Throughout the history of America, the ideals of freedom and liberty have been struck by insidious foes.
Seventy years ago on Dec. 7, 1941, at 7:51 A.M. the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor. They sought to minimize the military presence of the United States in the Pacific. After the second wave of Japanese aircraft, over two thousand people had died and eight ships of the Navy fleet had been sunk.
San Diego native, Keith Myres, was seven years old at the time. He recalls to this day the reaction of his neighbors and how this day changed his life forever.
“I remember them [his neighbors] standing in the street crying,†Myres said. “Their son had been rescued from one of the battleships that had been sunk. After the attack, we immediately had to put blankets on the windows to have a black-out. Everyone was afraid that they would be attacking the West Coast immediately.â€
Soon after Pearl Harbor, San Diego was flooded with servicemen, and there was a large gun placed by Myres’ school in case of land invasion of the Japanese on the beaches a mile away. Due to the immediate fear that Myres’ family felt, he would spend the summers in North Dakota during the war to get away from the California Coastline.
Pearl Harbor was announced nationwide on the radio. The next day, President Franklin Roosevelt, called the Senate and House together and declared a formal war on Japan.
There is considerable debate of how much warning and knowledge the United States had concerning the militaristic ambitions of Japan in the Pacific, but there is consensus that this conflict was the product of years of tensions.
“We had stopped sending them oil and scrap to Japan, and we had warned them about what they were doing in China,†Myres said. “They were killing a massive amount of people… They thought they could beat the world.â€
Frontenac Community resident Menlo Smith who was a teenager at the time of the attacks believes that Pearl Harbor was not essential for American entrance into the war, but that they were bound to join the war eventually. He also notes that the attack on the Philippines was happening at the same time as Pearl Harbor—although history tells otherwise because of the international date-line.
“It [the attack on Baguio, Philippines] occurred at the same time as Pearl Harbor was being attacked, so we were destined to join the war whether Pearl Harbor occurred or not,†Smith said. “Pearl Harbor was U.S. soil, and became so widely known as the first strike by the Japanese that it became the tipping point that they caused all of America to unite and support the government in declaring war on the Japanese,†Smith said.
CHS History Teacher Richard Kordenbrock agrees with the notion that the United States would have entered the war eventually—even if the attack on Pearl Harbor had not happened.
“More knowledge was constantly being received regarding the Holocaust and the killing of the Jews,†Kordenbrock said. “FDR would have gotten America involved eventually in the end as the government knew a lot more about was happening in Europe concerning the mass executions of Jews and others.â€
Pearl Harbor has been compared to the attacks on 9/11, but there are still stark differences.
“One is civilian attack, and one is a military attack,†Smith said. “That is the principal difference between the two. They were both attacks on America. They were both attempts to terrorize.â€
Although Myres believes that both of these attacks were great atrocities for the America, he feels that the effects of Pearl Harbor were more devastating.
“The eminent danger was more manifest in Pearl Harbor than on 9/11 because we knew a couple crazies did this while in Pearl Harbor there was an entire empire coming against us,†Myres said. “Also, with the German submarines that were almost able to close the Atlantic seaboard in the early stages of the war, the effects of Pearl Harbor were more profound. The day after 9/11 we were not worried about a foreign navy coming up to our beaches.â€
The place of the attacks on Pearl Harbor is unforgettable in United States history, but Smith feels the lesson of preparedness and having security needs to be continued now.
“Time and time again we have allowed our military to dwindle, so when other nations become aggressors, they see this major nation weakening, and then they are prone to attack,†Smith said. “The principal lesson is that we maintain a military even in times of peace.â€
Although Pearl Harbor was only in the beginning stages of American involvement in the war, its effects were tremendous and long-lasting—America would never have the same isolationist attitude again.
“Dec. 7 galvanized the nation,†Myres said. “It was so memorable. You woke up and went to bed thinking about the war. It was such a part of you… The Japanese had awakened the sleeping tiger called America.â€
Paul Lisker • Dec 7, 2011 at 9:45 pm
What I meant my the comment, essentially, was that Pearl Harbor was the reason that the US entered the war, and that without it, I am convinced that the US would not have entered the war solely because of the Holocaust, for it wasn’t secondary to getting back at the Japanese–it was much further down on the list.
cooliorodriguez • Dec 7, 2011 at 7:25 pm
@Paul
Are you suggesting that the attack on Pearl Harbor did not assure the U.S. would enter the war? Because if anything, that was the ONLY reason they entered.
I agree that the Holocaust did not cause the U.S. to enter. The crisis of the Jews was secondary to the U.S., their primary objective was to get back at the Japanese and anyone that was helping them, which of course, included the Germans.
Paul Lisker • Dec 7, 2011 at 6:29 pm
Jonathan, wonderfully written article. Thank you for maintaining the memory of such a pivotal event in American–world, even–history.
However, I would like to express my disagreement with Mr. Kordenbrock’s suggestion that entrance to the war was certain. With all due respect, I would caution against attempting to justify the actions of America in this tumultuous times. The assertion that America would have undoubtedly joined the war out of no more than empathy for the Jewish situation is optimistic at best. Rather than speculating, we can turn towards statistics on American’s empathy towards their situation by analyzing their willingness to accept Jewish refugees; when we do so, we find nothing more than appalling truths.
The voyage of the MS St. Louis presents a perfect example. Often referred to as the “Voyage of the Damned”, this voyage showed America’s true face to the world: they were unwilling to take refugees. Hiding behind a facade of empathy, the reality was that “public opinion in the United States, although ostensibly sympathetic to the plight of refugees and critical of Hitler’s policies, continued to favor immigration restrictions.” Xenophobia, anti-Semitism, and isolationism, among other sentiments, pervaded American society.
This is by no means a unique event; such refusal was common; bills to aid Jews in Europe weren’t passed by Congress, and more ships were turned away to almost certain doom, unless they found safe passage to other countries–Mexico, for example.
Only in 1944, when 4/5 of all Jews who would die in the Holocaust had tragically perished, was the War Refugee Board (WRB) founded to help the rescue of refugees.
We should not allow time to skew the truths of history, ennobling America’s delayed reactions to the well-publicized horrors of the Holocaust.