The
Monkey-Rope
By Barney Morgan
IPS Features

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Remembering Pearl Harbor

As I began to write this on December 7, at that precise time 65 years ago Japanese aircraft were attacking the United States' military installations at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

It was a pretty one-sided battle. Our forces had been caught almost completely off guard on what they had expected to be a leisurely Sunday morning. The bombers devastated Battleship Row.

I was eight years old. I have no recollection of that day. However vividly it might have been burned into the consciousness of millions of Americans, it spared me.

Neither do I remember how long it took for me to become aware of the significance of the day. It must have been at least several weeks. All I remember is that at some point I was aware that a distant place that was part of our country had been attacked by a military enemy, that great damage had been done to us, that more damage was being done to us every day, and that my two older brothers soon would be leaving home to fight in what grownups were calling World War II.

But once I became aware of the war, I was riveted to it. Up until then the only part of the newspaper I read was the funnies. After that I routinely read about the war even before turning to the funnies. By then, every daily paper was a continuing horror story. The newspaper used little maps to show where the fighting was most intense on a given day, and my little boy's mind started putting together a big picture.

I learned where -- and to some degree what -- Europe was. I learned where -- and to some degree what -- the Pacific was. I read about the war in places like the Aleutians and London and El Alamein. I read a weeks-long saga about a bloody battle in a place called Stalingrad.

Soon the Pacific was producing as many memorable names as Europe. Guadalcanal. Midway. Bataan. Wake Island. Corregidor. Saipan. Tinian. Iwo Jima. Okinawa.

Before I knew it, both of my brothers were in the Navy, in the Pacific, one on Saipan, the other aboard a hospital/troop ship.

The war in general and my brothers' parts in it cast a pall on everything. Everything. There is no way to have a really merry Christmas in a war. A lot of things were rationed, but that didn't seem to bother most people much. Little signs with blue stars on them popped up in the windows of most homes, meaning someone who lived there was in the military. The color of many of those stars changed to gold, meaning people who had lived there wouldn't be there anymore.

During the early months of the war it was clear even to a child that the war was not going well for America and other nations on our side. But by 1944 the newspaper stories started being more favorable, and I could see a more hopeful outlook among adults.

I lived about half a mile from the small town of Dayton in southeast Tennessee. In May 1945, VE Day -- Victory in Europe -- was proclaimed. A burst of joyful noise rose out of that little town and kept up for hours. Car horns, people banging tin pans, textile factory whistles. It was beautiful. Three months later there was a repeat performance for VJ Day -- Victory over Japan Day. My brothers came home unharmed.

Millions of Americans who went through those wrenching times are no longer around. A big majority of living Americans have no recollection of any of it. I only missed the Pearl Harbor part. The rest will be with me as long as I am around these parts.

All wars are awful. Iraq, Vietnam, and the one I was in, Korea, all qualify. But for those of us who went through World War II, it will always be the one by which others are measured. I don't know whether we deserve Tom Brokaw's designation as The Greatest Generation, but we are the veterans of the greatest war.

The Pearl Harbor Survivors group held their 65th annual reunion today and, sadly, said it would be their last. One of those survivors describing the attack said it was so chaotic that people were "running around like chickens with their head cut off."

I got a chuckle out of that. I doubt that many current Americans have any idea what a chicken with its head cut off looks like. I could give them a little help there. A chicken with its head cut off doesn't run around much. Mostly it just flops around for a few seconds. It's a gruesome, bloody mess. Much like the carnage that began a three-and-a-half-year run, 65 years ago on December 7.