Remember Pearl Harbor

If you notice that flags are flying lower than usual today it’s because today is Pearl Harbor Day.

You might already know that. You might not. At the Frontiersman, we get a lot of questions whenever flags are lowered. People wonder who or what is being commemorated.

It’s easy to figure out when you have the day off work for Memorial Day. Or on days remembering more recent tragedies.

At the Frontiersman, we believe that as the World War II generation slowly fades, these national days of remembrance become all the more important. We as a nation need to take over the duty of telling these stories from that Greatest Generation lest they be forgotten.

Pearl Harbor provided the impetus for America’s involvement in World War II. Dec. 7, 1941, was a sunny morning in Hawaii. Just before 8 a.m., Japanese fighter planes, bombers, and torpedo planes launched a surprise attack on the U.S. Navy’s Pacific fleet.

The attack sunk seven battleships. In the battle, 2,403 Americans lost their lives and 1,178 were wounded.

But if the intent was to keep the Pacific fleet from attacking Japan, the attack was in that regard unsuccessful. Six of those sunken battleships would be refloated and five returned to service during the war.

With president Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously describing the attacks as “a date which will live in infamy,” the United States declared war on Japan the following day. Three days later, Germany and Italy declared war on the U.S., which our country reciprocated almost immediately.

The events have been immortalized again and again on film and will probably be recounted a few more times. We remind ourselves of these events because the war was a defining moment in the history of our nation and of our planet.

In Europe, we saw what we believed to be the most advanced civilizations on earth descend into the worst kind of barbarism. In the U.S., we witnessed collective effort toward a common goal that is still held up as an example of what we can achieve when we come together as a people. In the Pacific we saw paradisiacal islands turned into blasted hellscapes.

World War II is a lesson in military strategy, in the dangers of despotism, in the evil that lurks just beneath the surface of civilization, and in the good that collective action can achieve. It illuminates the best and worst of humanity. And it is for that reason that we must continue to remember and to study its lessons.

So we hope you will join with us and with Gov. Bill Walker in taking some time to think about that date which will live in infamy. We’ll let the governor have the last word, taken from his press release on the Remembrance Day:

“I encourage all Alaskans to come together to remember those whose lives were lost, and to pay homage to those who have served or are currently serving in our nation’s military, and their families, for their sacrifices and dedication to our freedom.”