Marking Time: A Date of Infamy
Emma Connolly
Latest posts by Emma Connolly (see all)
- Justin Townes Earle – New Album - March 29, 2017
- Review: Michael Kiwanuka – Love & Hate - July 16, 2016
- Quietus: Sir Mack Rice - June 30, 2016
A motorboat rescues a survivor beside sunken battleship USS West Virginia. Pearl Harbor, December 7 1941 | U.S. Navy C-5904
On December 8, 1941, America declared war on Japan. On the previous day, fighters, bombers and torpedo planes were launched from six Japanese aircraft carriers in an attack on the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. There had been no warning and no declaration of war from Japan. Four American battleships were sunk and 2,403 Americans died.
Draft of the Day of Infamy Speech | U.S. National Archives
The next day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt made a short speech – just over seven minutes long – in which he asked Congress to declare war on Japan. Roosevelt referred to December 7, 1941 as ‘a date which will live in infamy’. This was a more accurate prediction than he could have known, for not only did the Pearl Harbor attack result in tragic loss of life and the entry of the United States into World War II, but it contributed greatly to a change in modern warfare.
The Japanese attack meant that the Pacific war would not be one of battleships in the middle of the ocean. Instead, aircraft carriers (which had not been targeted at Pearl Harbor) were used to make air raids on the Japanese mainland. For the first time, the United States Air Force played a leading role in the theatre of war. On April 18, 1942, B-25 bombers were launched from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet and bombed military and industrial targets in Japan. Although this, the ‘Doolittle Raid’, caused relatively little damage, it was seen as revenge for Pearl Harbor and was merely the beginning of the American air offensive, which would see precision bombing gave way to incendiary area attacks and then to nuclear bombs. It would not be until September 2, 1945 that war between Japan and America would finally end.
Many issues currently in the news are anything but new. Conflict between Japan and America resulted in fear of the enemy within which led to Japanese internment. Innocent Japanese lives were lost in air raids. American servicemen endured horrific conditions and treatment as prisoners of the Japanese. Warmongers still see one truth, pacifists another, and everyone else, something more complicated. War is a force which consumes countless individuals whose stories are – inevitably – largely lost in the broad strokes of history books. When, against the odds, voices remain to speak from the midst of past war, perhaps it is our duty to listen, and learn.
Coming soon to The Chronopages – ‘No Sound of Planes – The Margaret Armstrong Story’. During the Pacific War, a Canadian missionary remained in Japan and recorded her experiences. Her story has never before been published in English.
A B-25 taking off in the Doolittle raid | U.S. Navy
