I suppose everyone else has forgotten.
Regardless, here is a reminder of the event that started the change of the face of the world as we know it, and how everything we do is done.
For all the soldiers lost 65 years ago, and all of them lost in the war, thank you, you did not die in vain. For all the family members of those soldiers, thank you for supporting them. For all the soldiers that made it through those four years of hell, you earned your rest, and our lives to this day are indebted to you.
At dawn, on December 7th, 1941, a Sunday morning, the quiet and sleepy base of the U.S. Navy's pacific fleet, Pearl Harbor, was turned in to a war zone. Japanese fighters and bombers swarmed the base, and sank the ships all lined in a row, neatly in the harbor. Men, Women, Children, Families, Nurses, Soldiers and Civilians alike were all subjected to gun fire and bomb dropping, were they anywhere near the targets of the Japanese forces. The next day, The United States of America entered World War II.
"December 7th, 1941, is a day that will live, in infamy." -- President Roosevelt, December 8th, 1941.
http://www.pearl-harbor.us/images/dec7am.jpg
A burning ship at Pearl Harbor, engulfed in smoke.
The USS Arizona, sunk in the shallow harbor, is still visible just below the water. During low tide, the smoke stacks rise from the water. - Click
http://www.pearl-harbor.us/december7/images/PR-12.jpg
The attack on Pearl Harbor was the culmination of a decade of deteriorating relations between Japan and the United States over the status of China and the security of Southeast Asia. The breakdown began in 1931 when Japanese army extremists, in defiance of government policy, invaded and overran the northern-most Chinese province of Manchuria. Japan ignored American protests, and in the summer of 1937 launched a full-scale attack on the rest of China. Although alarmed by this action, neither the United States nor any other nation with interests in the Far East was willing to use military force to halt Japanese expansion.
Over the next three years, war broke out in Europe and Japan joined Nazi Germany in the Axis Alliance. The United States applied both diplomatic and economic pressures to try to resolve the Sino-Japanese conflict. The Japanese government viewed these measures, especially an embargo on oil, as threats to their nation's security. By the summer of 1941, both countries had taken positions from which they could not retreat without a serious loss of national prestige. Although both governments continued to negotiate their differences, Japan had already decided on war.
The attack on Pearl Harbor was part of a grand strategy of conquest in the Western Pacific. The objective was to immobilize the Pacific Fleet so that the United States could not interfere with these invasion plans. The principal architect of the attack was admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet. Though personally opposed to war with America, Yamamoto knew that Japan's only hope of success in such a war was to achieve quick and decisive victory. America's superior economic and industrial might would tip the scales in her favor during a prolonged conflict.
From - www.pearl-harbor.us
My Grandfather served in WWII, and he toured Europe. I have his map hanging on my wall in my kitchen, along with his patches, medals, ribbons, dog tags, and two pictures of him. Does anyone else have any family that served in the Second Great War?
