Sixty-seven years ago this Sunday, America was signifcantly and forever changed.
The ancient Hawaiians called Pearl Harbor "Wai Momi", which literally translated, means "Water of Pearl". On December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan attacked the United States Naval installations located there.
I can remember my father, by all accounts an educated and articulate man, reflecting back on that day and trying to capture in words the staggering impact of the attack. His inability to do so told me more than his words could have. In Kohler, he and two of his brothers would enlist to serve in the Navy, Air Force and Army respectively. His third brother was too young to serve, and my Uncle John has shared that the day his older brothers enlisted was the loneliest day of his life.
Pearl changed everything. World War Two (not the policies of FDR's New Deal) ended the Great Depression, and dragged America out of her geo-political isolationism. There were 3,581 casualties at Pearl, and hundreds of planes and ships were lost. It could have been much worse, as the U.S. aircraft carriers were out on un-scheduled training missions, thereby saving them and their enormous crews from certain destruction. The most devastating loss was the U.S.S. Arizona, whose Memorial (below) is anchored in beautiful simplicty in the center of Wai Momi.
World War Two had already been raging in Europe for nearly two and a half years. Hitler had already consumed Austria and Checkoslovakia, and his seemingly invincible Wermacht had conquered Poland, France, Greece, and most of Russia. America had been on the sidelines, offering only material assistance to England through the FDR/Churchill brokered lend-lease program. But after Japan's attack, and Hitler's declaration of war against the U.S. on December 8, we jumped into the war with both feet. We vowed total victory, the only satisfactory measure of which would be the unconditional surrender of Germany and Japan. For the next three and a half years the United States waged total war on two global fronts, and in that short span, traveled from defeat and isolationism, to complete victory and world prominence.
Prior to Pearl, Japan had enjoyed a series of stunning victories in China, the Phillipines, Singapore and the Malay Penninsula, the horrific savagery and barbarism of her conquests rivaling anything the Naziis did. America was led in the Pacific war by our greatest soldier, General Douglas MacArthur, whose genius and leadership confounded, bedazzled, and ultimately defeated the Japanese. MacArthur conquered more territory, inflicted greater casualties, and sustained fewer casualties than any commander in history. He accepted the surrender of Japan in May of 1945 on-board another battleship named for a State - the U.S.S. Missouri.
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The road to victory in the Pacific War began in 1942 at the battle of Midway, where on the brink of another major defeat, the pilots of the USN's Dauntless dive-bombers wrote their names into immortality. Having located the Japanese fleet of carriers, they knowingly flew into almost certain death to attack and destroy them. Most did die, but not before crippling the Japanese fleet and turning the tide of the Pacific War. Remembering Pearl Harbor as he watched the Japanese carriers burn, Naval Airman Wilmer Gallaher exulted into his radio, "Arizona - I remember you".
It was a different time.
