‘A Day of Infamy’
Seventy nine years ago, on Sunday the 7th day of December 1941, the skies over the US Naval Base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, were filled with the war planes of the Japanese Empire. At 8 AM, they carried out a devastating, surprise attack on the US ships and airfields of Pearl Harbor which destroyed the bulk of the Pacific Naval Fleet of the United States. Since 1939, war had gripped Europe and the Far East, but the US was still a “neutral” country which made Japan’s attack even more grievous in US eyesight. President Franklin Roosevelt termed the attack “A Day of Infamy”. This event with no warning, enraged the American nation and caused it to drop its “neutral country” status and directly enter World War II against Japan, Germany, and all Axis Powers. This led to the utter defeat first of Germany in 1945 then of Japan some months later, by the Allied forces.
Each year the Fairfield Post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) pauses to remember the US veterans who lost their lives in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Perhaps the most notable symbol of that loss, is the USS Arizona Memorial which was built over the sunken wreckage of the battleship Arizona. When that ship was sunken in the Japanese attack, 1,102 of the 1,177 crew members on board were killed. At present, any US military survivor of the attack has the right to be buried on the sunken ship with his shipmates upon death following an appropriate ceremony on the Arizona Memorial.
Speaking about Pearl Harbor are veterans William Rogers, Arne Henderson, and Billy Collins. (Submitted Photo)
This year’s regular VFW Post meeting fell on the first of December and each Post member participated in a session to recount the details of the planning and the execution of the Japanese attack and the extent of the devastation it left behind. Post members William Rogers and Billy Collins also shared respective memories of time spent in transit through Pearl Harbor and on Pearl Harbor assignment. Arne Henderson shared memories of a tour of the Arizona Memorial while on Rest and Recuperation leave during the Vietnam War.
