Eighty years ago today, the Empire of Japan unleashed an unprovoked attack on the American fleet at Pearl Harbor on a clear Sunday morning whilst soldiers and sailors innocently ate breakfast, prepared for church, raised the flag, and went about their business.
Two waves of Japanese bombers, torpedo planes, and fighters — 353 in all — sent America’s Pacific fleet to the bottom of the mud, killing 2,403 Americans and dragging America into a world war.
The battleship Arizona — sunk, total loss, 1,177 KIA, remains sunk at Pearl Harbor;
The battleship California — sunk, refloated, returned to service February 1944;
The battleship Maryland — damaged by direct hits, returned to service February 1942;
The battleship Nevada — managed to get underway, beached itself to avoid clogging up the main entrance to Pearl, sunk, decommissioned in 1946, shipped to Bikini Atoll as a target ship for nuclear weapons tests, sunk by Naval gunfire in 1948;
The battleship Oklahoma — sunk, total loss, never repaired;
The battleship Pennsylvania — damaged by bombs while in drydock, returned to service March 1942;
The battleship Tennessee — minor damage, repaired and returned to the fleet in February 1942;
The battleship Utah — capsized, never repaired, remains at Pearl Harbor (the Utah is often overlooked as it was not moored on Battleship Row, but was at anchor off Ford Island after returning to Pearl following gunnery exercises); and,
The battleship West Virginia — sunk, refloated, returned to service July 1944.
The American Warrior Spirit
What also happened that day was the re-awakening of the American warrior spirit that had driven the Colonies to revolt against the English King — who commanded the largest army and navy in the world and who hired the best Hessian mercenaries.
We are a nation born at the tip of a bloody bayonet wielded by free men who refused to knuckle under to a king.
General George Washington took a cobbled together underpaid, underequipped, undertrained, amateur army of state militias and conducted a brilliant war against the most experienced officer corps (fresh from the Seven Years’ War on the Continent) and soldiers on the planet.
No George Washington? No United States of America.
America is only America when it is well led. We need leaders who are cast in the mold of Washington and Marshall.
The American military, the greatest startup
Post Pearl Harbor, from a small army of less than 175,000 men, more than 16,000,000 men and women would wear the nation’s uniform and engage in two bloody wars simultaneously ultimately bringing the Empire of Japan and the Third Reich to their knees in unconditional surrender while becoming the Arsenal of Democracy and creating an economic engine that has never been topped.
The leadership of America was entrusted to men. MEN. Men like George C Marshall who Winston Churchill called “the Architect of Victory in World War II.”
Men who were serious, who harnessed their fears, men who believed in the goodness of our Nation, men who risked their lives, and men who learned the craft of war — air power, artillery, combined arms, tanks, amphibious landings, air/sea/land battle, Rangers, paratroopers, bombers, fighters, convoys, submarines, landing craft, nuclear weapons — and beat the most skilled practitioners of evil at their own game.
These were not men who saw their job as being an exercise in social engineering; they saw their job as being to win wars.
How did they do it, Big Red Car?
How did they do it?
They called upon the lessons of the American Revolution, Valley Forge, the unquenchable thirst for freedom that powers nations, and they called upon a just God to guide them.
And we got lucky — the Japanese failed to knock out the fuel point at Pearl, left our ordinance repair shops intact, and failed to find our four aircraft carriers. The American fleet got back in the fight years and years earlier than the Japanese believed possible.
And, then, the Marines came for the Japanese at Guadalcanal. The Army landed in North Africa. The Air Force bombed Germany. Our subs sunk enemy ships in the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Med.
The American people endured rationing. Women took the war jobs in factories whilst their husbands, brothers, fathers went to war. We came together.
We were new at the game, but we mastered it quickly and we beat our enemies. America did this and in doing this defined our national character. We are a good people living in the best country on Earth and when evil almost vanquished good, America tipped the scales in favor of good. That is who we were.
More importantly, that is who we still are. The sons of tigers are tigers. We are a great nation and the last, best hope for mankind.
Why did the Japanese attack?
The Japanese depended upon the United States for its ferrous metal and oil. The Japanese Empire and the men leading it had delusions of empire, an innate warped sense of their own importance, a lust for power, and wanted to sever this relationship.
The Japanese answer was to conquer China, to seize the oil producing countries in the South China Sea, and to do this they had to eliminate the American fleet because they recognized that the American fleet was the largest impediment to their ambitions.
It is important to remember the why. It all began with an economic premise of empire held by evil men.
Why is it important to remember the why, Big Red Car?
Ahhh, dear reader, because America and the world finds itself in a similar moment.
One nation, Communist China, led by evil men, is equally ambitious. They desire to control the world starting with their corner of it.
Evidence?
1. Their delusional fixation and threats on forcibly taking Taiwan, pretending it is a wayward province when it is a democracy, as well as their continuous penetrations of the Taiwan Air Defense Identification Zone with hundreds of fighters, nuclear capable bombers, electronic warfare planes, and command/control aircraft.
This is a dress rehearsal.
2. The alarming bellicose language threatening Japan with nuclear annihilation if they support Taiwan.
3. Massive buildup of military force — hundreds and hundreds of ICBM launch sites under construction, massive shipbuilding program, and dramatic increases in nuclear missiles.
Mockups of American aircraft carriers and surface ships in deserts for a single reason — to practice how to attack and destroy America’s fleet once again.
These are not the actions of a friendly nation. They are the mirror image of the arming of both the Empire of Japan and the Third Reich in the early to mid-1930s.
This is a nation preparing to attack the United States.
4. A gargantuan increase in cyber and satellite war preparation. We are at war right now with China on the Internet and in outer space.
5. The drowning of Hong Kong’s fledgling promised “One China, Two Systems” lie.
China agreed to this bargain for fifty years and broke their hollow promise almost immediately. Know who China is by their actions.
The Chinese cannot allow freedom anywhere in their empire as it exposes the hollowness of their beliefs. Free men and women would never elect these particular Communists to run China. They know that.
6. The use of economic muscle to quiet the voices of those who question anything about the Chinese leadership as reflected in their brutal attempt to wreck the Australian cattle industry.
This is the shadow and the echo of Tiananmen Square whereat tanks literally crushed the voice of freedom.
7. The Chinese arming of a dozen atolls in the South China Sea to put almost half of the world’s shipping lanes under an umbrella of shore-to-ship radar guided missiles and to host runways capable of serving nuclear planes.
Not the actions of a peace loving nation.
The Chinese told the world they were building fishing fleet maintenance facilities and the Obama admin believed them.
8. The genocide against the Uyghers and their wholesale disregard for the dignity of life as evidenced by the Chinese Social Credit System. Despots require the subjugation of their people to the state.
9. The manner in which they have been uncooperative in discovering the origin of the China Virus in their country.
10. The theft of technology and trade secrets that is the core value of Chinese business.
11. The seeking of military bases on the Atlantic coast of Africa and in South America to streamline their pressure on the continental US.
These are not the acts of a peace loving nation. Look at this list, close your eyes, and divine the parallels with the arming of Japan and Germany before the onset of hostilities.
Do I have this wrong? Is so, show me where.
What is the lesson of Pearl Harbor?
It could happen again. We are being lulled into a deadly sleep by incompetent leadership who refuses to see China for who they are and who refuses to confront China from a position of strength.
The world will not have the time to marshal its resources when the next Pearl Harbor arrives.
But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway? I’m just a Big Red Car, but I have studied our history and I am alarmed. Let’s get off our asses and deal with China before it is too late.
Remember the lessons of Pearl Harbor. God bless America.