What happened on December 7, 1941 was one of the defining events of at least two generations as well as the modern age.
Today, a lot of young people don’t even know what happened.
It’s nice to see that people on Facebook are remembering.
I found this:
And this:
And some great links here to historic Navy photos.
The Internet can be a good thing in that it never forgets, unlike humans.
Comments
8 responses to “Remember Pearl Harbor”
I will always remember. My Dad was there, onboard the USS Tangier, AV8. I lost him in 2007.
This is what you should remember and it can be seen in the movie tora tora tora that they should have played today! The republicans then as now were saying roosevelt was a secret jew and calling him rosenfeld who was trying to get us into war to protect the jews. This forced president roosevelt to tell the military that he would like japan to make the first move so america wouldn’t be blamed for starting a war! This can be seen in the movie when adm. kimmel receives a message from washington and reads it on screen. We see the same treasonous crap from the republicans today calling President Obama a muslim communist born in kenya! Benghazi bengazi benghazi even if the president didn’t do anything we willblame him anyway! Some things never change!
“Remember when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?” — John “Bluto” Blutarsky in Animal House
@captain*–
It wasn’t necessarily Republicans that were against war, Americans of the early 20th century wanted to avoid involvement in foreign wars and the late 30’s and early 40’s had plenty of citizens who opposed getting into war and were vocal about it. Facing potent political opposition to war, FDR couldn’t act openly in advocating for a declaration of war lest he suffer political defeat in 1940. Instead, FDR implemented a secret 8 point plan with the hope of provoking the Japanese into taking military action against the USA. It worked as Japanese felt threatened by the USA’s actions taken in the 8 point plan and attacked Pearl Harbor as a result. The outrage the American’s felt from this “sneak” attack gave FDR the political backing needed to get the USA into the war and join the other allied powers.
The USA had access to a number of decoded Japanese communications in the months prior to and leading up to the attack. FDR saw to it that the new commander at Pearl Harbor, Adm. Kimmel didn’t get access to these communications.
In short, FDR and certain pro-war military personnel knew there was a plan to provoke Japan and knew days in advance that the Japanese fleet was on its way. FDR used Pearl Harbor as bait and kept Army and Navy commanders in the dark so they wouldn’t take action that would tip off Japanese spies that the USA knew something was up. The warnings that Gen. Short and Adm. Kimmel received from Washington didn’t really communicate the upcoming attack that FDR and a few selected government personnel knew was about to happen.
A lot of new information has come to light in the 43 years since Tora! Tora! Tora! was shown in theaters.
I recommend you read Robert Stinnett’s
Day Of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor and learn something.
Link:http://www.amazon.com/Day-Deceit-Truth-About-Harbor/dp/0743201299/
Perhaps FDR did the right thing, but your ridiculous partisan rants and bigoted caricatures do a disservice both to the political truth on the ground in that era and to the people who lived in those times.
Randy,
I agree about Roosevelt provoking Japan – the oil embargo. I agree that the Navy knew about the Japanese Fleet on the move. However, there was no knowledge of the impending attack on Pearl.
The Southern operation was known from radio intercepts and decrypts. But the Pearl operation was not in any way committed to the airwaves.
Knowing the Japanese were going to attack and knowing where are not the same things.
All Pacific installations had been alerted about 10 days before 7 Dec. Kimmel and Short did not take appropriate action. Worse – MacArthur 12 hours after Pearl was caught flatfooted in the Philippines. There was absolutely no excuse for that.
The Japanese may have broken radio silence. That does not guarantee reception of the signal. You have to understand how HF waves travel. Sometimes there are dead zones because of “skip”.
I often wonder why MacArthur wasn’t court martialed for dereliction.
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Obama is setting the stage for a World War.
Pearl Harbor: The Verdict of History
Takes apart Stinnett.
The review of “Verdict” by Jeffrey T. Munson on July 8, 2002 – is pretty good.
Crap,
http://bobrowen.com/nymas/americafirst.html
Still, as late as November of 1941 only one American in four favored an immediate declaration of war.[8]
That had to include quite a few Democrats.
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The response of the Republican national leadership was as severe. Wendell Willkie called it “the most un-American talk made in my time by any person of national reputation.” Thomas Dewey said it was “an inexcusable abuse of the right of freedom of speech.”[92] Even conservative Republican Robert Taft was no gentler, styling Lindbergh’s reference to “the Jews, as if they were a foreign race, and not Americans at all, a grossly unjust attitude.”[93]
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America First appeared more than ever an organization of bitter Progressives, opportunist Republicans and outspoken anti-Semites.
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