Today, December 7, is the 69th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Let us take a moment to remember the many deaths and sense of security lost when Imperial Japanese warplanes launched a Sunday morning attack on the U.S. Navy base in Hawaii. Other American and British bases in the Pacific were also attacked that day. The Japanese raids prompted the United States to enter World War II.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt said it best: “December 7, 1941 – a day that will live in infamy.”
Well before our modern day shock of September 11, 2001, before 24-hour television news, these breaking developments were shared over the radio. Military film cameras caught images of some of the bombing, but that footage was not immediately available.
As it was happening, all anyone on the U.S. mainland could see was in their mind’s eye – and we all know how imagination can make things seem worse than reality. But this attack was powerfully, incredibly destructive – so much more than 13 terrorists taking over three airliners. Watching September 11 unfold on television was shocking enough. Can you imagine only hearing developments described over the radio?
Let us light a candle as a memorial tribute to the lives lost on this Day of Infamy, and to all lives lost in war.