Seventy-nine
years ago today, the Imperial Japanese Navy launched a surprise attack on Pearl
Harbor and other US military installations on Oahu island in Hawaii. At roughly
the same time, US military installations in the Philippines were also attacked.
However, since the Philippines are on the other side of the international
dateline, their history of the attack is dated December 8, 1941.
Most
Americans of my generation have grown up with the memories of JFK, RFK, and MLK’s
assassinations. Of course, my generation was forever changed by the Vietnam
War. Our parents, however, grew up with the impressions of World War II firmly
lodged in their national and generational identity. And what began World War II
for us? The attack on Pearl Harbor, without question.
My attitude toward the attack on Pearl Harbor and the war that it sparked is somewhat different than most of my generation because of two important men in my life who were in uniform and came under attack on that fateful day. Rex Bray, our next-door neighbor when I was in high school and the man I worked for as a summer higher for two summers, was an enlisted man in the Army Air Corps at Clark Field in the Philippines. Leon Waldrip [pictured], my favorite uncle as a teenager and my father’s favorite older sibling, was serving in the coastal artillery as an enlisted man in the United States Army, stationed at Corregidor.
Twenty
years after World War II, Rex Bray and Leon Waldrip saw each other for the
first time after the war in front of our house in Warm Springs, Oregon. They had
never known each other’s names before, but each recognized the other as a
comrade who had survived the brutality of a Japanese prison camp on the Bataan
Peninsula. That night I learned from my uncle Leon about the bravery of Rex
Bray, risking his life to keep fellow prisoners of war alive. Over the days
following my uncle’s return home, I learned from Rex Bray about the bravery of
my uncle Leon, risking his life to keep fellow prisoners of war alive.
I
also had an uncle in the European theater of operations. I had several uncles who
served in the South Pacific. But it was these two men who I knew and looked up
to who were in uniform, on the scene, when the war began. Because of them, I
have always had a keen interest in the attack on Pearl Harbor, the attack on
the Philippines, and just about everything about World War II.
I
could not have predicted my emotional response when a former church member and
US Navy veteran reminded me, on December 5, that two days later would be the 79th
anniversary of Pearl Harbor. His in-laws (I suspect) were living on the island
of Guam when, at least for the United States, it all began.
Victor Davis Hanson {pictured] is a classicist and military historian who has grown in popularity over the last few years because he is one of the few academicians who unreservedly supports President Donald J. Trump. My interest in VDH is partly due to his recognition that World War II was a series of wars that began at different times but merged into one giant conflict.
War
had gone on for years in Europe before our country’s involvement began. In the
Far East, Japan had occupied the Korean Peninsula for years and had pushed into
Manchuria, establishing a puppet state known as Manchukuo. Of course, the USA
was involved, especially in the European war, by a program called Lend-Lease,
whereby FDR “lent” ships, trucks, and vast quantities of other necessities to
not only Great Britain, but in the main and somewhat concealed from the
American public to the Soviet Union.
Then,
for some reason, the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the military facilities in
two locations of the United States. The question that begs for an answer is why
the most significant industrial power in the world was attacked? Why drag the
United States of America into the war, isolated from the fighting in two
theaters of operation by huge oceans?
Some
historians point out the provocations of FDR directed at the Empire of Japan.
Others make mention of the threats to Japanese sources for raw materials. However,
some other considerations are almost never mentioned by those supplying answers
to the questions that are asked. Japan already had access to sources of
petroleum to its south. As well, Japan already occupied Manchuria with its
abundance of coal and other materials that they mined.
Why
would Japan forgo striking to the north against the Soviet Union? After all,
they had already decisively defeated the Russians at the Battle of Tsushima
Strait in 1905.[1] Since Germany had
attacked the Soviet Union’s Western front in June 1941, a Japanese attack of the
Soviet Union would create a two-front war against the Soviet Union. The Eastern
front being at the edge of the far distant Siberia would have been an easy win
for the Japanese.
Yet Japan attacked the
most formidable industrial power on the planet, located on the other side of
the Pacific Ocean. The USA possessed no vital interests on their side of the
Pacific. Why would they do that? Why did they launch an attack against the
Armed Forces in which my uncle Leon and my boss Rex Bray served? Why did they
launch an attack that resulted in these two much-admired young men spending 3 ½
years in a brutal prison camp environment?
I think Diana West has the answer pictured]. She began her writing career as an investigative journalist and commentator but has also written a couple of incredibly insightful histories. I find her such an interesting writer that I was reading three of her books at the same time. I am not a neutral observer when it comes to Diana West’s books.
I believe the answer to the question of
why Japan attacked the United States and not the Soviet Union can be found on
the pages of her 2013 book, “American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s
Character.” A meticulous researcher, West has pulled together threads from
readily accessible sources. Each of her works is thoroughly sourced.
I was reminded in her book of a Soviet
spy serving in Tokyo, a German national. Posing as a Nazi, and moving in the
inner circles of Japan’s shakers and movers, this Soviet spy’s communications
with Moscow were retrieved after the fall of the Soviet Union, thanks to Boris
Yeltsin. The Soviet Union used their Tokyo spy with significant effect. Even
using him to persuade the Japanese high command to attack the United States and
pushed can be found, rather than attack a far more vulnerable Soviet union’s
eastern flank.
There is a second reason why the Soviet Union
influenced Japan to attack the USA. Stalin wanted Germany to fight a two-front war, knowing
that Great Britain was not strong enough to fight the German war machine
without help. But Stalin did not want the war to be won too quickly. Evidence
suggests he delayed the prosecution of the war long enough for the Russian
front to push the Germans out of the Soviet Union and into Germany. Once Stalin
had pushed the front into the non-Russian territory, knowing that he would
never give up territory his soldiers had occupied, he was ready for the war to
be won.
Not only was the United States dragged
into a war that they didn’t need to be involved in because of the Soviet
influence of the Japanese high command, but millions of people died in Europe
who didn’t need to die, all because Josef Stalin prolonged the war so he could
gain occupied territory. While Uncle Joe and Winston Churchill were playing
chess, FDR played checkers and ended up being played.
FDR was right when he claimed that the
attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, would be a day that would live in
infamy. That infamy, however, would be far greater than he could ever imagine.
