By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Banner of Liberty, (www.bannerofliberty.com)
December 12, 2001
On December 7th, the 60th anniversary of the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor which killed 2403 Americans one sunny Sunday Morning in Hawaii, I was visiting Pearl Harbor, talking with several survivors of that attack. President George W. Bush was aboard the USS Enterprise, speaking to a new generation facing a very similar kind of sneak attack by a group of terrorists who launched a sneak attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The President said of those terrorists:
"We've seen their kind before. The terrorists are the heirs to fascism. They have the same will to power, the same disdain for the individual, the same mad global ambitions. And they will be dealt with in just the same way. (Applause.) Like all fascists, the terrorists cannot be appeased: they must be defeated. This struggle will not end in a truce or treaty. It will end in victory for the United States, our friends and the cause of freedom. (Applause.)"The Enterprise has been part of this campaign. And when we need you again, I know you'll be ready. (Applause.) Our enemies doubt this. They believe that free societies are weak societies. But we're going to prove them wrong. Just as we were 60 years ago, in a time of war, this nation will be patient, we'll be determined, and we will be relentless in the pursuit of freedom." (Applause.)
Why, do you suppose, is it that tyrants believe free societies are weak societies? And they do think just that. In fact, before September 11th, there were a whole lot of people who believed that the rising generation in America are weaklings who could not possibly respond to a threat the way that "greatest of all generations" the World War II generation responded to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Back in the 1930s Adolf Hitler and the militarists of Japan had every reason to believe that America was too weak and too cowardly to ever put up a fight. In fact, an estimated 40% of the college youth of America in 1941 had signed the American version of the "Oxford Pledge" which stated that they would refuse to go to war, if their governments drafted them and sent them to war.
America was not ready for war in 1941. Congress at the time was controlled by a group of Democrats who were isolationists and were determined to not get involved in the quarrels of Europe. It was OK for President Roosevelt to ask Japan to stop invading its neighbors, of course, but it was not OK for him to threaten to DO anything about it if the Japanese government ignored his requests. By attacking Pearl Harbor, it was believed, and crippling America's Pacific fleet, Japan would have time to seize the Philippines, Guam, Midway and what is now Vietnam before the bumbling, unprepared Americans could do anything about it..
Then, when Pearl Harbor was attacked the nation, young and old, instantly united and thousands of young signers of the Oxford Pledge were down early Monday morning waiting for their local recruiting station to open so they could enlist in the Army or Navy.
Those already IN the Army or Navy in Hawaii, suddenly were confronted with a situation that no one expected to every happen. Often, there was no commanding officer around to tell them what to do. President Bush recalled:
"There were acts of great heroism amongst those who survived, and those who did not. Nine who fell that day had Navy ships named after them. In two hours' time, for bravery above and beyond the call of duty, 15 men earned the Medal of Honor. And 10 of them did not live to wear it."Young sailors refused to abandon ship, even as the waters washed over the decks. They chose instead to stay and try to save their friends. A mess steward carried his commander to safety, and then manned a machine gun for the first time in his life. Two pilots ran through heavy fire to get into their P-40 fighters. They proceeded to chase and shoot down four enemy aircraft."
Many survivors made the trip to Pearl Harbor for the 60th anniversary of the attack and I was able to talk with several of them. One of them was Theodore George Sharpe, of Claremont, Florida, who retired from the Army as a major. However, as a teen-aged soldier, who had joined the army about a year before Pearl Harbor, he did not have an auspicious beginning.
In fact, he told me, he'd done something he was court-martialed for a couple of months before Pearl Harbor and had just gotten out of the stockade on December 5th and was returned to base to find his unit had divided and he was in the 24th Division.
"It was Friday," he said, "and I didn't know what to do. They told me to 'go upstairs and we'll talk to you on Monday. On Saturday I was free to do what I wanted, but I was only making $21 a month and two-thirds of that was forfeiture of pay."
Early Sunday morning, December 7th, Sharpe and others were standing in the chow line, waiting for it to open at 8:00 AM. He recalled:
"At ten minutes to eight the Japanese flew over our heads. We could almost reach up and touch them. I was in the last quadrangle of Schofield Towers which was adjacent to Wheeler Field. When they came in they were very low and the strafed Wheeler Field. We didn't know what was going on until some people from Wheeler Field came out bleeding and calling 'Hospital! Hospital!""So, we all ran to the barracks, got our uniforms on, and our rifles and our gas masks and I ran over to the motor pool. I was in a truck company. I asked, 'What can I do? What can I do?'"
About that time a call came in for someone to pick up a man and drive him to Pearl Harbor. Sharpe was sent. He'd never been to Pearl Harbor, although he'd been on the Island for six months. Sharpe said:
"I took him down to Pearl, but I didn't want to leave him there because he looked Japanese! But, we did get in and he went to work and he said, 'Wait for me.' So, I waited and waited and I'm dodging bullets meant for the Navy."
Someone finally asked him what he was doing there and when he told him who he was waiting for he was told that 'You are never going to see him again because that outfit moved out - how about helping me." For the next two and a half hours, Sharpe said, "I picked up bodies and injured."
When he got back to Schofield, the 24th Division officer were ready to court martial him again. Eventually, it was straightened out, and he was with the 24th Division when it liberated the Philippines and later in the occupation of Japan. He was also in the Korean and Vietnam wars, remaining in the army for more than 20 years and retired as a Major.
I also talked with Tony Alessandro, former president of the U.S.S. Missouri Association, who joined the Navy in the middle of the war at the age of 17 and "as a 19 year old kid" was present when the Japanese surrendered aboard the U.S.S. Missouri on September 2, 1945. He observed:
"All we wanted to do wanted to was to get home. A lot of us missed our childhood - those things kids like to do at 17 and 18. When I left the Navy in 1946 I seem to go back to my childhood and I began to play sports - baseball, football, basketball for longer than kids do today. We were trying to pick up that lost time."Then, I got married when I was 24 years old. It was hard to find work between 1946-1950. I finally got a good job in 1950, when the economy began to pick up after the war. It was still tough times.
"Regarding the Atom bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki - that caused a lot of loss of life at the time - but those bombs SAVED many, many, many more. The United States already had plans to invade Japan and had we done that, after we fought in Okinawa, where we faced Japanese suicide planes, it would have been much tougher if we had invaded Japan.
"If we had not dropped the Atom bombs, the Japanese people would have lost 3 million people and the Allies would have lost 1 million people. You are talking about 4 million people! We saved a lot of lives by dropping them."
Contrary to what many young people believe today, the Atom bomb was not the most lethal bombing that took place in World War II. In Hiroshima, 70,000 people died. In Nagasaki, 36,000 people died. However, in the German attacks on England during World War II, 62,000 people died. In the conventional bombing of Tokyo in 1945, 83,000 people died. And, in the Allied bombing of Dresdon, Germany, 100,000 people died. (See Deaths By The Atom Bomb Compared To Other Deaths During World War II)
When compared with an expected 4 million deaths total for both sides in the planned invasion of Japan, and the door to door, hand-to-hand combat it would have entailed, in retrospect the Atom Bomb, which gave the Japanese a face-saving way to surrender - was a humane decision.
Tony was on the Missouri in the battle of Iwo Jima, which was where they learned how tough it would be if they had invaded Japan.
Another Pearl Harbor survivor I interviewed was Roger L. Reid, of Thomson, Georgia who was also stationed at Schofield Barracks. Sixty years after the event, Reid still found it hard to talk about. He helped pick up the dead and wounded at both Wheeler and Hickam fields. He said, simply:
"I assisted wherever I could."
That statement seemed to sum up the reaction of a generation, now being called the "greatest" generation, to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Because we were a free people, we ALL, old and young, male and female, black and white and ethnic minorities - including Japanese-Americans who joined the armed services from relocation camps - did what we could to defeat those who would take away our freedom.
And, now we are watching our grandchildren, that group of young people who, we were told, only want to waste their time playing video games, do everything we did and more. In fact, they may actually be better prepared for the horrors of war than we were BECAUSE of those gory video games. Many of the rising generation were brought up in homes where their fathers had refused to fight in Vietnam and where parents rebelled against their World War II parents' moral codes.
Like Roger L. Reid, our grandchildren are ready to assist wherever they can, wherever they are needed. They are an independent lot who, it seems, understand and value their freedom far more than they were given credit for. And, because they value their freedom and are able to think for themselves without waiting to be told what to do, they make an invincible force, as Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban are discovering.
To comment: mmostert@bannerofliberty.com