{"id":178,"date":"2018-07-19T14:17:32","date_gmt":"2018-07-19T21:17:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/?page_id=178"},"modified":"2018-09-12T08:55:31","modified_gmt":"2018-09-12T15:55:31","slug":"9-11-was-not-like-pearl-harbor-2001","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/9-11-was-not-like-pearl-harbor-2001\/","title":{"rendered":"Not Pearl Harbor (2001)"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 On Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists took down the World Trade Center in New York and damaged the Pentagon near Washington, D.C. The event shocked the nation, and rallied support for the government to such an extent that opposing voices were silenced. It was repeated over and over that America was at war. To justify that claim, the attacks were everywhere compared with Japan\u2019s \u201csurprise attack\u201d on Pearl Harbor in 1941. I thought the Pearl Harbor comparison was propaganda. The 9-11 attack was private terrorism. There had been attacks abroad against a Navy ship in Yemen and a couple of embassies in east Africa, but Americans were not expecting such a thing in New York or Washington, D.C. In contrast, the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor by the Imperial Japanese Navy was a surprise only in the particulars. America was in an undeclared war with German submarines in the Atlantic and on the verge of war with Japan in the Pacific. In September 2001 the nation was at peace; in December 1941 we were one inch from the most horrendous war in human history. The situations were not the same.<\/span><\/i><\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 For the 60th<\/sup>anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, I wrote the next column, which ran in the Seattle Times of Dec. 5, 2001. It was based on my reading of the Times from September, October, November and December 1941. It sketches the overture to the Pearl Harbor attacks \u2014 a narrative much different from one Americans had just experienced regarding 9-11.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0It was 60 years ago Friday that Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. But the year 2001, for all the parallels, is but a pale shadow of 1941.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Before Sept. 11, there was nary a hint of an attack on the United States. A perusal of the\u00a0Seattle Times<\/i>\u00a0in the three months before Dec. 7, 1941, finds it filled with war and foreboding.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We remember that the United States was at peace before being attacked by Japan. We remember wrong. America already had one foot in the war. We had enacted a military draft. Soldiers were in our movies, in ads, everywhere. On Oct. 30, the entire Third Army Division, 12,000 men, paraded through Tacoma. A war boom was on. In Seattle, there were traffic jams on East Marginal Way as 21,000 workers commuted to Boeing to assemble bombers for Britain.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And U.S. policy? The president was saying, \u201cWe shall do everything in our power to crush Hitler and his Nazi forces.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You would expect such a bellicose statement after Dec. 7. He said it Sept. 1. He said it many times. Roosevelt was mentally at war with Germany months before it was official. He viewed Germany as a direct threat to the United States.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Many Americans did not. Ex-President Herbert Hoover said Sept. 17 that if the German army could not cross the English Channel, it could not cross the Atlantic. Anyway, Hitler had his hands full in Russia. Hoover urged Roosevelt to lay off the \u201cwar phobia,\u201d which was stifling the freedom to dissent.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Antiwar forces, derided as isolationists, were finding it tough going. On Sept. 23, 1941, the America First Committee was denied the use of the Eagles Auditorium in Seattle because of its views. Its speaker, Sen. Burton K. Wheeler, D-Mont., used a rented theater half the size, with an overflow crowd.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Clerics made an issue of aid to Russia. In early October, when Roosevelt referred in a speech to the religious freedom guaranteed by the Soviet constitution, clerics erupted. Gerald Shaughnessy, the Catholic bishop of Seattle, denounced the president\u2019s statement as deceptive.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0That was on page one Oct. 3.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As these arguments swirled, the U.S. Navy began escorting convoys in the North Atlantic, with orders to fire if fired upon.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0On Sept. 5, it was reported that a U-boat had fired on the destroyer\u00a0Greer<\/i>. On Sept. 12, the president said on the radio,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cI tell you the blunt fact that the German submarine fired first upon the American destroyer without warning, and with deliberate design to sink her.\u201d That was true; but the\u00a0Greer\u00a0<\/i>had been chasing the sub.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 On Sept. 12, the president authorized the Navy to shoot first.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0On Oct. 17, a U-boat torpedoed but did not sink the destroyer\u00a0<\/span>Kearny<\/span>, killing 21 Americans, including five from Seattle. On Oct. 29, the Navy said the\u00a0<\/span>Kearny<\/span>\u00a0fired first \u2014 and issued no apologies.<\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 On Oct. 31, the destroyer\u00a0Reuben James<\/i>\u00a0was sunk, with large loss of life.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Each of these was a page-one story in the\u00a0Times<\/i>, as were battles in Russia. There were fewer stories about Japan, most of them on inside pages.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In July, the president had embargoed shipments of oil to Japan, to protest its seizure of Indochina. On Sept. 2, the Japanese high command said Japan was being squeezed by the Allies, and that it might have to \u201cbreak through the encirclement by force.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 On Oct. 17, a page-one banner proclaimed, \u201cJapanese War Chiefs Rule!\u201d Japan\u2019s civilian prime minister had been replaced by Gen. Hideki Tojo, the war minister.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 On Oct. 25, Henry Knox, secretary of the Navy, declared that a \u201ccollision\u201d in the Far East was virtually inevitable.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 On Nov. 5, Japan sent diplomat Saburo Karusu in what the\u00a0Times<\/i>\u00a0called a \u201clast attempt\u201d to avert war.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 On Nov. 25, Sen. Claude Pepper, D-Fla., whom the\u00a0Times\u00a0<\/i>called an \u201cadministration mouthpiece,\u201d said of Karusu, \u201cIf he\u2019s come with a threat, we\u2019ll throw him in the Pacific.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 On Nov. 27, the talks broke down on Japan\u2019s demand that the United States stop helping China. This was on page 11.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 On Dec. 6, Japan ominously recalled two attach\u00e9s from Washington, D.C., the NYK Line recalled chiefs from Singapore and Bombay, and British forces went on alert in Singapore. That was on page one.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The next morning, Pearl Harbor.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A surprise? In specific, yes; in general, no.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In that sense and in the scale of conflict that followed, Dec. 7, 1941, had little resemblance to Sept. 11, 2001.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a9 2001\u00a0The<\/i>\u00a0Seattle Times<\/i><\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 On Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists took down the World Trade Center in New York and damaged the Pentagon near Washington, D.C. The event shocked the nation, and rallied support for the government to such an extent that opposing voices were silenced. It was repeated over and over that America was at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-178","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":725,"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/178\/revisions\/725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}