Is Pearl Harbor a Fading Lesson?

Little things often spark a larger meaning or deeper thought with me.  The other day I noted in a small news article that rapidly faded to obscurity that for the first time in 70 years the Pearl Harbor Survivors would not be meeting in Hawaii.  I suppose the reason are kind of obvious, if they were old enough to be sailors and soldiers 70 years ago, the few remaining would likely be in declining health. 

I suppose the bigger question is if this means our remembrance of the events and historical significance of that date will also fade.

Seventy years is a long time to try to keep anything fresh and relevant.  

The events of December 7th, 1941, were a turning point for America on the world stage.  We learned two very big things on that day.  The first one is that some times, despite our best efforts, you cannot run away from a fight.  If you want to decry the evils of fascism or repressive regimes, sometime you have to back your words with the actual fight and struggle to win.

The second lesson is that isolationism does not work. Many consider America the essential nation of the modern era.  It is definitely true that to be the torch bearer for democracy and freedom, sometimes you have to stand and fight its oppressors.  Solitude and indifference to the hardships of others does not make you great.

Reading our high school history books all this may seem obvious, but it apparently was not obvious on the morning of December 7, 1941. Most of Europe had been at war for 27 months. Nearly the entire continent had fallen to the Nazis and their lightning war. 

Following on the heels of the German military were their henchmen implementing ruthless social change. England alone fought to aid its European allies, but the United States stayed out of the fight. For most Americans, the war in Europe was of little or no concern.  At home we were battling the Great Depression, dust bowls and maybe splitting California into two states.  The Japanese attack on our Navy and Army resources in Hawaii finally stirred us to battle.

On December 8, President Franklin Roosevelt addressed Congress and asked for a declaration of war; within the hour Congress concurred, declaring war on Japan. Three days later, Japan, Germany and their Italian allies declared war on us as the unified Axis powers. 

At Munich in September 1938, the British prime minister allowed Hitler to dismember Czechoslovakia in the name of appeasement, but Hitler’s ambitions did not stop there. 

History is full of “what if’s.”  We will never know the “what if” Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had stood up to Hitler at Munich, would the suffering and tragedies of war in Europe have unfolded differently? Ultimately, when Hitler’s army invaded Poland in September 1939, Britain was faced with an invading army on their door step and the realization that appeasement and isolationism do not work.  Nazism was on the rise all across Europe.

Despite these key events, America continued to isolate itself with the attitude that “their problems won’t affect us.”  If you read much about the 1940 presidential election, you will find that Republicans regularly accused Roosevelt of plotting to entangle America in the European war.  Only after the election was he (Roosevelt) able to proclaim America the “arsenal of democracy.”

In the spring of 1941 Lend Lease was finally approved on nearly straight party lines allowing for American industry to begin rearming Britain and itself.

If America had entered the European war before the fall of Belgium and France, much of history might have been different.  Would the German death camps have happened? Would the race for bomb development have happened, at least at the same pace? Would Japan have attacked a more heavily armed and militarily active America?  More of those “what if’s” that are best left to the history scholars.  

As I read history, I am very proud of America’s pivotal role in WWII.  When the war came to us, we fought bravely and with significant sacrifice.  I truly believe that without us, the outcome of WWII might have been significantly different.  I also don’t want to discount the outsize role and sacrifice of our then Soviet allies, who bore the brunt of the war. Yes, their regime was very repressive, but we fought as allies against a greater evil.

The causes of WWII are pretty clear—economic depression, growing nationalism, militarism, Fascism and the overt deficiencies of the Treaty of Versailles.  A friend of mine recently pointed out that the history books of 200-300 years from now may take WWI, WWII & the “cold war,” and merely refer to them cumulatively as the “second Hundred Year’s War.”  Regardless, we learned that appeasement and isolationism do no work. The issues of your friends, neighbors and allies will eventually end up on your door step.

It was 70 years ago, on December 7, 1941, that Japanese warplanes staged their infamous surprise attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, thrusting America headlong into a war we had gone out of our way to avoid. Seventy years is a long time. In seventy years, we can forget a lot that our parents learned the hard way.  Should we be helping the European economy, are the oppressive governments in the Middle East a strategic concern to us, etc.?

I don’t really know how to answer these.  I do know that our world is a global world, economic issues, energy issues, strategic security, are all global concerns.  While isolation is easy, history has also shown that it does not work.

I understand there will be various small reunions gathered across the country, but the journey to Hawaii will be too taxing for the remaining survivors of Pearl Harbor. 

The few remaining survivors of Pearl Harbor on this 70th anniversary are no longer meeting to remind us of the event that took place that day.  Without our parent and grandparents, it is now up to the rest of us.  Are we going to remember those hard learned lessons, or are we going to repeat them some time in the future? 

As a sage once said, “what we have learned in 70 years is no less important than what we have forgotten.”  

"If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."

March 31, 1939: Winston Churchill