Post by ppat324 on Dec 7, 2010 0:46:47 GMT -5
It is difficult for many Americans today even to imagine that now-peaceful Japan could have attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor on Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941.
The first question many asked at the time was, “Where is Pearl Harbor?” Most of us didn’t even realize that Pearl Harbor was a huge U.S. Navy base in Hawaii. Who could imagine that Imperial Japan would have the temerity — or the ships and planes and men — to challenge the United States of America?
Hitler and Mussolini had been warring against Britain and France in Europe.
For years, Japan had been rampaging against China and elsewhere in the Far East. But attack the United States? Attack Pearl Harbor?
Who would have thought Japan would do such a thing? But the Japanese attack brought the United States into World War II!
The United States was unprepared for war, in the Pacific or in the Atlantic. Americans suffered painful, costly defeat after defeat before the tide was turned. The Japanese took U.S.-controlled territory — the Aleutian Islands in Alaska, the Philippines — and threatened Hawaii. They even shelled California.
Victory in Europe was finally won at great cost in May 1945.
But then, many U.S. island-hopping invasions of Japanese-held territory in the Pacific and of mainland Japan were planned — until the United States managed to develop and drop the world’s first atomic bombs in war from B-29 Superfortress bombers on Hiroshima and Nagasaki — bringing Japanese surrender and the end of World War II in August 1945!
Just imagine the cost in lives if we had had to conduct a full-scale invasion of all Japan’s islands.
Miraculously, however, the Japanese today have become our friends and allies.
What a shame it is, though, that we still face a variety of enemies.
The first question many asked at the time was, “Where is Pearl Harbor?” Most of us didn’t even realize that Pearl Harbor was a huge U.S. Navy base in Hawaii. Who could imagine that Imperial Japan would have the temerity — or the ships and planes and men — to challenge the United States of America?
Hitler and Mussolini had been warring against Britain and France in Europe.
For years, Japan had been rampaging against China and elsewhere in the Far East. But attack the United States? Attack Pearl Harbor?
Who would have thought Japan would do such a thing? But the Japanese attack brought the United States into World War II!
The United States was unprepared for war, in the Pacific or in the Atlantic. Americans suffered painful, costly defeat after defeat before the tide was turned. The Japanese took U.S.-controlled territory — the Aleutian Islands in Alaska, the Philippines — and threatened Hawaii. They even shelled California.
Victory in Europe was finally won at great cost in May 1945.
But then, many U.S. island-hopping invasions of Japanese-held territory in the Pacific and of mainland Japan were planned — until the United States managed to develop and drop the world’s first atomic bombs in war from B-29 Superfortress bombers on Hiroshima and Nagasaki — bringing Japanese surrender and the end of World War II in August 1945!
Just imagine the cost in lives if we had had to conduct a full-scale invasion of all Japan’s islands.
Miraculously, however, the Japanese today have become our friends and allies.
What a shame it is, though, that we still face a variety of enemies.