Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Pearl Harbor Day

DECEMBER 7, 2010

Pearl Harbor Day, a date that will live in infamy. NEVER FORGET. We can get over it but better never forget it. As we were reminded in 2001, surprise attacks can happen anytime, anywhere.

Notable events on this date:

1941 Japanese attack Pearl Harbor (a date that will live in infamy)
1941 1st Japanese submarine sunk by a US ship (USS Ward)
1941 Australian bombers land on Timor/Ambon
1941 Futshida's air fleet passes coastline of Oahu
1941 German siege of Tobruk after 8 months ends
1941 Nacht & Nebel Erlass, resistance fighter sent to concentration camps

Go to this web site for a good telling of the story of the USS Arizona;


As FDR put it, December 7, 1941 was a date that will live in infamy. The news dispatch from Pearl Harbor that Sunday morning was as follows;

On December 7, 1941, Japanese planes attacked the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory, killing more than 2,300 Americans. The U.S.S. Arizona was completely destroyed and the U.S.S. Oklahoma capsized.  A total of twelve ships sank or were beached in the attack and nine additional vessels were damaged. More than 160 aircraft were destroyed and more than 150 others damaged.
A hurried dispatch from the ranking United States naval officer in Pearl Harbor, Commander in Chief Pacific, to all major navy commands and fleet units provided the first official word of the attack at the ill-prepared Pearl Harbor base. It said simply: AIR RAID ON PEARL HARBOR X THIS IS NOT DRILL
It is hard to write anything new about the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor by an arrogant, inferior and ignorant race of people, The Japanese of 1941. Adolph Hitler knew bringing the United States into the war in 1941 was a bad idea that would prolong the war if not lead to its failure. The Japanese would not listen and paid the ultimate price, a nuclear attack on itself 3 ½ years later. The news as it was gathered and reported at the time follows;

The following day, President Franklin Roosevelt, addressing a joint session of Congress, called December 7 "a date which will live in infamy." Declaring war against Japan, Congress ushered the United States into World War II and forced a nation, already close to war, to abandon isolationism. Within days, Japan's allies, Germany and Italy, declared war on the United States, and the country began a rapid transition to a wartime economy in building up armaments in support of military campaigns in the Pacific, North Africa, and Europe.
Also on the day following Pearl Harbor, Alan Lomax, head of the Library of Congress Archive of American Folk Song, sent a telegram to colleagues around the U.S. asking them to collect people's immediate reactions to the bombing. Over the next few days prominent folklorists such as John Lomax, John Henry Faulk, Charles Todd, Robert Sonkin, and Lewis Jones responded by recording "man on the street" interviews in New York, North Carolina, Texas, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. They interviewed salesmen, electricians, janitors, oilmen, cabdrivers, housewives, students, soldiers, physicians, and others regarding the events of December 7. Among the interviewees was a California woman then visiting her family in Dallas, Texas.
"My first thought was what a great pity that… another nation should be added to those aggressors who strove to limit our freedom. I find myself at the age of eighty, an old woman, hanging on to the tail of the world, trying to keep up. I do not want the driver's seat. But the eternal verities--there are certain things that I wish to express: one thing that I am very sure of is that hatred is death, but love is light. I want to contribute to the civilization of the world but…when I look at the holocaust that is going on in the world today, I'm almost ready to let go…"

NEVER FORGET
Congratulations to the NIU Huskies. They will play in a bowl game.  Northern Illinois will close out a record-setting season with an appearance on the "blue turf" of Boise's Bronco Stadium in the 2010 uDrove Humanitarian Bowl it was announced Sunday night.
The Huskies (10-3, 8-0) will face Fresno State (8-4, 5-3) of the Western Athletic Conference in the 2010 uDrove Humanitarian Bowl on Saturday, Dec. 18, 2010. Fresno State beat the University of Illinois on Friday night, Dec. 3, 2010.  The game will kick off at 3:30 p.m. (Mountain)/4:30 p.m. (Central) and be televised nationally by ESPN and can be heard on ESPN Radio.
Tickets for the 2010 uDrove Humanitarian Bowl game can be purchased for $25 through the Bowl Central page on the Northern Illinois Athletics' website at www.NIUHuskies.com, or by calling the NIU Athletics Ticket Office at 815-752-6800 during regular business hours.
Coach Jerry Kill will not be the coach of the Huskies. He has accepted the head coaching job at the University of Minnesota, a Big Ten school. One of the downfalls of having a successful program is that your coaches are always being interviewed and considered for other jobs. The Big Ten is a step-up on the coaching ladder for Jerry Kill. Good luck to him. Be careful who you run the score up on in the Big Ten. Big Ten coaches have long memories, perhaps longer than your career in the Big Ten.

Don’t forget to buy my book. The book is going fast. It makes a great Christmas gift or two.
BRUCE A. BRENNAN
DEKALB, IL 60115
COPYRIGHT 2010
Email: brucebrennanlaw@aol.com
www.brucebrennanlaws.com
www.lawyerbruceabrennan.com
Go to web sites below to buy books by Bruce A. Brennan
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ (do a quick search, Title, my name)
www.smashwords.com Do a Title or author search, Check this



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