A date which shall live in infamy....
Posted on 12/07/2017 4:22:43 AM PST by simpson96
President Franklin Roosevelt called December 7, 1941, “a date which will live in infamy.” On that day, Japanese planes attacked the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor. The bombing killed more than 2,400 Americans. It completely destroyed the American battleship U.S.S. Arizona and capsized the U.S.S. Oklahoma. The attack brought the United States into World War II.
The attack sank or beached a total of twelve ships and damaged nine others. 160 aircraft were destroyed and 150 others damaged. The attack took the country by surprise, especially the ill-prepared Pearl Harbor base. December 7, 2017 marks the 76th anniversary of the attack.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailynews.com ...
Getting the US involved in WW2 resulted in the ultimate downfall of both Germany and Japan...and Japan paid a pretty stiff price for their attack.
As terrible as that single event was, it did far less damage than the enemy attack we suffered from January 20, 2009 through January 20, 2017. I thank God that we survived both disasters.
They had no choice but to attack us. Roosevelt baited them into it.
In 60 years, America went from its finest hour to its most ignominious, from raising the flag on Mount Suribachi to burning the flag in America's universities, from the greatest generation to the most decadent, from its zenith to its nadir, from Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman to George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama.
It still amazes me how badly they screwed that. Well actually, considering the religious fantasism of the Japanese armed forces, they seriously thought they were divinely invincible.
They could have bypassed the Philippines, took the Dutch East Indies from bases in Indochina, guaranteed safe passage for all American ships to keep us at bay, and bought themselves 3 years
There's a website called combinedfleet.com that tracks Japanese and US production of carriers in WW2.
Even if Japan had utilized this strategy, the economic potential of the US was so much more than Japan and Germany, we'd eventually won through sheer numbers.
Plus...the Manhattan Project.
My father was there. Getting breakfast at Schofield Barracks. That’s all he’d say about it. After WWII, he was in the Korean War, then 2 tours in Vietnam.
For 3 decades he dealt with major conflicts. Didn’t talk about any of them. My mother told me that he was put in charge of the attempt to identify the dead that came out of the death camps in 1945. The horrors he saw I can’t imagine.
He retired a Master Sergeant in the Army after 27 years. He is in Arlington National as of 2005 with all 3 wars on his tombstone.
When we called Arlington to report his death and reserve a date and time for burial, the guy said, “Wow. If anybody earned the right to be here, it’s your father”.
Nothing infuriates me more than the kneeling of the NFL. If my father were alive he’d be angry but wouldn’t show it. He was too tired to show his emotions IMO.
On September 11 we were attacked. Thousands died.
And for the most part, their deaths were never avenged.
Just think if that terrorist attack happened in 1940.
Children today would ask “Daddy, what was islam?”
The number of muslims in the US has tripled since 9/11. Whoever approved of that is guilty of treason and should swing from a rope.
I have a very faint early childhood memory of seeing the bullet holes at Schofield Barracks, and asking my dad why they hadn’t patched them.
Master Sergeant, USMC, WWII, Korea, Vietnam.
He didn’t talk much about it either.
Now at Riverside.
We were privileged to know them.
Yeah.. I'll vote for that..!!
BFL
Having just turned 80 in mid October of this year, I have sketchy memories of my folks listing to radio broadcasts about the bombing of Pearl Harbor. (I was 4 years old when that happened). Strange how, as we age we remember things or events like that but have difficulty recalling what happened two days ago.
Yeah. I can relate.
Back around 1980 or so I visited Hickam Field on TDY (Air Force). The guys stationed there told me to walk around a bit and you could still see damage on the buildings from the attack (I think at the time one of the buildings was the 9th Air Force’s HQ(?). It was rather eerie seeing the bullet holes and shrapnel scars along the walls between the windows. Numerous buildings were thus scarred.
Never forget.
A date which shall live in infamy....
“As terrible as that single event was, it did far less damage than the enemy attack we suffered from January 20, 2009 through January 20, 2017. I thank God that we survived both disasters”
Unfortunately, survival of the latter is still to be determined.
No, he didn't. Japan chose to launch an unwinnable war in China. Japan chose to occupy French Indo-China and pose a direct threat to the Commonwealth of the Philippines. Forcing the imposition of the embargo. Japan decided, on it's own, to invade and Occupy Thailand and to launch the attack on the Philippines, Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies (aka the Southern Resource Area). Japan decided, on it's own to launch an attack on US forces in Hawaii to slow down the US response to the conquest of the Southern Resource Area. FDR goaded no one. The Japanese marched into war with the US, British, and Dutch with their eyes open and of their own volition.
Great post and right on the money. The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere didn’t need to be goaded into anything. A good argument can be made that like Hitler, for any political solution to work it had to have occurred much earlier. Japan invaded China in 1937. They were on a roll by 1941 and no embargo or sanction was going to slow them down.
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.