A repost from last year.
This is the 66th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese Imperial Navy. Wikipedia has a pretty good entry.
The Imperial Japanese Navy made its attack on Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941. The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii, was aimed at the Pacific Fleet of the United States Navy and its defending Army Air Corps and Marine air forces. The attack damaged or destroyed twelve U.S. warships, destroyed 188 aircraft, and killed 2,403 American servicemen and 68 civilians. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto planned the raid as the start of the Pacific Campaign of World War II, and it was commanded by Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, who lost 64 servicemen. However, the Pacific Fleet’s three aircraft carriers were not in port and so were undamaged, as were oil tank farms and machine shops. Using these resources the United States was able to rebound within six months to a year. The U.S. public saw the attack as a treacherous act and rallied strongly against the Japanese Empire, resulting in its later defeat.
When you think about it, it’s pretty remarkable that it took us only 1,347 days from being sucker punched on 12/7/1941 to having defeated the combined might of the Axis powers by VJ Day – August 15, 1945; a span of 3 years, 8 months, and 8 days.
Yeah well Bush had that beat with “Mission Accomplished”…..wait…..never mind
Near the end of World War II the Japanese military committed most of the remnants of the Imperial Navy’s operational surface fleet (the superbattleship Yamato and 9 escort combatants) to a suicide mission aimed at the American/Allied invasion fleet off Okinawa. Most of this force was sunk in a massive air assault well short of the island. The human side of that mission, from the point of view of the enemy, was captured in a short book titled “Requim for Battleship Yamato†written by Yoshida Mitsuru, one of the few officers of the Yamato who survived the battle. I quote a few excerpts from the end of the book:
“One extraordinary happening is attested to by many survivors as one voice. During the period the destroyer (possibly the destroyer Hatsushimo, which managed to return to Japan) was dead in the water to rescue survivors, a single American reconnaissance seaplane intentionally circled over our heads.â€
“The ability to dash about in any direction is the very liffe of a destroyer; as soon as she comes to a complete stop she is extremely vulnerable.â€
“Launching a fatal attack against a rescue ship in her extreme vulnerability must have been something their instncts as warriors would not permit. They were elite warriors, the chosen. It was beneath them to defile the final scene of the war between Japan and America.â€
“Their true motive is apparent in the fact that as soon as the work of rescuing survivors came to an end, they immediately moved to chase and attack us with great tenacity.â€
This was a moment of which to be proud. In the heat of combat an Amercan flight officer had the presence of mind to remember that the enemy were human too. The outcome of the war was no longer in doubt, and the Japanese surface navy’s role in that war was over. Whether he realized it or not he gained respect for our country from a defeated enemy. It borders on cliche, but it was an act which helped win the peace.