end until 1945, when both Germany and Japan surrendered — Germany in May, Japan in August.
But it all started there, on that island, the day the sky rained bombs. The day of infamy, the day of despair and agony, led to our greatest triumph — the defeat of perhaps the single greatest evil humanity has ever faced: Nazi Germany.
Today, we mark the 79th anniversary of what Roosevelt called “a day which will live in infamy.” We remember both the event and the Americans who perished there, but we also remember the courage of the service members who answered the call of a world in distress.
But these heroes were not mythic. They were real people, many of them seemingly ordinary, although there was nothing ordinary about their sacrifice and commitment at Pearl Harbor and, later, in World War II. Most of the survivors are in their 90s now, their memories as strong as their bodies are frail.
“People who saw the film ‘Tora, Tora, Tora’ ask me if it was like that,” Harry L. Chandler, a member of Pearl Harbor Attack Veterans Post 1 in Massachusetts, told reporters years ago. “I say, ‘No. You don’t smell the burning flesh. You don’t smell the burning oil. … You just can’t imagine.’ ”
If it is hard to imagine the horrors, it is equally hard to imagine the bravery of the Americans who faced those horrors. They remained steadfast, knowing that if they failed, the terror would move from foreign battlefields to their homeland. It is this kind of courage that has characterized our service members since the birth of our nation.
“I feel very, very sorry for our soldiers today,” Chandler told the Springfield Republican, a newspaper in Massachusetts, last year. “We were fighting a uniform, either Japanese or German. Today, they don’t know who the hell they’re fighting. … When a woman is walking towards them, they don’t know whether she will blow herself up. … It’s terrible.” As we commemorate Pearl Harbor Day, let us also remember all our brave fighting men and women. They have served us unfailingly, risking their lives for the life of our country, our democracy. God bless our troops.