My annual Pearl Harbor post.
This is the 67th 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.
Stopping Japan was like slaying a tiger that had mauled us. In 3 years, I think one of us was bound to come to defeat. I don’t mean to take away from what was done at all, I really am proud of what our country was able to do. I’m also very proud of what came of Japan. They recovered and became a peaceful and successful country.
The thing that I, and just about everyone else from what I have seen, can’t figure out is how to fight something like terrorists. They’re like a swarm of hornets. They can’t really kill us, but we can’t really kill them (completely) either. The only thing we’ve seem to try is to burn the whole forest down, leaving scorched earth that still have the hornets that hid underground while the fire was burning.
I’ve tried to look at it several ways, but I can’t find lessons to learn from WWII that we can apply to today’s issues.