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Today is the 68th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

On December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan attacked all major military and navy bases on the island of Oahu. In the early morning, the first wave of bombers arrived from the north and it was mistakenly not recognized as the spearhead of a massive attack, although an early form of radar had detected a group of aircraft approaching. The operators were told by their supervisor not to worry about it because they expected the arrival of several U.S. B-17 bombers from the mainland.

For the Japanese army, the elimination of the U.S. pacific fleet and the naval base Pearl Harbor was a necessity in order to continue the empire’s effort to seize control over Southeast Asia.

During the attack, four U.S. battleships were sunk, 188 aircraft destroyed and more than 2,400 brave men and women (military personnel and civilians) were killed. Among the battleships sunk was the USS Arizona. On board the Arizona, 1177 crew members died and today, there are still the bodies of 1102 men in the wreck of the ship.

Despite the huge damage caused to the U.S. pacific fleet and the army and navy bases, the attackers failed to destroy the navy base as such, the fuel tanks or aircraft carriers which had left Pear Harbor a few days before.

On December 8th, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a speech in which he called December 7 “a date which will live in infamy” . What followed was the  U.S. Congress declaring war on the Empire of Japan. Despite the shock of the attack, the U.S. armed forces recovered quickly from the damage and started an offensive against the Japanese forces in the Pacific. At an amazing pace the U.S. economy was transformed into a war economy. At the same time, the United States also entered war on the side of Britain and its allies against Nazi Germany, after Germany and Italy had declared war on the United States.

The attack on Pearl Harbor can be considered one of the most important events during World War II since it was the official reason that prompted the U.S. to join the war. However, as the Atlantic Charter  - which was agreed on by the United States and Great Britain in August 1941 - shows, the U.S. had plans of entering the war months before the Japanese attacks.

Apparently, the Japanese underestimated the ability of the U.S. to recover from the attack, though the emperor and his generals had been warned frequently. After the attack, Japanese Admiral Hara Tadaichi said: “We won a great tactical victory at Pearl Harbor and thereby lost the war.”

Probably the atomic bombings of Hiroshima (where I went in June) and Nagasaki which resulted in more than 220,000 deaths by 1945 would not have happened.

In August this year, I visited the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor. It is the resting place of the 1,102 killed sailors whose bodies are still on the ship.

Even 68 years after it was sunk, there is oil leaking out of the wreck of the USS Arizona which is referred to as “the tears of the Arizona” that is still crying for its men.

On the way to the memorial, a tour guide told me a story his grandmother - who was an eye-witness of the attack, having lived in Ewa Beach on the day of the attack, a Honolulu neighborhood right next to Pearl Harbor - had told him many years ago. When she was on the way to church on the morning of December 7, 1941, she saw the Japanese dive bombers flying over her head and one of the pilots waived to her, indicating that she should return to her home immediately. Decades later, she understood why the pilot warned her. The Japanese pilots were ordered not to target civilians and stated that the attack was not aimed at the Hawaiian people.

Before the U.S. took possession of Pearl Harbor in 1887 (when Hawaii was still an independent kingdom), the Hawaiian royal family refused to grant the United States Navy exclusive rights to use Pearl Harbor because they were afraid that this would some day put Hawaii in harm’s way. This prophetic premonition was also shared by several U.S. allies which warned the United States that Pearl Harbor was a likely target for the Japanese in the case of an armed conflict.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 7th, 2009 at 6:43 PM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.