This past Tuesday marked the 80th anniversary of the infamous bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese.
On that Sunday morning in 1941, Japanese planes unleashed a bombardment, killing and injuring thousands of American military personnel and many civilians.
My dad had turned 18 years old three months before the bombing. Like so many other millions of men and women, he joined the war effort and became a lieutenant in the
Air Force.
He was a navigator on a B-24 Liberator bomber. He told me there was one occasion he had to substitute as the bombardier and that was difficult.
Dad didn’t ever talk much about his time in the war. Occasionally, he would, but not very often for whatever reason.
He lost a good friend in the war, a pilot, and he didn’t say a lot about that either.
During training near Mountain Home, Idaho, the plane caught fire and the crew members were forced to bail out. All but one landed safely, dad said, an airman whose parachute apparently never opened and he was killed. His body was discovered by a rescue party.
I know those events must have weighed on dad’s mind for a long time. Maybe that’s why dad didn’t say too much about it.
The bombing was the act that thrust the United States into World War II, a war that would end nearly four years later with the dropping of two atomic bonds within three days on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.
Hundreds of thousands of American men and women are no longer with us to share their feelings about one of the most important days in our history.
The attack killed 2,403 Americans, including servicemen and 68 civilians.
There were an additional 1,178 who were wounded in the surprise attack that morning. There was no state of war when the Japanese planes descended upon Pearl Harbor that day.
People still alive today who understood what happened that Sunday morning easily recall the significance and magnitude the invasion had on America.
The total of U.S. military and civilian deaths during the war was more than 418,500, according to the National World War II Museum.
According to the same source, 5,474 Oklahomans lost their lives in the war.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs says that as of September of last year, only 325,574 of the 16 million who served in the war remain alive today.
And 350,000 American women served in the Armed Forces during World War II.
I think it’s really important to remember if it weren’t for our veterans, those who remain alive, the other brave men and women who have passed on and all of those who made the ultimate sacrifice during nearly four years of war, we wouldn’t be under the American Flag today.
That’s why we should be grateful today for them.
It’s because of all of our veterans and their bravery, America has continued to remain free. Let us always remember that.