Pearl Harbor

[jmervyn]

Apparently there's not been a thread about this before - who knew?

...a day that will live in infamy.

Interestingly enough, the topic <does> surface every so often as an issue to club America with, for having the inhumanity to use atomic bombs - TWICE - in order to bring the war to an end. Or when civil libertarian types (though a bit more antagonistic and less informed than myself) bring up internment camps.

Even more interestingly, the topic of actual rationale for internment, or of Japanese war atrocities, are never dealt with. I happen to be reading a book that brings up the former, and was already aware of the latter thanks to my military hobbies.

Is anyone here aware of <those> parts of the historical background?

[Noodle]

I'm somewhat aware of it - I've toured the Manzanar relocation camp with my former father in-law, who spent three years there as a boy. I've heard many stories about the experience from him and his older brothers and sisters. I organized having my uncle in law come to my sister's class (when she taught social studies at the local high school) to speak to the class about the experience. One of his uncles at the camp disappeared one night, and they never saw him again or learned what had happened to him.

[BobCox2]

RIP
Officer Bill Gannon, Col. Sherman T. Potter etc.

[YogiRat]

My wife's dad was an airman/belly gunner in one of the planes of the unarmed B-17 squadron that flew into Oahu (Hickman) from the west coast that day. His plane was one of the last to arrive and missed the combat.

I never got to meet him, he passed in 89'(smoker) but from I have learned from his two daughters he had very distinguished (he wouldn't say so, (Missourian)) and long career in Pacific theater.

His plane wasn't picked for Do-little's raid, instead they were sent to Australia where they participated in the bombing of Guadalcanal. After the victory, (so brutal) they island hopped until they were bombing the Japanese homeland .

When asked if he ever killed someone, he never answered. He did say that he looked into the face of his enemy once or twice, that had to be terrifying.

Yogi

[pancakeman]

I have nothing but respect for anyone who fought that day. Very few of them had ever seen combat, most went straight from bed to man the decks and scramble fighters, but they fought just as hard as if they were hardened veterans manning the trenches after countless engagements. It is a day that will live in infamy, and a day that mankind will hopefully never forget.

[kestegs]

I got to visit Pearl Harbor about 15 years ago. It's very sad to see all of the sunken ships still in the harbor. A very neat experience altogether but a very sad day in American history.

[jmervyn]

What I wonder is if the revisionist mentality that I've seen regarding 9/11 hasn't been exercised thoroughly regarding Pearl Harbor. Almost nothing is ever said regarding Japanese war atrocities, and the American view about the Japanese threat is written off as a Chicken-Little precursor to the 1950's "Red Scare" - whereas the reality of both was striking and legitimate.

Still, I thought the article worth linking right off the bat - particularly with the sentence, "In those dark first months after the Pearl Harbor disaster, it was not apparent to many that Japan had already lost the war." In many ways, American culture can be its own worst enemy, and the Japanese were counting on our unwillingness to fight.

RIP
Officer Bill Gannon, Col. Sherman T. Potter etc.

Wait, what? Was Morgan a vet? Why are you posting this here?

[zemaj]

Both of my grandfathers fought in WWII, father's side in Europe, mother's side in Pacific. From what I heard them say at the time (I was 6 when mom's-side-grandfather died/9 when dad's-side-grandfather died), and what I have since read from letters to my grandmothers/uncles/aunts/parents & mom's-side grandfather's journal, the Imperialist Japanese were no better than the Nazis... in fact, in many more specific/individual cases, much worse.
I don't think it should ever be assumed by anyone that dropping 2 atomic bombs was a choice. Conservative estimates of casualties incurred while launching a standard, D-day-type amphibious assault on Japan where ~1,000,000 deaths, ~5,500,000 wounded, and this was just to land on Japan... not the sum total of the invasion. Not a winning proposition. While I don't think the Manhattan Project was a great thing in and of itself, when you look at the numbers it becomes a non-issue.
On top of this, do realize that the Japanese mind-frame (particularly at this point in history) isn't one that is likely to surrender a conventional war, so add many more casualties on that pile. Then to occupy Japan itself would have been a nightmare... you think insurgents are a big deal in the current 'wars' in Iraq & Afghanistan? That would be as nothing to what occupying Japan would have been like. Let us not forget that the only other nation in the Allies that would have had any interest in Japan was the Soviet Union, and didn't we get along with them so well? :rolleyes:


As for Pearl Harbor specifically... I would way it was much more of an affront & act of war than the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 because of a few key differences:
1) This was a blatant act of war by another nation... not a bunch of pissed-off religious fanatics.
2) It was entirely unprovoked, by any definition. (by the definitions used by aforementioned zealots, just living the way that we westerners like to is provocation)
3) The Imperialist Japanese were a (mostly) rational bunch. Reason is not something religious fanatics in general strive to attain, historically.
All this together makes all the difference in the world, and was (and still is) more than adequate reason to go to war.


anyway... sorry for the wall-o'-text, but I have dug into this one before & have pertinent info that I felt like sharing. Could likely be provoked into further discussion on this, if necessary.

[Risingred]

What I wonder is if the revisionist mentality that I've seen regarding 9/11 hasn't been exercised thoroughly regarding Pearl Harbor. Almost nothing is ever said regarding Japanese war atrocities, and the American view about the Japanese threat is written off as a Chicken-Little precursor to the 1950's "Red Scare" - whereas the reality of both was striking and legitimate.

I don't quite get what you're saying here: atrocities inflicted by the Japanese, or on Japanese-Americans?

As for the blind eye approach, there was an atmosphere brewing in the united states shortly after the war. It was a long war, one that people got tired of hearing about.
I've heard about this prevailing attitude from many shoah survivors that I've spoken with. They'd say that they would come to American from Germany, Poland, China, wherever, and they felt lost, like they were going to explode. But nobody asked them questions about the camp. Nobody asked where they were from. Nobody wanted to hear about it.

And then there's government issues, such as operation Paperclip, and the insidious buyout of Section 7 data to consider. It was best for all parties to simply let it drop.
What they needed during the war was heavy nationalism, enlistment, and war bonds. They used Pearl Harbor as a tool to glorify themselves, and make "evil" the enemy.

It wasn't uncommon to come across something like this (and hell this is the worst example I could link, but all I can find at the moment):

http://dba-oracle.********.com/2011/...iend-from.html

The federal goverment created and issued out these pamphlets and literature on how to identify a japanese person. I've seen these in person and in museums as well. They're startlingly similar to those that were found in Germany during the Third Reich in how to identify a ***. (edit: a person of judaist descent? will that be censored?)

So we had places like Auschwitz, that the public found out about far too late, we had two atomic bombs drop, we had American internment camps, we had D-Day, the einsatzgruppen, local forming militias of murderers...people wanted to move on.

Only in the past few years have women started talking about sexual exploitation and rape in SS-ran konzentrationslager. Some things are buried, while others survive in only shades of their aspects. I think it's a matter of the sensibilities of the time of the event, and what the overall national psyche is like afterwards.

For Pearl Harbor specifically, the reasons the japanese were attacking was absolutely absurd and, I feel, a great example of their pompous mindset which they still kind of carry today. If you want to see revisionist history, look at a Japanese history book (from this year, even) and flip to WWII and see if you find anything at all, and if you do...well.

[jmervyn]

I don't quite get what you're saying here: atrocities inflicted by the Japanese, or on Japanese-Americans?

I'm saying that Western liberal/Leftist emphasis has been incredibly focused on the latter, and most often discounted the former.

A prime example is the hatred and venom directed towards the conservative firebrand Michelle Malkin for her book about the internment camps. Her book doesn't really support her conclusion - that internment was sensible then and it might be sensible now. However, lost in the Left's shyte-flinging is the accurate historical evidence that of 127K Japanese Americans, at least 15K were openly dedicated to Japan and sworn to sabotage, espionage, and insurrection in the U.S.* to say nothing of those who were less active or provided financial support to Japan.

Reading the racist hatred (she's of Philippine descent) directed at her by Leftists would be almost funny if it weren't so ugly...

What they needed during the war was heavy nationalism, enlistment, and war bonds. They used Pearl Harbor as a tool to glorify themselves, and make "evil" the enemy.

Most assuredly. However, just as seen in the modern era, there's a significant amount of legitimacy to such claims, and a bounteous amount of deceit by those downplaying them or playing the RAAACISSSTTTT card as displayed in your link. The reality of the time was that stuff like craniometry was accepted as scientific.

So we had places like Auschwitz, that the public found out about far too late

Uh, no. No way in hell. You're from England or had visited, right? Haven't you been to any of the German death camps? In no way are they equivalent to the Allies 'concentration' camps. Such moral equivalence is exactly the bullshyte I despise.** I'm not in disagreement about the Fascist nature of the contemporary U.S., though, far from it; just that it is dishonest and despicable to pretend the fault somehow lay with the Allies.

If you want to see revisionist history, look at a Japanese history book (from this year, even) and flip to WWII and see if you find anything at all, and if you do...well.

One wonders whether such white-washing of history on all sides doesn't lead inevitably to the next such sequence of events...

* from A Renegade History of the United States by Thaddeus Russell, pp 273-276. Fun book.
** Edit - perhaps I misread/misunderstood? Some people make the argument that the Allies ran death camps.