Pearl Harbour Redux |
This month marked the 84th anniversary of Japan’s “dastardly” attack on Pearl Harbour. Only a handful of survivors are left, and very few Americans were alive then. Hence, Pearl Harbour, like past wars and battles, is passing into the distant mists of time.
What is interesting is that a surprising number of visitors to the USS Arizona memorial, in which an admiral, Isaac Kidd, and 1,177 of his shipmates perished, are Japanese. That suggests how much times have changed. Japan is now a close and trusted ally. So is Germany. And American allies in the war are now on opposite sides, China and Russia.
One wonders what conditions will be like eighty-four years from now, in 2104. Not even Hollywood or Netflix could come close in their movies to portraying that future. But let us compare December 1941 and December 2025.
For a start, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was president. FDR was considered the most powerful president at that point, with his New Deal legislation and attempts to pack the Supreme Court. Democrats held 267 out of 435 House seats and 66 out of 96 in the Senate. The war in Europe had consumed FDR, as he used every means to support Great Britain, which stood alone against the Hitlerian........