Pearl Harbor: Faith and Reasons

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Pearl Harbor: Faith and Reasons 7:55 A.M. December 7, 1941. This was the last instant of peace experienced before history was forever altered. It was while many Americans had their television sets tuned to the Dodger-Giant football game that they first learned of the Japanese attack. Ninety-six ships were docked at the harbor that Sunday morning, the most that had been there since the fourth of July. But when the Japanese striking force descended upon them complete with thirty one ships and twenty eight submarines, they were no match. 4,003 military personel and American civilians were killed before 10:00 A.M.. This attack single handedly launched the second world war. Trouble had begun to develop in the two powerful nations of Germany and Japan. Both nations began to expand their reigns of destruction through parts of the civilian world. Japan as early as the 1930's began to attack China and Shanghai. Hitler's rise to power constitiuted in the breakdown of German government and the massacre of approximately six million Jews. He controlled and desecrated such countires as Norway, France, Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Russia, and Germany. When Japan, Italy, and Germany formed the axis powers in September of 1946, the Americans knew they had to be stopped. Hitler, along with the Japanese, planned to attck and ultimately take over the United States. As early as October, 1941, a German war vessel attacked an American destroyer. The citizens knew that it was only a matter of time before action would need to be taken against the axis powers. Meeting between the President and tyhe Cabinent to discuss the situation between the axis powers and America were frequent in the weeks before the attack. ... ... middle of paper ... ... This speech lasted six minutes and war was voted on in less than an hour. This speech struck home to the Americans the importance of the country bonding together to fight the common enemy. "Fury" was the word to describe the country at large. This feeling carried with the Americans until their victory in 1945. Bibliography 1. Lord, Walter. Day of Infamy. New York, Henry Holt and Company. 1957. 2. Mintz, Frank Paul.Revisionalism and the Origins of Pearl Harbor. New York, University Press of America. 1985. 3. Sheehan, Ed. Days of '41: Pearl Harbor Remembered. Honolulu, Hawaii, Kapa Associated. 1976. 4. Trefousse, Hans Louis. What Happened at Pearl Harbor? New York, Twayne.1958. 5. Wohlstetter, Roberta. Pearl Harbor:Warnings and Decisions. New York, Stanford University Press of America. 1985.

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