On December 7, 1941, aircraft from the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) streaked over Pearl Harbor, bombing and torpedoing the American fleet at anchor. Nearly 2,400 Americans were killed that day; US President Franklin Roosevelt quickly called it a “Day of Infamy.” National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day beckons us to step back and reflect not only on that day, but on the many other incidents in which attacks have occurred on US soil.
The “Day of Infamy” was followed by several months of fear – particularly along the West Coast. Japanese submarines prowled the waters off the western portion of the United States. The 1942 Rose Bowl was canceled, before being relocated to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where Oregon State beat Duke, 20 to 16.
In February 1942, a Japanese submarine shelled the Ellwood oil refinery, near Santa Barbara, with her 140 mm deck guns. In June of that year, Fort Stevens, Oregon was bombarded by the deck guns of a Japanese submersible. That same month, two remote Aleutian islands, Attu and Kiska, were invaded and occupied by Japanese troops. Dutch Harbor in Alaska was bombed.
Panic swept the West Coast. Japanese-Americans were shipped to internment camps and denied their constitutional rights. This was a gross overreaction by the US government, but the threat and danger from Japan were real.
In the last two years of World War II, Japan launched thousands of Fu-Go balloon bombs carrying incendiary explosives, hoping to set American forests ablaze. The jet stream transported these devices to US states, including Wyoming and Iowa. In May 1945, six people were killed in Oregon by a Japanese balloon bomb.
We Americans often forget this and assume that we are invulnerable to invasion and attack. Are we not protected by the great moats of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans? We tend to forget that they’ve also been highways for invasion and attack.
In fact, successive waves of invasions have shaped our country in countless ways. The English founded Jamestown, Virginia, while the Spanish held Florida and the French tried to establish settlements in Texas and Louisiana (Nouvelle Orleans). The Russians colonized Alaska and even built Fort Ross in Northern California, near what’s now called the “Russian River”. They occupied Fort Ross for nearly 30 years, from 1812-41, attempting to grow crops that would sustain their Alaskan possession.
Even as we look back, National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day is an apt time to look ahead to the future and consider potential threats to our homeland.
Over 80 years ago, the threat came from Imperial Japan. Today, the threat comes from a blustering dictator in North Korea.
Kim Jong Un’s threats to attack the US with intercontinental weapons isn’t entirely without historic precedent, in light Japan’s World War II-era Fu-Go bombs, but the potential scale of destruction it represents is. Kim is capable of exploding crude atomic devices; North Korean missiles have been fired through Japanese airspace.
The risks of today’s escalations are palpable. Let us not forget that weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) led our nation into war in Iraq.
Pearl Harbor famously united public opinion in the United States – “Remember Pearl Harbor” became a rallying cry. A nation that was woefully unprepared on December 7, 1941, was rapidly transformed into a vast arsenal of democracy. Decades have changed the tempo and potential devastation of modern warfare. Kim’s grandfather launched the Korean War in 1950, with a devastating invasion of the south. His grandson has the capacity to launch multiple Hiroshimas.
Surveying the political landscape today, our nation seems more divided than ever. Will we have the wisdom to recognize the threats that face us, to remain vigilant and preserve peace in a world troubled by murderous dictators?
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Will our leaders have the wisdom to meet bluster, not with more bluster, but with strength?
Christopher Kelly, an American history writer based in Seattle and London, is co-author with English historian Stuart Laycock of America Invaded: A State by State Guide to Fighting on American Soil.
Other titles by Kelly and Laycock include America Invades: How We’ve Invaded or Been Militarily Involved With Almost Every County on Earth and Italy Invades: How Italians Conquered the World. He also edited An Adventure in 1914: The True Story of an American Family’s Journey on the Brink of WWI.
Kelly’s articles and op-eds have appeared in various publications, including USA Today, Investor’s Business Daily, New York Daily News and the San Francisco Chronicle, and he has conducted more than 200 radio interviews.
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