Only 70 years ago

[subdjoe]

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DECEMBER 7
David Shribman, UExpress, 4 Dec 2010

Quote
There are lessons to be learned here at Pearl Harbor. Don't put your aircraft wingtip to wingtip. Don't cluster the ships of your fleet in one harbor so closely that the group of them acquires the name Battleship Row. Don't assume that a gaggle of planes headed your way on a quiet Sunday morning is a set of your own B17s flying in from California. Do not discount an intercepted cable that reveals unusual foreign interest in an American military installation just because it is translated by a woman.

All of these are important legacies from the attack on Pearl Harbor that transformed Dec. 7 from the last day of the first week of the last month into a date that would live in infamy. Some 69 years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the wounds here and on the American mainland are still deep, still raw. More than Antietem, more than Gettysburg, this may be, perhaps with New York's Ground Zero, the Pentagon's 9/11 memorial and Pennsylvania's Flight 93 crash site, the most moving place in the nation.

Even today, Dec. 7 is one of only five dates in American history -- the others are July 4, Nov. 11, Nov. 22 and Sept. 11 -- that require no year in casual conversation or formal writing.

You might not recognize the significance of Aug. 15, but if it is put down as Aug. 15, 1945, you will immediately identify it as V-J Day. You may not remember Aug. 9, but if it is expressed as Aug. 9, 1974, you'll know it was the day Richard M. Nixon resigned the presidency. And perhaps the most important date in American history (April 19) has been obscured in the American mind because -- please don't break my heart and tell me schoolchildren don't read this anymore -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow opened his beloved poem by speaking, in the third line, of "the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five," when Paul Revere made his ride, rather than of the 19th of April, 1775, when the shots rang out at Lexington and Concord.

But you know what Dec. 7 means, and so will your grandchildren.

The tragedy of Pearl Harbor began when six Japanese carriers with heavy escorts sailed 4,000 miles of open seas without being detected by the Americans. The modern mind asks: How can that be? The answer is simple: For the same reason that the French did not detect the British soldiers mounting the Plains of Abraham in 1759 before the Battle of Quebec, or the British did not detect George Washington's forces preparing their Christmas crossing of the Delaware in 1776.

The modern mind forgets: There were no satellites then.

The age of the satellite wouldn't dawn for another 16 years. For the entire sweep of history until 1957, humankind slept under only natural satellites like the moon, or planets or stars, which is why the launching of Sputnik (another signal date for you: Oct. 4) was so disquieting to Americans, and why Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev knew how unsettled he would make his ideological rivals by braying that "America sleeps under a Soviet moon."

But in those 16 years -- from Pearl Harbor to Sputnik -- the world would change at a dizzying rate.

The United States would be transformed into the strongest military power and most powerful banker in the history of the globe. Soviet Russia would be transformed from a largely agrarian despotism into a mighty industrial power with nuclear weapons and rocket boosters capable of achieving Earth orbit (but not, as Richard Nixon would make clear in his blustery "Kitchen Debate" in Moscow two years later, able to produce a decent dishwasher). The Cold War would break out with crises in Greece, Korea, Vietnam, Hungary and elsewhere. A new scramble for influence would begin in the Caribbean and Africa. McCarthyism would rise in America and a re-examination of Stalinism would roil the Soviet Union.

In those 16 years, the United States would end segregation in the armed forces and begin to integrate its schools, lunch counters and public accommodations. John F. Kennedy would be transformed from an obscure officer in the Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Training Center into a national political figure. The Dodgers, pennant winners in Brooklyn when Pearl Harbor was attacked, would be Los Angeles-bound by the time Sputnik was launched. The British Empire would be gone, Israel would be born. So, too, would many other new nations, some of whose names, like Transjordan and Ceylon, already have disappeared. Within a month of Pearl Harbor, Country Joe McDonald and Charlie Rose would be born. Within a month of Sputnik, Louis B. Mayer and Christian Dior would be dead.

The surprise attack still aches in the American memory. But it spawned a great American awakening.

So the next time you think that you are living in an era of unprecedented change, ponder how much happened in the 16 years after Pearl Harbor. Consider that programmable computers have been around for 74 years, that computer games have existed for 48 years, that Ethernet networking has been here for 37 years, that IBM first produced a home PC 29 years ago, that the Macintosh was available 26 years ago and that Windows came out 25 years ago.

So perhaps the great lesson of Pearl Harbor as we approach its 70th anniversary is more than military.

Never again will we present so easy a target to potential adversaries. But now we need to revise our perspective, and consider that for all of the great change we are experiencing now, the greatest change in our history may have begun when 354 Japanese planes arced toward Hawaii, destroying 188 American aircraft and sinking or damaging 18 American warships in a great American tragedy and military defeat.

"Pearl Harbor continues to haunt its survivors, as well as their descendants," Thurston Clarke wrote in the evocative volume "Pearl Harbor Ghosts."

But as we consider what happened here, let us remember, too, how almost every ship -- though not the USS Utah, USS Arizona or USS Oklahoma -- was put back into service, and that America recovered, and then some.

Remember Pearl Harbor, but remember its other lessons, as well.

[powderman]

I wonder what the pc version is thats being taught in our schools?? Thanks for posting that. I have an original film of the attack by Navy photogs. POWDERMAN. 

[OldSchoolRanger]

So perhaps the great lesson of Pearl Harbor as we approach its 70th anniversary is more than military.

Never again will we present so easy a target to potential adversaries. But now we need to revise our perspective, and consider that for all of the great change we are experiencing now, the greatest change in our history may have begun when 354 Japanese planes arced toward Hawaii, destroying 188 American aircraft and sinking or damaging 18 American warships in a great American tragedy and military defeat.

"Pearl Harbor continues to haunt its survivors, as well as their descendants," Thurston Clarke wrote in the evocative volume "Pearl Harbor Ghosts."

But as we consider what happened here, let us remember, too, how almost every ship -- though not the USS Utah, USS Arizona or USS Oklahoma -- was put back into service, and that America recovered, and then some.

Remember Pearl Harbor, but remember its other lessons, as well.

subdjoe - Unfortunately the current administration doesn't think that way.

A new Pearl Harbor? Pacific starting to look like ’41  Last Updated: 2:27 AM, December 7, 2011
 Posted: 11:13 PM, December 6, 2011
             More Print     Arthur Herman
  The US strategic position in the Pacific is starting to look a lot like it did 70 years ago — on the eve of Pearl Harbor.
Back in 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt was determined to make an aggressive Asian rival behave — imperial Japan. But he was doing so after a catastrophic reduction in US military strength and readiness.
That rundown began right after World War I. Then as now, the American public was tired of wars and complicated commitments in faraway places, and the military became a prime object of a cost-conscious Congress.
 Two decades of cuts shrank the Army from fourth in the world in 1918 to 19th — right behind tiny Holland — and the Navy from 774 vessels in 1918 to 311 in 1933, with 37 battleships slashed to just 11 by 1933.
No one pushed that policy more than Roosevelt in his first term. “We are not isolationists,” he explained in August 1936, “except as we seek to isolate ourselves from war.” He signed not one but two Neutrality Acts in 1935 and 1936, and telegrammed British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain after his abject surrender at Munich: “Good man.”
But others interpreted our passivity differently — notably, Japan. Like China today, Japan then saw itself as destined to rule the Western Pacific — and was set on a course of rapid military build-up and modernization. It took America’s retreat (which left outposts like Guam and the Philippines largely undefended) as a green light to start empire-building, with the invasion of China in 1938.
FDR decided it was time to punish Tokyo for its aggression. Japan had extensive trading ties with America (a major source of raw materials). The president terminated our commercial treaty — which the Japanese saw as a direct threat to their economy. Then, in April 1940, he sent the main naval fleet to Pearl Harbor as a show of strength — but the fleet had no clear mission and no way of operating further west, closer to Japan.
In July, he ordered embargoes of scrap iron and aviation fuel to punish Japanese intransigence; in June 1941, he added all oil and steel exports. A month after that, he froze all Japanese assets in America.
In response, Japan decided it would have to seize what it needed to keep its war machine going. Oil-rich Indonesia and rubber-rich Malaya were its targets of priority in December 1941. But the US fleet at Pearl was just strong enough to pose a last remaining obstacle to empire — and just weak enough to seem vulnerable to a sudden, devastating air attack.
The US carriers happened to be at sea when Japan attacked, but the rest of the fleet was devastated: Six battleships sunk and two others were crippled, along with three destroyers, three cruisers and 350 aircraft lost. With 1,200 wounded and 2,400 killed, it was our highest death toll in an unprovoked attack until 9/11.
America was plunged into world war, at a cost in money and lives that dwarfed any of the savings brought by those two decades of defense cuts.
No one is saying another Pearl Harbor is in the offing. But like Japan in 1941, China in 2011 confronts a US policy swinging from apathy to toughness without the military leverage to back it up.
Beijing’s aggressive bullying of neighbors over sovereign rights in the South China Sea, and its steady military buildup, including its navy, deserves presidential attention. But the new militancy from the White House is jarring.
President Obama reassured Asian heads of state in Hawaii last month, “We’re here to stay” — which is supposed to intimidate China into playing nice. Plus, we’re sending troops to Australia to show a “more broadly distributed military presence” in Asia, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton terms it. Our Navy will step up operations there, too.
Yet that Navy is even smaller than in 1933, with up to 60 more ships destined for retirement with few replacements in sight. And our troops in Australia will number less than 2,500 — just enough to be provocative, but far too small to do anything effective.
Meanwhile, our troops in South Korea and ships and airbases in Japan are more vulnerable than anyone likes to admit. China’s generals and admirals have spent the last decade building the means for Assassin’s Mace, an all-out Pearl Harbor-style preemptive strike, from anti-ship and anti-satellite missiles to a tsunami of cyber attacks that would leave our forces blind and mute around the globe — and render our military presence in Asia a smoldering ruin
Meanwhile, the Obama administration is determined to act tough. “The future of politics will be decided in Asia,” Secretary Clinton has declared, “and the United States will be right at the center of the action.”
Let’s hope the action isn’t too hot for us to handle.
Arthur Herman is an American Enterprise Institute visiting scholar.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/new_pearl_harbor_PX2Evu3pLz9PGGvqurC2bM#ixzz1fsYS65B6

[guzzijohn]

Quote from Powderman:
"I wonder what the pc version is thats being taught in our schools?? Thanks for posting that. I have an original film of the attack by Navy photogs. POWDERMAN. "


Consider volunteering at your local HS and find out. They would probably love to make use of your film.
GuzziJohn

[AtlLaw]

You know, it's really amazing to me how much of history we see in a normal lifetime; and how little we, as a society, remember and learn from it.  Once those who lived it are gone, so is all that knowledge.
 
I remember the deaths of the last surviving Confederate and Union veterans.  I remember the death of the last surviving American WWI veteran just this year.  And also this year I understand the reunion of Pearl Harbor Survivors was canceled for reasons related to the age of it's fraternity.   
 
Soon they to will be gone and forgotton, and with them all the lessons that were learned during their generation.  Our society would do well to heed the saying: "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

[subdjoe]

You know, it's really amazing to me how much of history we see in a normal lifetime; and how little we, as a society, remember and learn from it.  Once those who lived it are gone, so is all that knowledge.
 
I remember the deaths of the last surviving Confederate and Union veterans.  I remember the death of the last surviving American WWI veteran just this year.  And also this year I understand the reunion of Pearl Harbor Survivors was canceled for reasons related to the age of it's fraternity.   
 
Soon they to will be gone and forgotton, and with them all the lessons that were learned during their generation.  Our society would do well to heed the saying: "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Isn't it amazing how short our history is?  I was thinking today - I was born only 16 years after Pearl Harbor.   And growing up, I knew many WWI vets at my dads VFW and American Legion posts.  And even 1 SpanAm War vet.  Now, he likely knew Civil War vets (possibly my dad did too, since he was born in 1921, but I'm not sure).  And those Civil War vets probably knew Rev. War vets.  On those assumtions, only 4 handshakes between me and the founding of our Republic.

[powderman]

RICHARD. It's not just our military, it's all the people of that generation of WW11. I continually ask Mom about different things from her era. When she dies, every memory, all her knowledge, will be lost forever. POWDERMAN.