FRIDAY December 7, 2018
Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day
Today is the 77th anniversary of the surprise, aerial attack on Pearl Harbor, a naval base on the Island of Oahu, Hawaii. The Japanese, who anticipated that the United States would enter into World War 2, sent about 200 aircraft in a wave of attacks which decimated the airfields, destroyed more than 300 aircrafts, and 20 American naval ships. More than 2,400 Americans died, including civilians on the island, and 1,000 more people were left wounded. The Japanese goal was to destroy the Pacific fleet.
One survivor on board the USS Arizona said he saw more courage, more heroics, more valor and more sacrifice, that day, than a person should see in ten life times. The next day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked congress to declare war on Japan, stating this was, “A day that will remain in infamy.” The President gave a speech condemning the attack and asking the US Congress for a state of war, and concluded:
With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph––so help us God. I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, Dec. 7, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire.
On August 15, 1945, an announcement was made that Imperial Japan had surrendered. The surrender was officially signed on September 2, 1945, and, finally the conflicts of World War 2 were brought to a close.
We resolve that our strength, our vigilance, and our devotion will forever keep America the land of the free and the home of the brave. We resolve that we will keep faith with those we have loved and lost. And we resolve that, always, we will remember Pearl Harbor.
~Ronald Reagan~
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