History.com:
On this day in 1941, the Combine Japanese Fleet receive Top-Secret Order No. 1: In 34 days time, Pearl Harbor is to be bombed, along with Mayala, the Dutch East Indies, and the Philippines.
Relations between the United States and Japan had been deteriorating quickly since Japan’s occupation of Indochina in 1940 and the implicit menacing of the Philippines (an American protectorate), with the occupation of the Cam Ranh naval base only eight miles from Manila. American retaliation included the seizing of all Japanese assets in the States and the closing of the Panama Canal to Japanese shipping. In September 1941, Roosevelt issued a statement, drafted by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, that threatened war between the United States and Japan should the Japanese encroach any further on territory in Southeast Asia or the South Pacific. read more here
Could you imagine the out come of the war if the West Pac Carrier fleet had all been in port in Pearl on that day? The damage (other than the loss of live on the Arizona) and damage to the Pacific Fleet wasn’t all that great. Yamamoto was right when he said they ‘woke a sleeping giant’!
Cam Ranh Bay was in French Indochina, which the Japanese occupied in September 1940. It is 812 miles from Manila Bay in the Philippines, not “only eight miles from Manila.” Someone at the History Channel dropped a few hundred miles off the chart. Somebody needs to alert General MacArthur that Emperor’s men are getting awfully close.
If you haven’t seen the Arizona Memorial you need to. Very sobering.
Due to a rare cold front that just happened to arrive in Hawaii early on December 7, Admiral Kimmel stepped out of his quarters that morning and remarked, “You know, I believe there’s a Nip in the air.”
Considering the damage done by the Japs, (loss of life, property damage and suffering throughout the war), they got off quite easily with only two atomic bombs to reshape their landscape.
In 8th grade one of my best friends was a Japanese kid. His nick name was “Nip”. If he cared he never showed it. That relation ship lasted well beyond high school. The Nip was in my wedding party. Back to 8th grade. Were in history class and the teacher decided to play the “what did your dad do during the war routine”. And why not, all white kids, except for the nip. Well the teacher running through all the white kids and eventually he gets to the “NIP”. It was like a high speed train wreck. Epic to this day. The teachers like Uh, uh, uh? But them damn Japs are pretty fucking smart. Old Russ replies to him, “My dad was a Kamikaze pilot”. So lets freeze the conversation here, most the guys in that class have dined at his parents house, with his parents, including his father. So we are like WTF. Unfreeze.
The teacher say “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that”. Teach is obviously way math challenged.And then Russ spits out “Yep, he flew 21 missions”. Fucking Russ. Eventually the teacher had to join in the out of control laughing. Nothing else was accomplished for the rest of the week in that class. That guy is now in charge of Honda Motor Sports and making bank.
2nd wife’s grandfather was in the fighting 442nd. He survived the war and went back to Hawaii. Died a year later in Millilani when a gas tanker truck plowed his truck and exploded. That’s life right?
Had 10 grand uncles drafted into the Marines and sent to clear the islands. They came back some of the meanest most bitter son’s o’ bitches you’d ever met, but they survived.
@reboot: From everything I’ve heard and read, island fighting against the Japanese was about the closest thing to Hell on Earth that you’d care to imagine. I’m pretty sure I would have been bitter, too. If not psycho.
Interestingly when the Japanese fleet left its bases the British informed the US as to that fact! The Navy sent the carriers at Pearl out to sea but left everything else in place and they became sitting ducks!
The day of infamy:
Pearl Harbor (2400 deaths) was just a relatively minor beginning of 10s of thousands of brutal, shameful, horrific, outrageous, courageous, heroic, selfless acts by 100s of thousands of participants in the Pacific.
In the Pacific, US casualties totaled 111,606 killed or missing, 253,142 wounded and 21,580 Prisoners of War.
In the European and Atlantic Theatres of Operations, US forces suffered 183,588 dead or MIA, 560,240 wounded and 108,621 Pows.
In total, WW II cost the United States 407,316 killed or MIA and 671,846 wounded,
Included in the dead are the 1,124 POWs who died in captivity in Europe and the 12,935 who died at the hands of the Japanese.
In comparison to the 2400 deaths at Pearl Harbor; 3,000 were killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Vietvet, that’s an old joke I’ve heard in many variations since I was a kid back in the 60’s. Nowadays if you tell that joke to someone with no sense of humor they would try to nip that in the bud.
@Geoff: Or they might try to give you a nice Hawaiian punch.
🙂