Don’t for get to take a moment to remember this important event in our American history.
I guess it is a pretty big day for Japanese history as well, so you Japanese people can remember it too.
Oh, and since it brought America into the war which led to the butt-kicking of Nazi Germany, you Germans can think about it for a minute or two also.
Also the Brits and the French should probably take a moment to feel lucky that Japan did this and bring the Americans into the war and save their butts.
And the Chinese and Russians too.
And the Filipinos.
Okay… so EVERYBODY take a minute and think about this day and what it meant for the world. Unless you don’t like history. Then you can just go about your day and do whatever you want.
Have I told you yet today that I love you?
xoxo
Comment by Poem — December 7, 2007 @ 3:09 pm |
CON CAC AY, SAO MAY NOI NANG GI MA BAY BA QUA SUC.
Comment by ME KIEP — September 28, 2008 @ 10:09 pm |
I would like to comment on how you feel it is important for Russian to remember Pearl Harbor. I dont see how this is valid. The only real aid the Americans ever gave the Russians were shipments from the lend-lease act which was already in place prior to the PH attack. Furthermore, it can easily be stated that Although Normandy sealed Germany’s fate, the Russians were already past the counter-attack phase of germany’s invasion and making firm advances towards the fatherland in June ‘44. Therefore i fail to see the relevance of PH for Russians
Comment by Maximus323 — December 9, 2008 @ 11:24 am |
Maximus323, First I’d like to say that I believe the Russians played a large role in WWII. Without you, we might still be fighting the Nazi’s today or even worse the world could be totally controlled bye the Nazi’s. But if the Japanese hadn’t attacked Pearl Harbor and if the U.S. had entered WWII a year later, Russia could have fallen to the Germans. We also relieved some pressure by invading Africa and Sicily and also Italy. Without Pearl Harbor, the outcome of the war would have probably been very different.
Comment by U.S. — December 19, 2008 @ 3:39 am |
booooooooooooooooriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing
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Comment by Marshy — January 21, 2009 @ 9:03 am |
wow that is really amazing how did you get that picture so up close and personal like that.
Comment by SALLY — April 9, 2009 @ 12:36 pm |
Maximus323, without U.S. aid, the Soviet Union would not have prevailed against the Germans – period. Though Stalin failed to acknowledge the scope or importance of Lend-Lease aid during his lifetime, declassified records made available after 1991 make clear that Stalin himself said that without Anglo-American aid, the war would have been lost. The supplies came in at Murmansk above the Artic Circle, after transiting the perils of the U-boats in the North Atlantic. Germany was forced to dvivert many hundreds of thousands of men, untold Reichmarks, and raw materials to prosecute the Atlantic campaign, men and material that would have turned the tide if used in the East. Moreover, the Soviet army would have walked to Berlin if not for all of those Studebaker trucks and jeeps we supplied. As it was, even with Anglo-American aid, the Germans were within sight of Moscow before falling back, the seige of Leningrad cost more than one million Soviet lives, and Stalingrad was almost lost. Oh, and the USSR flew hundreds – perhaps thousands – of U.S.-designed and built aircraft, such as the Bell P-39 Aircobra, buying time for Soviet engineering bureaus to design and manufacture their own designs. Although you will not hear of it now, the Soviet army also used U.S. and British weapons such as rifles, submachine guns, tanks, armored cars, and much more.
Germany was also forced to divert men, money and material to fight the air war over the Fatherland and occupied Europe, resources that could have been thrown into the fight in the East. Think of all the thousands of heavy flak guns that could have been arrayed against Soviet tanks, but instead were firing at British and U.S. heavy bombers flying round-the-clock missions against Axis targets. The bulk of Germany’s fighter air arm was employed against the Anglo-Americans in N. Africa, Italy and the Mediterranian, and in Europe. German air forces employed in the East were mostly tactical – low-level fighter, ground attack and other similar aircraft. Why? Because the Soviet airforce then lacked a strategic bomber force, and was used as de facto aerial artillery by Zhukov and his generals.
A third manner in which Anglo-American forces benefited the Soviet war effort is that Japan and the Russians signed a non-aggression pact in 1941, thereby securing Stalin’s Eastern flank from Japanese invasion. As you may recall,Soviet forces whipped their Japanese army counterparts in the Battle of Khalkhyn Gol (Nomonhan Incident) of the Japanese-Russian border war of 1939. Stalin, by signing the pact, effectively turned Japanese expansionist intentions southward, toward the Anglo-American powers (USA, Britain, Netherlands, etc.). The United States thereby fought the Pacific War, a conflict no other nation on Earth could have managed in the 1940s, waged over tremendous distances and supply lines half way around the globe from the USA. Had we, the USA, not fought the Pacific War, Japan might have chosen to seize territory in the East, including Siberia, which she coveted for its resources. Stalin would have had to move millions of men from the west to the east. Game, set and match, Hitler’s Germany.
The USA and the Western world owe a debt that cannot be repaid to the valiant men and women of Russia, who lost millions upon millions of casualties in the largest land conflict in the history of the world. Of each 10 German soldiers killed in combat, 7 or 8 (depends on the source) were killed by the Soviet army or its allies. However, the reverse is true; without the equally brave people of the Western Allied nations, including America, the USSR would have been utterly and hopelessly defeated. The Allies’ combined efforts only very narrowly defeated Germany, a nation itself an incipient super power which almost obtained atomic weapons to go with its jet aircraft and V-2 ballistic missiles. The USSR had nothing with which to counter atomic weapons, and would have had to appeal to the Americans and British for help had this come to pass. They later stole the secret of the A-bomb from the west, but that’s a story for another time.
Comment by Pete — September 10, 2009 @ 9:35 pm |