Whatever way you look at it the US especially, but also the UK, squeezed that Japanese into a very tight box. There were very many in Japan that did not want a war either as well as an alliance with a power on the other side of the Globe.
Wish someone would do that to me.
But they were not in power, and I think Japan and the US were on an inevitable collision course perhaps going back to the mid-1800s, when US colonists inhabited Chi Chi Jima, Iwo Jima’s sister island… (from “Flyboys”)
I’m not saying the US, or the Commonwealth, were innocent here, but with Japanese aggression in CHINA, there was no hope for peace; and Japaese were practising their own version of Manifest Destiny…
Well. The US supplied all of the Jaanese oil and US scrap metal was essential to Japans economy. The US could have controlled the situation better.
Many in the Japanese Government and Military did not want to go to war with the US. Yamamato stated this so strongly that he had to be sent to sea in case he was assasinated.
So not every Japanese was a raving warmonger I don’t think. Mixed signals by both parties here in my opinion caused the conflict.
Reopened for discussion on this Sunday, December 7th…
RIP to the men who died on that day. Know that you will be remembered always.
And to the poster who said that the one bomb from a Mitsubishi went down the funnel of the Arizona, it was a Nakajima Kate doing level bombing and it went through the deck plating.
The strange thing is, the only thing I’ve seen about this in the media is an MSNBC video on the conspiracy theories with little explanation…
There is a History Channel show that shows two bombs going into the Arizona, one glanced off a main battery turret, and through the deck into an area that did little damage, and then in the second level bombing attack one went through the deck, again near a Main Battery turret, this time going off in proximity to the magazine of that turret. That second bomb is the one believed to have caused the chain reaction explosions that finished the Arizona.No mention was made of any ordnance going into a funnel. The huge secondary explosions found their way out of the stack, billowing smoke and flame, perhaps some think this was from a bomb going into the stack.
The sad thing is that the event is often stuck on the back pages of a newspaper or not at all. If we forget the past it will often be repeated. I wasn’t born when it happened and did not lose any relatives in it but I and my family certainly don’t forget it. God bless our service personnel.
Some people feel that it was so long ago,that its not relevant in today’s world, and that we (America) should forgive, and forget. Though I would disagree with the relevance part,if some wish to forgive, and forget, they are welcome to. I will say that regardless of forgiving the sinners, and forgetting their sin, we as a people should always remember those who fell that day.The media shouldnt be needed for Americans to remember Pearl Harbor.