Features The Other Press will pay $50 for a feature article over 1,500 words. Email your proposals to J.J. at editor.otherpress@ gmail.com 66 Years Later, the Lessons of Pearl Harbor Are Still Worth Remembering By Garth McLennan I diccon 7:2007 will mark the 66" anniversary of one of the most infamous attacks in history. It was on that day in 1944, that Pearl Harbor, a United States naval base in Honolulu, Hawaii, was bombed and attacked by the Empire of Japan’s Imperial Navy. It marked not only a true American tragedy, but also one of the major turning points of the Second World War. The attack was devastating. Six Japanese aircraft carriers launched 350 planes in a full-scale pre-emptive strike with the intent of vanquishing the Unites States naval fleet. 2,333 people were killed, and 1,139 were injured. Two American battleships,’ one US minelayer, and a pair of American destroyers were sunk. 188 planes were blown up, and six US battleships, three cruisers, and one destroyer were damaged. The Japanese didn’t lose nearly as much as the Americans. Only 65 Japanese soldiers were killed, with just five midget submarines and 29 planes demolished. The assault was shocking for the Americans. They had previously intercepted Japanese intelligence __ that an attack on American soil ..* was in the works, but almost § nobody dreamed that a place as important as Pearl Harbor “aia would be the target. Pearl Harbor was attacked because the United States stood up for the rights of several Asian and Pacific nations that couldn’t defend themselves against the Japanese. Japan had romped “What the Japanese didn’t know was that by attacking Pearl through Manchuria in 1931, and occupied it. This was one of the initial events that caused tensions to rise between the two powers. Japan continued to advance through China, and full-blown war between the two Asian countries broke out in 1937. While the U.S. was following an isolationist policy at the time, and was thus prevented from getting militarily involved against Japan, the States did sell the underdog Chinese war supplies. This was ended in 1940, when Japan conquered French Indo-China and placed an embargo on all imports into China. The US was also enraged by the heinous Rape of Nanking, one of the vilest and evil acts in human history, in 1937. After taking the provincial capital Nanking on December 13, 1937, the 20 Japanese military would remain in the area for six weeks, during which time they massacred between 150,000 and 300,000 innocent people in a genocidal wave. The Japanese followed the ancient and ruthless “Bushido code,” which taught that the enemy was to be shown no mercy whatsoever, and was to be considered sub-human. Eyewitnesses have _ stated that the occupying Japanese raped and murdered countless times. Up to 80,000 women, ranging from babies to 80-year- old elders, were raped mercilessly, while theft and arson ravaged the city. Infants no interest in involving themselves in another European-Asian conflict. Roosevelt promised to lift the embargo only if Japan agreed to withdraw from China and the other Pacific nations it had invaded. After diplomacy failed, Japan decided to strike. The Japanese government had had a long-standing desire to build a mighty Japanese empire. Japan itself was a tiny, overcrowded island without any essential raw materials such as rubber or oil. They had thus copied the European model of imperialism, and now wanted to/rule the Pacific. The plan to attack Harbor, they had awoken a sleeping giant.” were slaughtered in the most gruesome of ways. This black mark on world history greatly angered the United States, who, under President Roosevelt, imposed an embargo on Japan, banning the import of scrap iron and weapons. After Japan took French Indo-China, the embargo was expanded to include oil and steel, which became crippling for the Japanese. This was a perfect way for President. Roosevelt to back up everything he said about Japan’s lack of morality without violating the military isolation policy that was so favored among the American people. After the horrors of World War I, most Americans had Pearl Harbor was laid out after Japan had grown tired of America’s moral condemnations and interference in their plans. Japan had three primary goals in attempting to cripple the U.S. navy. 1) They wanted to break the debilitating embargo the U.S. had put on them, 2) They wanted to put an end to American meddling in their Chinese campaigns, and 3) they wanted to construct a long- reaching empire that would give them the supplies they couldn’t obtain at home. They viewed the Americans as a direct threat to them ever attaining that empire. What the Japanese didn’t know was that by attacking Pearl Harbor, they had awoken a sleeping giant. After the strike, Roosevelt officially put an end to isolationism. Americans were not bothered for very long, as Germany, who under Adolf Hitler’s rule was allied with the Japanese, proceded to declare war on the United States the very next day. While the war certainly wasn’t a landslide, the union of the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the good old’ US of A into the “Grand Alliance” proved too powerful for the Axis powers—Germany, Japan, and Italy to defeat. It also probably helped that Hitler and Mussolini made some really bad calls which probably cost them the war. Fighting with a passion, the United States battled the Japanese in the jungles of the Pacific, pushing them back island by island until they managed to develop the demonic power of the atomic bomb, which was dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, completely and utterly devastating them. The United States of America joined the most famous war in_ history late, with only the United Kingdom,underthecommand of the brilliant Winston Churchill, and the Russians, under the totalitarian control of the not-so-brilliant Joseph Stalin, as their only powerful allies. While Germany was already in trouble with their disastrous invasion of Russia, there is no doubt that without the Americans power, the world, as we know it today » might have turned out a very different place. — Looking back on these historic events can help us gain an understanding of ourselves today. Born out of a great tragedy, the United States emerged from isolation to help defeat one of thé most terrifying regimes in history. Or look at Winston Churchill, a man who had the nerve and the sheer will to resist the Nazi’s and never gave in to them, not even when all hope seemed lost after France was conquered just six weeks into 1940. It is not very often that you can truly say that a person saved the world, but looking back at President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill, we can say that they did just that by never giving up and always fighting for what was right. It shows what each and every one of us can be capable of if we act in the same heroic way.