Virginian-Pilot editorial: Remembering the day of infamy

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced Monday he will visit Pearl Harbor in late December with President Barack Obama, 75 years after Japan’s attack on Hawaii in 1941.

The anniversary is a stark reminder of the passage of time since the attack in light of the dwindling number of survivors.

The surprise attack on December 7, 1941, killed more than 2,000 Americans and triggered the entry of the United States into World War II.

“Since then, we have been lots of places throughout the world helping to protect the freedom of others”, Ware added. Can it be that three-quarters of a century have passed since President Franklin Roosevelt gave his “Day of Infamy” speech to the assembled members of a shocked Congress just one day after the attack? The U.S. military numbered fewer than 200,000 personnel in 1939 – a military that at 19th in the world was smaller than Portugal’s.

Darragh, who’s in the Army National Guard and conducts the 67th Army band based in Cheyenne, applied for Windsor High School’s band to perform at Pearl Harbor and found out they were selected a year ago.

For the first part of the hour, we’ll discuss the history of the attacks and St. Louisans involved in defending Pearl Harbor with USA military historian and Missouri S&T professor John C. McManus.

By late November 1941, with peace negotiations clearly approaching an end, informed USA officials (and they were well-informed, they believed, through an ability to read Japan’s diplomatic codes) fully expected a Japanese attack into the Indies, Malaya and probably the Philippines.

There was also a mass at Church of the Assumption in Fairport, in memory of all military men and women who served in World War II and beyond.

Together with Obama’s visit to Hiroshima, it will complete the reconciliation process and help smooth bilateral relations under any administration, said Tsuneo Watanabe, a senior research fellow at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation.

The exhibit shows relics directly from the attack including pieces of downed Japanese planes and the binoculars that had been used on the bridge of the battleship the USS Arizona, which was sunk in the attack.

Not this time. December 7, 1941, will, as President Roosevelt said, live in infamy. But Chavez said it’s about the people who were lost. But our response to that attack lives on as well. Their heroism and sacrifices will never be forgotten. In 1941, Americans were complacent about the fires raging in Asia and Europe.

“You can bet that the men and women we honor today – and those who died that fateful morning 75 years ago – never took a knee and never failed to stand whenever they heard our national anthem being played”, Harris said to almost a minute of clapping, whistles and whoops.

“That legacy will never die”.