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on the relations between US and Japan on a run-up to Pearl Harbor
looking at why Roosevelt tried to stay away from the war as much as he could
and in the end how he had to declare it.
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It’s the morning of December 7th, 1941.
It’s an average day,
the palm trees sway in the warm breeze,
the sea is a beautiful blue.
In fact the local paper Paradise of the Pacific had just proclaimed Hawaii
“a world of happiness in an ocean of peace.”
The volcanic island of Oahu was once an important harbor for whaling ships
that filled the bay as far as the eye could see.
Today it is again filled
but this time with ships that hunt a different prey.
Tethered at the US Naval Base in the idyllic Pearl Harbor
are battleships from the United States’ vaunted Pacific Fleet
and they bob peacefully while thousands of sailors, officers and airmen
are going about their daily routines
oblivious to the impending "date which will live in infamy."
Meanwhile just a few hundred miles away off the coast of Oahu
six Japanese Imperial Navy aircraft carriers turn into the wind.
On their decks hundreds of fighters, torpedo planes and dive bombers await the final go-ahead
under the deafening drone of powerful radial engines.
Then one by one the first wave of more than 180 aircraft
led by Commander Mitsuo Fuchida thunder skyward,
ease into formation and then turn towards their target.
These aviators are some of Japan’s finest pilots
and in contrast to all the press of 1941
they are first class and devoted to the cause.
Pilots and rear gunners are straining their eyes and turning their heads
looking for any sign of enemy sea or air patrols
as Japanese command cannot believe that their strike fleet has managed to sail
3500 miles without being detected.
There's never been anything remotely like it in the history of warfare.
The lead pilots spot land and assume their attack positions around 7:30 a.m.
Twenty-three minutes later
with his bomber now above the unsuspecting American ships moored in pairs
along Pearl Harbor’s “Battleship Row”
Commander Mitsuo Fuchida breaks radio silence and shouts,
“Tora! Tora! Tora!”
The coded message informing the Japanese fleet
that they have caught the Americans by surprise.
Below deck of the 33,000-ton Colorado-class battleship the USS West Virginia
22-year-old Mess Attendant Third Class Doris Miller is doing one of the most menial tasks
of washing the uniforms for the ship’s officers.
Oblivious to what is happening above
it’s just another boring day, business as usual
until a massive explosion shatters the mind numbing silence.
Unsure of the blast’s origin
Miller instinctively rushes towards his battle station in the ship’s magazine –
a colossal armored bunker chock-full of thousands of tons of ordinance and high-explosives.
He pushes through the chaos of choked corridors and frantic sailors scrambling to and fro.
Arriving at the magazine Miller finds it flooded and impassable.
Barking commands above the din the ship’s communication officer,
Lieutenant Commander Doir C. Johnson orders him to the signal deck.
Finding Captain Mervyn Sharp Bennion mortally wounded
Miller who is also the ship’s heavyweight boxing champion
is ordered to lift his dying captain and carry him to an area of relative safety
behind the conning tower near the anti aircraft guns along the ship’s port side
while overhead all the while the Japanese planes roar, dive, strafe and release their lethal payloads
with accuracy and destruction.
By this time the ship had been hit multiple times by both bombs and torpedoes,
and as a result it is listing dangerously to port putting nearly half of its guns out of action.
But all hope is not lost because its starboard guns are undamaged and ready and waiting.
Miller runs towards the guns.
Finding an officer there he wrestles the huge belts of .50-caliber ammo into a Browning machine gun
as the officer blasts away at the airborne invaders.
Then lacking proper training and without orders, and brimming with fury, rage and revenge
while fires rage all around him
Miller abandons the gun and moves to an unmanned Browning nearby
to join the fight in a far more active role.
Aiming and depressing the trigger and hoping for the best
the trusty Browning roars to life sending a hail of supersonic bullets
out its flaming barrel towards the incoming attackers.
Like a man possessed Miller fires away relentlessly
as streams of empty shells pour from the gun
until out of ammo the smouldering gun finally falls silent.
One of the officers later wrote:
"Miller who was not supposed to handle anything deadlier than a swab
manned a machine gun blazing away as though he had fired one all his life.
As he did so his unusually impassive face bore the deadly smile of a berserk Viking."
The battle is getting steadily worse
and the once-mighty West Virginia isn’t just listing, it’s sinking,
and word arrives that Captain Bennion is dead.
With her keel settling onto the harbor floor
it’s only a matter of time before the ship rolls over.
With nothing left to do, the senior officer gives the order to abandon ship.
On the bridge Miller and the last few holdouts
make their way through the carnage to the boat deck below.
As the ship sinks Miller helps pull wounded sailors from the burning water
unquestionably saving the lives of a number of men.
Doris Miller was one of the last three men to leave the West Virginia.
He and his shipmates swim the murderous 300 or 400 yards to shore
avoiding patches of flaming oil from the battleship Arizona
and strafing from the Japanese planes.
He later told his brother that
“with those bullets spattering all around me,
it was by the grace of God that I never got a scratch.”
Even then once a shore Miller helps scores of injured sailors to safety.
Of the West Virginia’s 1,500+ crewmen
more than 100 were lost on the morning of December 7th.
Elements within the Navy lobbied against Miller receiving the Medal of Honor
but thanks largely to President Roosevelt
he was awarded the Navy Cross by Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet,
in a ceremony aboard the aircraft carrier Enterprise anchored in Pearl Harbor.
In his speech Nimitz said,
"This marks the first time in this conflict
that such high tribute has been made in the Pacific Fleet to a member of his race,
and I'm sure that the future will see others similarly honored for brave acts.”
His portrait appeared in a 1943 Navy recruiting poster under the words
“above and beyond the call of duty.”
Miller was assigned to the carrier USS Liscome Bay
to support planned Marine landings at Tarawa and Makin.
While on board he wrote to his mother asking her to save a place for him at the table
because he was sure he’d be home for Thanksgiving in November of 1945.
But on the morning of November 24th, 1943,
the Liscome Bay was struck by a torpedo,
and the ship’s magazine exploded,
and Doris Miller was one of the men to fall on that day.
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