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Why is Pearl Harbor such a big topic today?
Nov 11, 2003 11:50 AM
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Apart from a recent very bad movie, that is.
It might have been the event that brought America into the war and it was obviously a huge shock to the American people, but why, 62 years on, does Pearl Harbor retain its status as THE big one? Possibly along with D-Day, that is.
So much more happened in WWII which attracts hardly a whisper.
I simply ask because, as a Brit, I am interested to know the extent to which the memory of Pearl Harbor impacts on the consciousness of modern Americans.
If these discussions are anything to go by (which they are probably not), then the answer would seem to be quite a bit.
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Nov 11, 2003 12:25 PM
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...the attack on Pearl Harbor is remembered because it came out of the blue for US populace and shook it to its core. Not only did it produce shock and, yes, fear, it also produced overwhelming hatred and resolve to destroy the enemy that did the deed. It is interesting you brought up the film, "Pearl Harbor". The film was doing so-so before Sept.11. However, after that other day of infamy, the film experienced a revival by more people going to see it.
"Don't worry about it." -Lt. Kermit Tyler
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Re: Why is Pearl Harbor such a big topic today?
Nov 12, 2003 4:08 AM
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It is remembered because it was a sneak attack done by dirty, cowardly people (even though they were not and are not). Like Confed. said, people can see similarities between that and 9/11. It gives us the feeling (finally) that history may have something to teach us. By the way man, I miss England. I haven't been in 5 years, it is about time I cross the pond again.
They can take our lives, but they can never take our freedom
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Nov 12, 2003 5:51 AM
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Both Capt. and bwallace are pretty accurate about how the public saw it at the time and through the war. As a child in the S.F. Bay Area during the war, I recall an especially focused feeling toward the Pacific Theater. Kids' milk cartons were always "bombed" with rocks when emptied, to the cry of "Bombs over tokyo!" Most of our daily lives were dominated by nothing other than the shadow of the war just over our horizon. After many years, this had a permanent effect on many of our awarenesses.
Today, it is as or possibly more important as we are rapidly running out of veterans of the attack. One of my brothers in law was a U.S. Navy sailor on the USS Ramsey, a four piper, in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and now he is declining from Alzheimers.
Anopther major reason for its importance is the post September 11, 2001, sentiments comparing the two events and looking for possible blame to lay on American leaders for each of them. This last creates a controversy of no small proportions and heightens the general atmosphere of concern regarding both events.
In light of such considerations, the events of 62 years ago retain a fresh, just yesterday liveliness to many of us.
"I have found you an argument; I am not obliged to find you an understanding." Dr. Samuel Johnson
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Re: Why is Pearl Harbor such a big topic today?
Mar 29, 2004 1:33 AM
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Angie,
I am sure that on 8Dec1941 most of the population vowed they would "never forget." But obviously on 11Sept2001 their memory was again refreshed. Isn't it ironic that both attacks had the precursor of government's inability to see clearly the warning signs of the impending attack. (Even some weeks after the 9/11 attack our Immigration Dept. sent a letter that O.Kd the terrorists visit.)A more substantial fear is our own bureaucracy. TonyS
We may have traded one dictator three thousand miles away for three thousand dictators one mile away.
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RE: Angie the Brit's Question about Pearl Harbor
Apr 19, 2004 2:43 PM
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If you ever visit Honolulu, you might be compelled to go to Pearl Harbor. It is a sacred site because it is the final resting place of the sailors & their ship the USS Arizona. You are right about other things of importance during WWII. The D-Day Dogers is one example. The Allies marched victorious into Rome 2 days before D-Day. The only reason I know how important the Victory of Rome was is that because my dad was a Blue Devil, I felt compelled to learn more about the Italian campaign during WWII.
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Re: Why is Pearl Harbor such a big topic today?
Apr 27, 2004 8:43 AM
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As a WWII history buff. It seems to me that the big reason for this, is that a lot of veterans are dying. It was the one thing that pushed the country together in a time of great discord about war. How could one argue against defending ones self.
We are loosing our veterans from this era on a large scale and this is the catalyst that made them heroes.
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12/13/06
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Re: Why is Pearl Harbor such a big topic today?
Dec 13, 2006 12:48 PM
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I think it is a bit bizarre that on the topic of why Pearl Harbor was such a big deal to United States history, someone is yet to mention the Japanese internment camps that resulted because of the attack. As results of the attack go, I would say that this was perhaps the most outrageous and disappointing of all. It affected Japanese American citizens throughout the entirety of the United States, and still today affects their perception, and my own perception, of the United States government today.
All across the west coast of the United States, and in some places across the nation, the Japanese (both citizens and not) were rounded up and sent to internment camps. This was in reaction to the fear mentality that developed throughout the United States. Not only did the government encourage this feeling in the American public, but the hype that was created by the press did not help either. As seen in "Citizen 13660", a portrayal of Japanese life both before and during internment by Mine Okubo, the Japanese people felt betrayed by their country and their friends.
Although the Japanese were eventually released from the camps, their way of life could never be fully restored to the way that it was before the events of Pearl Harbor took place. Betrayed by a government that they called their own, made to leave behind the lives that they had made, and then suddenly released back into a society that was still filled with suspicion and hate. Pearl Harbor had an enormous impact not only on the people actually living in Japan, but had a lasting impact on the citizens that were supposed to be the United State's own.
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Savanna you are very young and have no idea of what life was like
Dec 16, 2006 10:51 AM
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here for those of us who were non-white in Jim Crow America of the 1900-1960 period. Oh and don't think Jim Crow laws applied only to Afro-Americans, it applied to ALL persons who were not White Anglo-Saxon Protestant depending on what part of the country you lived in and how the laws were structured.
As an American Indian now in my fifties I got a tast of those laws when my very white mother and very American Indian father traveled the country while dad was in the Air Force.
The Internment of the Japanese, about 100,000 of them probably saved their lives! Lynchings and massacres such as that in Rosewood Florida in 1923, or the killings duing the Mexican "Zoot Suit Riots" in 1943 California made this a very dangerous and violent place for non-whites or religious minorities like Catholics and Jews if the temper and bigotry of the majority was aroused.
What you fail to see is that as horrible as the internment was, it was preferable to mobs attacking Japanese on the street, burning their homes and lynching or shooting those who were caught by the mob.
We did not have the resources given the attack to prevent the mobs anger toward the Japanese from exploding into bloody horror. I have spoken to Americans of Japanese ancestry born as I was in the decade after the war ends and they have told me the alternative, having been left to the "mercy" of their neighbors after word of Battan and Wake Island leaked back would have made their parents and older siblings targets not just of hateful words, but bullets and the lynching rope as well.
As an American Indian I can understand their fears all too well.
One note of irony here is that not all in the government favored internment, the head of the FBI, J.Edgar Hoover, of whom you may have heard, was very oppossed to internment on the grounds that it would wreck his counter-intelligence efforts against Japanese spies in the US.
To understand the internment you must understand the America of 1930-1941, you had frightened people just out of an economic depression whose racial and religous views were intolerant to say the least, now facing attack by not one, but three major powers in a war that from were we stood in December 1941 looked like the allies would soon loose.
Fear breeds hate and hate feeds the fire of violence. The internment for all it's evil was better then the bloody horror that many feared we would unleashed on our fellow citizens.
We American Indians understand that fear-hate-violence cycle better then most.
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As Denalil has aptly pointed out, the internment probably saved the lives..
Dec 27, 2006 2:07 PM
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...of Japanese-Americans from attack from fellow citizens. Things in the US turned very ugly after Pearl Harbor to anything Japanese. During WWI, it wasn't uncommon for people of German descent to be roughed up by mobs. Now multiply that by a factor a 100 following a sneak attack by the Japanese Empire, and you'll be getting a very close picture how things would have been for Japanese-Americans on the West Coast.
Another thing I should point out is that there was actually a sound military reason for such an internment (what was done to foreign nationals) and relocation (what was done to US citizens). Basically, decrypted Japanese cables had been discovered that told of success in getting informants from both Japanese nationals as well as Japanese-Americans living in the West Coast of the US, both civilian and military. Now given the news that was filtering out of Europe how turncoats helped invading Axis forces, it wasn't unthinkable that a percentage of the 120,000 Japanese and Japanese-Americans would end up helping Japanese forces. Given the weakness of US forces in the dark days after Pearl Harbor, allowing this situation to continue was unthinkable. Thus the relocation and internment was ordered. Keep in mind that the relocation only applied to Japanese-Americans on the West Coast, not anywhere else in the country.
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"Just as we must not confuse dissent with disloyalty, we must not confuse disloyalty with dissent."
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