I share the surprise of Andretta Schellinger that the Chronicle, such a friend of our veterans, made no mention of the 73rd anniversary of Pearl Harbor.
But I must gently correct the author of the wonderful history of military airplane nose art (From Knights to Skulls: The Cultural Evolution of Nose Artwork) when she writes “The attack on Dec. 7, 1941. was not only the largest single loss of life that the United States military suffered but also the start of the largest war in the modern era.”
The U.S. Navy Museum lists 2008 Navy, 218 Army and 109 Marine personnel killed, for a total of 2,335 service deaths.
Some 68 civilians also lost their lives in the attack. But recent research by the D-Day Memorial Foundation indicates the number of American service personnel deaths from the D-Day landings on June 6, 1944 at 2,499.
Also, Pearl Harbor did not mark the start of World War II, which began September 1, 1939 — more than two years earlier — when Germany invaded Poland. Rather, it signaled America’s entry into the war.
While the Pacific fleet of battleships was devastated, the aircraft carriers were fortunately not at Pearl Harbor at the time of the attack, as the attackers would discover to their sorrow.
Though the attribution may be questionable, the situation can best be summed up by the quote attributed to Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto: “I fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve.”
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