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Subscribe to RSSWhen Pearl Harbor was attacked 69 years ago today during World War ll, the West Coast of the United States feared further strikes by the Japanese and enforced blackouts from Mexico to Canada to make it more difficult for enemy planes to identify potential targets. Listen to an actual radio report broadcast to a Seattle audience just hours after the attack, instructing residents to turn out their lights, in this excellent report by KUOW's Feliks Banel.
The National Archives / AFP - Getty Images
This December 7, 1941, photo from The National Archives shows the USS West Virginia burning after the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The carefully-planned and well-executed attack removed the United States Navy's battleship force as a possible threat to the Japanese Empire's southward expansion. December 7, 2010 marks the 69th anniversary of the attack which abruptly brought America into the Second World War as a full combatant.
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Every man, woman and child living the United States today should know and observe this date. Everything that has happened in the world since 1942 can be either directly or indirectly contributed to this event.
The magnitude of the resounding effects from this attack can still be seen in our everyday life.
We should never forget the sacrifices and bravery of the men and women that were attacked on that day. May God bless the fallen and the survivors.
AMEN!!
God bless every man and woman that served that horrific day, lets not forget the memory of those who didnt make it and the ones that were there.
I believe it's time to move on and stop punishing the descendants of those that made that horrible error in judgment. We 'forgave' the Germans a long time ago for their part in WWI and WWII. We will never forget any of our wars and those that died or were injured and those that incurred other sufferings; we just don't need a public humiliation every year to remind ourselves of what we suffered. Others have suffered far, far worse. It's time to move on.
I don't believe that Pearl Harbor Day is meant to be a humiliation of the tragedy that occurred but rather a remembrance of those that served and were lost that tragic day. There have absolutely been others that have suffered far, far worse, but I don't know that you could tell any man or woman that was at Pearl Harbor that! It is never a bad thing to remember where we have been; it helps us to know where we are headed and what mistakes to avoid.
The only one humiliated here is you Iowan. Glad to see you're moving on!
Everyone should visit the Arizona as they should the World Trade Center site. I have visited both and each was a very sobering experience. We need to be reminded on occasion of the sacrifices that have been made to bring us to the life we have now. For someone to take a few moments to honor those who gave their lives and those that grieved for the losses is not too much to ask.
Peace Park in Hiroshima Japan Should be added to this list
The only thing sobering about visiting Pearl and the WTC, would be going there with the understanding that we knew ahead of time that both of the attacks were going to happen down to the last detail.
FDR and Cheney both calculated the traumatizing effect of a "sneak attack" on the American psyche. It worked in both cases, perfectly.
We can't bring ourselves to examine the evidence pointing to our own deliberate NEGLIGENCE which made both attacks possible and successful. The EMOTIONAL part of out traumatized brains won't allow us to admit that we were fooled into believing that our fellow citizens were sacrificed by our own leaders.
If you don't understand that the "few are sacrificed to benefit the many" you are far from SOBER.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were acts of NUCLEAR Terrorism. We should be ashamed that it worked. We had no need to invade Japan.
We can hardly complain when the same damage is eventually visited upon us. May God forbid.
This is HISTORY Iowan, you should learn the meaning of that.. and get a life... oh.. you do have a life ! That may be the result of the 2,390 that lost their life in this unprovoked attack, and the many more that served in WWII
The image depicts another of many acts of heroism that day. As the Coxwain of the skiff reverses the boat away from the burning bunker oil of the Virginia the men in the bow pull a sailor away and into their boat. Many a swimmer was rescued in the same fashion that day. Unfortunately many never had time to get above decks and were doomed entrapped within the hulls of the sinking battlewagons. Aboard the Oklahoma men waited for over a week for rescues as they had to cut through by welding torch the thick hulls and the armor belts after the ship rolled over as she sank into the soft mud of Pearl.
Out at the entrance to the harbor a destroyer sighted and engaged a mini submarine just prior to the attack. The destroyers forward gun crew managed to place a round through the conning tower of a mini sub just as she dove and pulled otwards battleship row. The round cleanly holed the conning tower and the two sailors within were entrapped and drowned as the minisub sank to the bottom. Moments later after this action the aerial onslought began. The gun crew of the DD Ward fired the first shots of the Pacific War and the first ship to sink during the war was a Japanese Mini Sub...
Remember Pearl Harbor and the victims of 9/11 in NYC, PA, and Washington DC.
Makes you wonder why a general alarm wasn't sounded upon the sighting of minisub.
mexico was side by side with the u. s. on this. the escuadron 201, mexican aviators trained in texas, fought in the phillipines islands.
the Japaneese were oh so wrong when they did what they did and they knew it as soon as they did it when that General stated they awoke a sleeping giant and boy oh boy did they ever. and other countries who think they can conquer this country better think about what the Japaneese thought they could do and failed. Sadly we had to blow two of their cities to carbon.
As a child during world war 2, I remember my Mom saying, "as long as there are "Man", there will be war"
So many do not believe the holocaust, I do, there is proof, but people tend to deny because of there being Jews, how insane, they were people, just as Germans, Italians, etc. Hate is hate, and terribly sad. I don't think we can say one war was worse than another, the losses on both sides count, but I firmly believe we, USA, have not learned, to try to stay out of War, but we keep going on & on, I pray those who have died and those now living and suffering from wars, will someday have peace within their souls. I'm not Jewish but I have, upon occassion, apologized to a Jew, when the subject came up, just as we should say thank you to a vet today, we cannot be proud of the disasters we have caused, by making things worse in time of War.
I feel I've said all I want.