A Day That Will Live In Infamy Plus 82 Years

My parent’s generation had the attack on Pearl Harbor while the tail end of Gen X and the early millennials had 9-11. Boomers like myself and the rest of Gen X never had a singular attack on our country that caused us to rush to recruiting stations to enlist.

Battleship row with torpedoes streaking toward the USS West Virginia

It is not like we didn’t have wars like the Vietnam War or the first Gulf War. We had incidents like the Cuban Missile Crisis and Iranian Hostage Crisis. But it was the Cold War for the most part and attacks and conflict were elsewhere. After Pearl Harbor we vowed never to be taken by surprise again until we were in 9-11. However, it was a group of non-state actors who perpetrated that attack while we were looking elsewhere. That finally taught us that evil and attacks could come from any direction.

USS Arizona’s forward magazine exploding

I’m glad we never had another attack like Pearl Harbor. I do wish we as a country could be as united as we were back then but the world is a different and less innocent place now. In a world dominated by mass communication, whether over the airwaves or the Internet, the posters below seem almost naive. Unfortunately.

Finally, remembering Doris “Dorie” Miller, the Complementary Spouse and I visited the Doris Miller Memorial in Waco, Texas last October. It lies in a park along the Brazos River.

A Day That Will Live In Infamy Plus 81 Years

We are now closer to the 22nd Century than we are to the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Imperial Japanese Navy. That thought is somewhat unsettling to me. As I noted last year, by December 7, 1941, my Dad had already been a draftee in the Army for close to a year, my Mom was working in New York City for the British Lend-Lease Office, and my Uncle John allegedly would skip college the next day to enlist in the Navy.

Despite all of this, long-lost letters regarding one of the sailors killed on the USS Oklahoma were returned to a family just last week. They concerned Machinist Mate 2C Lorentz Hultgren whose body was finally DNA identified in 2015. At the time of the letter from 1944, his body could not be identified. He will now be buried with full military honors in the National Cemetery of the Pacific (Punchbowl) early in 2023.

Besides Hultgren, two other sailors were finally identified this past August.

The effort to identify sailors killed at Pearl Harbor continues to this day, 81 years after the attack. 

Two more sailors, Petty Officer Second Class Claude Ralph Garcia and Petty Officer First Class Keith Warren Tipsword — each serving about the USS West Virginia — were identified this past August.

https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/pearl-harbor-sorrow-suffered-sailors-mom-revealed-letters-returned-family

Most know that the USS Arizona was never refloated and serves as the final resting place for those killed there. The battleship USS Utah also was never refloated and its remains still lie on the floor of Pearl Harbor.

https://www.ussutah1941.org/uss-utah-memorial.html

The Utah is referred to as the “forgotten ship”. A memorial to it was established in 1972. Adjacent to the USS Utah Memorial is that of the USS Oklahoma. Both are on Ford Island. As of 2022, they are now available to be visited with reservations which was an issue in the past as Ford Island remains an active military facility. The Ford Island Bus Tour can be accessed here.

The USS Oklahoma Memorial was only dedicated in 2007. The video below shows the dedication of the memorial, some of the survivors, and the memorial.

A Day That Will Live In Infamy Plus 80 Years

It is hard to believe that it has been 80 years since the attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy on Pearl Harbor. For my parent’s generation, it was something that they lived in real time. They heard about it on the radio or in extra editions of their local newspaper. My dad had already been in the Army for almost a year, my mom was working for the New York City office of the Lend-Lease Program, and my Uncle John would skip school the next day to enlist in the Navy.

Those who were in the military at Pearl Harbor that day are now in their late 90s at the very least. In other words, there are very few of them left. The Pearl Harbor Survivors Association stopped their Hawaii reunions 15 years ago due to the aging of their members. They officially disbanded in 2011. It has been succeeded by the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors. Even still, if you look at the pictures of their members, they are not youngsters.

A quick search of the Internet will allow you to find many, many propaganda posters from that era such as the one above. My favorite that I first posted in 2013 is the one below. Not only does it play on words but it emphasizes the total national commitment that was required to win World War Two. Notice that the knitting needles are arranged in a V for Victory.

remember Pearl Harbor - PURL HARDER". Promoting Civilian Knitting for War  Production, New York City WPA War Service, 1942. : r/PropagandaPosters

It was done by the New York City office of the War Production Board to promote civilian knitting for war production.

My point in remembering the Pearl Harbor attack every year is that we should never forget our history. I fear that both our civilian and military leadership has forgotten many of the lessons that Pearl Harbor taught us and we will be caught unawares again.

A Day That Will Live In Infamy Plus 79 Years

The average life expectancy of an American is 78.7 years according to CDC statistics. Extrapolated this means that the average American born on December 7, 1941 would have recently passed away. The attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy has become something that is remembered in history books and in movies with very few actual survivors alive to tell of it.

As I noted last year, for my parents it was their “where were you when” event. It was also personal. The older brother of one my mom’s best friends was an ensign aboard one of the battleships and survived. As the story goes from my mom, he was up and getting ready to go to Mass when the attack started. The Noxema shaving cream on his face kept his face from being burned too badly. Apocryphal perhaps, but that was the story passed down to me.

The commemorative event held annually in Pearl Harbor will be closed to the public this year thanks to the pandemic. However, the ceremony will be broadcast live here and on Facebook.

A Day That Will Live In Infamy Plus 78 Years

As I have noted many times in the past, the attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy was a watershed event for my parent’s generation. My dad had already been in the US Army for a year. My mom was working for the British Lend-Lease office in New York City. It was their “where were you when Kennedy was shot” or “Challenger explosion” event.

Both of my parents would be 100 if they were alive today. They were both 22 on December 7, 1941. They would be a bit older than many of the enlisted sailors but about the age of the young ensigns or Lt. JGs in Hawaii that day.

I don’t mean to go all maudlin on you but I think it is important to remember those who fought and died on that sunny December morning. The teaching of history has become perverted in recent times. I’ve always thought revisionist historians were suspect.

As to those who say the US provoked the Japanese into crossing the Pacific and attacking Pearl Harbor, they can shove it where the sun doesn’t shine. It was a strategic, though erroneous, decision made to keep the US Navy at bay while Japan went about creating the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

A Day That Will Live In Infamy Plus 77 Years

Today marks the 77th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. It is also marks the first time that a surviving member of the crew of the USS Arizona will not be in Hawaii to commemorate the event.

From the news reports:

No one who survived the bombing of the USS Arizona battleship will be in the audience.


“This is the very first year,” said Daniel Martinez, historian with the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument.


Health issues and doctor’s orders prevented Lou Conter from coming.


“She said you cannot go. You better cancel out,” he said in telephone interview from his home in California.


Conter is 97. The handful of survivors of the battleship’s sinking are all in their 90s…


About 300 USS Arizona sailors survived Japan’s surprise attack.


Only five are alive: Conter, Don Stratton, Ken Potts, Lonnie Cook and Lauren Bruner.

The hatred and enmity between the two countries is in the past. Now you have survivors who fought on each side coming together in ceremonies like the Blacked Canteen ceremony which celebrates peace and reconciliation.

A Day That Will Live In Infamy Plus 76 Years

Most of those who were involved in the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, whether as attackers or defenders, are not alive today to tell their story. It is up to us in the succeeding generations to remember it and to tell it.

First, let us remember those men and women on the American side who died during the attack. The casualty list is here. As to the Japanese, I’m not sure where to find any of those records.

The US Navy has an official account of the attack. It was compiled by CINCPAC for the Secretary of the Navy and was dated 15 February 1942. The report gives the disposition of the US Pacific Fleet on December 7th, an after action report, damage reports, and the current state of readiness after the attack. It is quite comprehensive.

Remembering that there was no social media at the time, the role of propaganda posters was critical for energizing the populace of the United States on to a wartime footing. Some of these posters were simple and some were not. The last poster below shows the Japanese wearing glasses. That plus buck teeth seem to be the common characterization of the Japanese in these propaganda posters. There are many other posters I could have used but I thought them too overtly racist. Unlike the war in Europe, World War II in the Pacific Theater was brutal, nasty, racist, and without mercy. A good book on war in the Pacific is John Dower’s War Without Mercy.

Finally, of the movie accounts of the attack, I still think Tora Tora Tora is the best. Sometimes it is included with Amazon Prime and sometimes not.

A Day That Will Live In Infamy Plus 75 Years

When an event that was discussed by your parents when you were a kid is now about to have its 75th anniversary, you begin to feel a little old. I was born a little more than 15 years after the Japanese Imperial Navy launched their attack on Pearl Harbor.

My mother would tell me the story, probably apocryphal, of a young Navy officer who grew up in her Staten Island neighborhood who was saved from facial burns by his Noxzema shaving creme. Likewise, she would tell me the story of how my Uncle John skipped class at Manhattan College on December 8th along with some of his fellow classmates to join the Navy.

It was a different time and a different war.

Every year I search for new propaganda posters that include the phrase “Remember Pearl Harbor”. Here are a couple of the more different ones.

A Day That Will Live In Infamy – 74th Anniversary

74 years ago today, on December 7th, 1941, fighters and bombers of the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the US Pacific Fleet in their home port of Pearl Harbor at 7:55am local time. IJN fighters and bombers also attacked US Army Air Force installations at Hickham, Wheeler, Bellows, and other air fields destroying most of the aircraft on the ground.

Most of the veterans on both sides have now passed away due to age. The National Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, in fact, disbanded at the end of 2011 due to the advanced age of the remaining survivors.

One of the few live broadcasts of the attack was from KGU Radio in Honolulu.

A list of the ships of the Pacific Fleet in port on December 7th can be found here along with the damage suffered. As bad as the attack was, most of the battleships went on to fight again later in the war.

The battle for Wake Island began simultaneously with the attack on Pearl Harbor. The IJN and the Japanese Imperial Army launched widespread attacks beginning December 8th on the British in Malaya , the Dutch in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), and the Americans and Filipinos in the Philipines and Guam.

One immediate impact of the attack was that the industrial base of the United States shifted from a peacetime to a wartime footing. The propaganda poster below was meant to urge workers on.

A Day That Shall Leave In Infamy, 73rd Anniversary

Today marks the 73rd anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. I like to honor this day by remembering those veterans – Army, Navy, and Marine – who were there on that fateful day as well as those stationed on Wake Island and in the Philippines. These vets are dying out daily and the time will shortly come when no one who faced the waves of Japanese bombers will still be alive. So if you know one of these vets, take the time today to thank them for their service.

Magazine of the USS Shaw exploding after being hit by a bomb

More of these photos can be seen here.

That generation of men and women would go into action to avenge these losses and they would win.