Republican Club
by Brian Harmon
LW contributor
Dec. 7 is known as Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, but it is not recognized as an official American holiday, However, that day in 1941 is arguably one of the most significant days in world history.
Three of the six carriers sunk by Imperial Japanese aircraft that day were repaired through American ingenuity and put into action against both Germany and Japan.
However, what happened that day brought the United States into WWII, making the eventual defeat of both imperial Japan and Nazi Germany inevitable. Most Americans today do not realize that, according to surveys taken around September 1941, only 60 percent of Americans were in favor of getting involved in World War II.
In one day, Pearl Harbor changed all of that. Maybe U.S. entry to the war was inevitable. How long that would have taken is a question no one can answer. At that time, Britain, was in terrible shape. Even British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said privately and in his journal that he feared his country would lose to the Nazis. Pearl Harbor convinced him otherwise. Britain’s loss to the Germans would have resulted in Nazi control of Europe and all of the Soviet Union, which goes all the way to China and almost to Japan. It was a dark day in American history, but it was one that would move the U.S. to officially join the war and shift the tide to the Allied powers to end the war.
