A Date Which Will Live in Infamy

81 years ago today, the world changed forever

I always feel somewhat nostalgic around the 7th of December. My thoughts often turn not only to the horrific circumstances of that Sunday morning, but to the culture, the music, the styles, and the other events of that long ago epoch. I feel a longing to experience a time that was over well before I was born. I wonder what it was like to live through those days, with no certain knowledge of how it would all turn out. Reading history can fool you into believing that history could not have happened any other way, but the people then had no idea.

Even the technology of the time elicits a certain nostalgia. Imagine going back to a world with no computers, no mobile phones attached to our hands, no smart devices filling our houses. For many adults, electricity and running water were novel luxuries, and some still lived without them. The radio was how people learned the news, along with an occasional filmstrip at the theater. People still wrote letters back then, and men and women both dressed up to leave their homes. For all we have gained since then, I think we have lost some things as well.

Nearly every American adult in the late 1930s remembered the Great War. There was a strong strain of isolationism in America at that time, as many citizens saw no reason to get involved in yet another European conflict. Yet President Franklin Roosevelt and his administration saw war on the horizon nonetheless, and began working with Great Britain and later Russia to stop the Nazi blitzkrieg.

Japan had invaded the Chinese province of Manchuria in 1931, and then China itself in 1937. The United States sought to curtail Japanese aggression by imposing sanctions, attempting to deprive Japan of the raw materials for their military. Dan Carlin tells the story quite well in his Hardcore History series Supernova in the East: the honor-obsessed Japanese were faced with the choice to give in to US demands and withdraw from China, or do something drastic to save face.

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was given the job of crafting a plan to knock the United States out of the war before it even began. Yamamoto had visited America, and he knew that victory was highly unlikely. It was not him, but his character in the 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora! who uttered the famous quote “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve,” but it could have easily been said by the man himself. Nevertheless he did his duty.

Despite the massive loss of life and material, the attack on Pearl Harbor was a turn of luck for the United States. Naval doctrine at the time was to amass a huge fleet of battleships, defeat the enemy fleet, then control the seas. Japan had perfected this doctrine in their 1905 conflict with Russia, winning the Battle of Tsushima and gaining an upper hand in the war. But times were changing. The American battleships were indeed taken out of commission, but the Pacific theater of World War II was destined to be won by aircraft carriers, all of which were out to sea on the morning of Sunday, December 7th.

But the victories at Midway, Guadalcanal, and the Philippines were yet to come. In the days after December 7th, the American people had no idea what the future would bring. When Adolf Hitler declared war on the United States the next day, we were suddenly dragged into the very world war we were desperately hoping to avoid. The lives of millions of young men were changed overnight, as they packed their bags to join the Army, Navy, or Army Air Force. Nearly half a million of them would never come back home.

World War II changed everything. It provided a massive boost to technology, most notably with the atomic bomb, but in propulsion, engines, and computers as well. The families that built their lives in the years after the war had washing machines, dishwashers, and televisions, all things that were rare or unheard of before.

Culture changed too. Rock & roll and car culture emerged in the postwar years, as well as television programming and advertising. The Baby Boomers were the first generation to experience teenagehood, and Hollywood exploded in popularity with all generations.

Geopolitics also changed forever, with the Cold War, the threat of nuclear annihilation, and the rise of the United States as a superpower. In fact, we are in the waning days of the liberal world order that was established in the wake of World War II, as the United Nations and other international organizations created back then to maintain peace look ineffective and dated today.

Yet on that fateful day, eighty-one years ago, none of that mattered. Families from across America, from Brooklyn to Bakersfield to Boise, said goodbye to their fathers, their husbands, and their sons, and the American people mobilized in unity to defeat an evil tyranny that threatened all free people. Many gave their lives in what General Dwight Eisenhower would later call the Great Crusade. Those who came home carried the experiences for the rest of their lives.

The World War II generation is fading into the pages of history as you read these words. The last of the Dolittle Raiders passed away more than three years ago, and very soon there will be nobody left with firsthand memories of those fateful days. If you have a grandfather, an uncle, or a friend who served during that time, make a point of listening to his stories. If you have a grandmother, an aunt, or a friend who served on the home front, listen to her stories too. They say the past is a foreign country, and the World War II era is passing further and further away, soon to be relegated only to books and movies. We must cherish those who lived through it while we still can.