Why is it important to remember the Pearl Harbor attack?
First of all, the carefully planned and coordinated aerial assault by the Imperial Japanese Navy yanked the United States into World War II. Sitting safely behind two oceans, many Americans in 1941 thought U.S. involvement in global warfare ended in 1918 with the conclusion of World War I.
The Japanese empire had different ideas and the same nation that vanquished the Russians with superior naval technology and training at the dawn of the 20th century turned its attention to the United States even as Americans hoped they could sit out the war engulfing Europe and Asia.
Japanese military strategists gambled on a lightning-swift hammer blow to the U.S. military presence in the Pacific Ocean as a way to keep America from intruding on Japanese designs in the Pacific.
On Dec. 7, Lynn’s Emery Arsenault and other Pearl Harbor attack survivors were still reeling from the Japanese air assault even as they contemplated a possible invasion of Hawaii by the Japanese. Arsenault shoved the butt of his rifle into the ground and waited for the invaders. In 2009, Arsenault received the salutes and cheers of Lynn residents as grand marshal of the city’s annual Memorial Day parade.
Like others who were there on that sunny Hawaiian Sunday morning, Arsenault said the Japanese attack literally materialized out of the clear blue sky. For Arsenault and for America, Pearl Harbor was a turning point for the United States’ role in global affairs.
In World War I and the Spanish-American War, Americans headed overseas to lay claim to new territory or settle foreign disputes. On Dec. 7, 1941, the tables turned and a foreign power brought terror and destruction to American shores. The Japanese did not stop at Pearl Harbor. They attacked American and British outposts across the Pacific, killing and taking thousands prisoner and threatening Australia, New Zealand, and other nations.
On Dec. 8, 1941, as smoke lay in a pall across Pearl Harbor and the Pacific Fleet wreckage, America found itself in World War II whether it liked it or not. Franklin Roosevelt would announce the country’s entry into the war but the Pearl Harbor attack confirmed the U.S. could not sit by as a neutral power while the Axis countries gobbled up rest of the world.
Americans enlisted in the armed forces. The government and corporations cranked up the arsenal of democracy and America was off to war. But as veterans can attest, the going was tough from the get-go. American sailors, aviators and soldiers would take a beating from the Japanese in 1942 and the Germans in 1943 before American “know-how” and the country’s immense industrial capacity turned the tide against Japan and Germany.
Americans signed up for war on Dec. 8, 1941 ready to avenge Pearl Harbor. But anyone soberly viewing the German rampage across Europe and the destruction visited on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese knew the path to victory would be slick with blood and littered with bodies.
Even with that knowledge, Americans went to war knowing America could not sit on the sidelines no matter what price individuals, families, communities and the nation paid to attain victory.
