Lest We Forget
The last few years have changed my perceptions of December 7, 1941 in an odd way. Keep in mind that perceptions are not facts, but more akin to feelings.
I know that we were attacked. War was declared and our industrial and military might exacted a vengeance of Biblical proportions.
“Biblical proportions” is a somewhat over-used turn of phrase, but it’s hard to argue that what befell Hiroshima and Nagasaki isn’t the nearest thing to fire and brimstone that mankind could produce in the mid 20th century.
But, at Pearl Harbor the Japanese targets were our Navy ships, and the crews were wearing uniforms.
As horrible as the attack and WWII were in general… I’ve felt a kind of nostalgia every December 7th since 9/11/01.
There are no perfect analogies, but perceptions need not be perfect.
YMMV
Category: Geezer Alert!
I’m not following this, unless the sense of nostalgia that you have refers to the rough similarities between 7 December 1941 and 11 September 2001 and the feelings and reactions that both events generated among Americans.
2-17–I think he’s referring to the good old days when even in a sneak attack without properly declaring war, the targets were legitimate military targets carried out by properly marked and uniformed pilots upon uniformed military members using marked military aircraft with regular old bombs (not improvised), and topedoes.
9/11 our advisary uses civilian aircraft, filled with civilians as flying bombs against targets of no military legitimacy, disregarding proportionality, in an albeit ‘declared’ war by a non-state, illegitimate actor.
I may be mistaken, but I think where he was going was that each anniversary of Pear Harbor also reminds one of just how…..bloddy complicated things are are today vs. how cut and dry they were back then (there’s the enemy over there-get him!).
All while still realistically respecting how awful things were then, and at the same time wishing for a similar clearness of mission/situation/people/world of we had then, today.
At least that’s my take, and if so, it’s one I share.
C-
Well, in the “good old days” we also rounded up Japanese Americans by the truck load and hauled them of to internment camps, because some Japanese civilians were spies for the Empire and provided intelligence that was used in the attack on Pearl. Could we do the same type of thing today? Nope. Was it right to do then? I dn’t know, i wasn’t around and I can’t tell you what the mood of the country was back then. I’m sure that they thought they were doing the right thing, but hindsight wasn’t around to tell them they shouldn’t do that.
Raven #2 and Crucible #3: You are both mostly right. I left some dangling loose ends quite intentionally.
Old Trooper:
One of the worst mistakes that historians and “historians”, especially leftist revisionist historians make is to project current morals and ethics upon anyone from the past.
Our ancestors must always be judged solely within the morals and environment of their times. To do otherwise is an injustice to both ourselves and to them. Judge with the facts, with the evidence that remains.
V/R
Tim; exactly. That’s why I mentioned hindsight. The thoughts, feelings, and deportment of the country and society was different than now. Some for the better, some for the worse.
On this day I find it amazing how EVERYONE forgets this statement:
Attack will be launched as follows:
“The Japanese bombardment, (would be) 100 (air) ships organized into four squadrons of 25 (air) ships each. The objectives for attack are:
Ford Island, airdrome, hangers, storehouses and ammunition dumps;
Navy fuel oil tanks;
Water supply of Honolulu;
Water supply of Schofield;
Schofield Barracks airdrome and troop establishments;
Naval submarine station;
City and wharves of Honolulu.”
“Attack will be launched as follows: bombardment, attack to be made on Ford Island at 7:30 a.m.
Gen. Billy Mitchell
July 1924
Don’t really care about the Japanese of WW2 era or how bad they got hammered. The Japanese waged a selective and unnecessary war of aggression, and given their mindless adulation and obedience to that little assweasel they called their emperor, they were all equally complicit in the war crimes. They typified a nation of almost total and perfect evil and cruelty, and they got paid back for that. And given what is known about what would have happened if we had proceeded to invade Japan and the emperor had not told them to quit, we would quite probably have had to kill every man, woman, and child in that country. A perfect case of “a mind is a terrible thing to waste”.
I forgot to add that several members of my family(including my father, a gunners mate on the USS Lexington CV-2) got to go up against the Japanese, and not one of them, nor a single one of the Marines I know from that time period, cares a whit for the Japanese people. They knew what the Japanese had done, were likely to do, and hated them intensely for their bad attitudes.
My father was a Navy Independent Duty Corpsman. he served with the Marines in the Pacific and after the war on one of the ships bringing back American POW’s from Japan.
To this day he’ll have nothing to do with the Japanese either. He saw too much up close and personal.
The sad fact is that we are losing more and more of this generation as time goes by.
I remember when a local man was honored with a Bronze Star some 40 years after WII. He still has the Nazi flag and uniform bits he took from an officer his platoon captured. He’s getting on in years and doesn’t leave his house anymore.
In a decade they won’t be able to share their stories. And that’s a shame.
That is why myself and thousands of other like minded people around the world do living history of various periods. To remind people through our efforts of what those we represent did through their efforts. And it is fun to be back in a uniform again, particularly when it is a Marine one.