Is 'Day of Infamy' Fading From Memory?

[Tiger]

Is 'Day of Infamy' Fading From Memory?
December 07, 2009
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review



PITTSBURGH, Pa. -- Isaac George was pinned down in the control tower at Hickam Field, Hawaii, 68 years ago today, when the Japanese hurled the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor that catapulted the United States into World War II.

"I saw the (USS) Arizona blow up," said George, 88, of New Castle. "They were strafing us. ... I think about it a lot."

George, a former Army Air Force radio man, is one of about 100 Pearl Harbor survivors in Pennsylvania and among a shrinking number of World War II veterans alive to remind people how the attack that December morning changed America.

"Most of the kids in school don't know what Pearl Harbor is," he said.

The 9/11 attacks and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- coupled with the dwindling number of World War II veterans -- have helped push the war to the back of Americans' memories, according to a retired University of Pittsburgh professor and leading expert on Pearl Harbor.

President Issues Pearl Harbor Remembrance Proclamation

"It's going to be very, very hard to keep it going," said Donald Goldstein, a retired University of Pittsburgh professor.

Paul Stinner was serving in the Army in Panama when Japanese bombers started their deadly run.

Stinner, 87, of Robinson would spend the next five years fighting in Europe. He was wounded in battle and suffered other injuries when a building collapsed on him in Belgium.

"Went all the way to the Bulge," he said, referring to the Battle of the Bulge, the largest land battle of the war in which the United States participated and the last great German offensive.

Bernie Ordos, 90, of West Mifflin was about to be relieved from guard duty on Pearl Harbor that day 68 years ago when waves of Japanese fighter planes flew over his head.

"A lot of people don't know what Pearl Harbor is," said Betty Ordos, 87, his wife of 69 years. While her husband was fighting in the Pacific, Betty Ordos lived with her mother-in-law and worked at a factory making gaskets for the war.

"I don't think the new generation understands the magnitude of what happened there," Stinner said.

Japanese planes hit the U.S. fleet and its base at 7:55 a.m. An hour and a half later, five of eight battleships were sunk or sinking, and the rest were damaged. Several other ships and hundreds of combat planes were destroyed.

The bombers killed more than 2,400 Americans that day. The attack pushed the United States into a war that would end in 1945 after the dropping of atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Sixty years later, more than 3,000 people died in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Although the number of Americans killed that day surpassed those killed at Pearl Harbor, the 9/11 attacks pale in comparison to the scope of World War II, Goldstein said.

More than 16 million Americans fought in World War II, according to the Department of Defense. About 2 million are alive, but they are dying at the rate of about 900 a day. Some estimates put the death rate for World War II veterans at 1,600 a day, Goldstein said.

Keeping alive their stories becomes more difficult each year.

"There will be some (veterans) out there, they'll be in their 90s, but the problem is there will be less people to understand it," said Goldstein, co-author of "At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor."

The war played a big part in Pittsburgh's history, he said.

"Pittsburgh was the arsenal for World War II. ... All the mills were pumping. We carried that war," Goldstein said.

About 35,000 of the 150,000 living veterans in Allegheny County served in World War II, said Ron Conley, Allegheny County's director of veterans services. A couple of thousand veterans die in the county each year, about two-thirds of them World War II vets, he said.

"I think it's important that people understand," said Conley, who urges veterans to record memories of their war experiences.

A tribute to Pearl Harbor survivors at the state Capitol in 2002 drew 25 survivors, said Mike Randazzo, event co-chairman. By 2005, just six survivors attended. Attendance has climbed since, but Randazzo said the numbers are dwindling.

"Each year, more and more invitations come back, which means, well, you know. ... And that's sad," he said. "But if I can do my part to tell their story, I can't think of a better way to honor any veteran."

[ScrewBall]

A sad but true statement there. IMHO, too many people are forgetting the significance of the Pearl Harbour attack as well as of the war itself. Like it or not, the Second World War could be called the defining event of the twentieth century; more than any other event, it shaped the consciousness of the entire world and united us all (at least for a time) with the idea that such a terrible conflict must never happen again, and the atrocities practiced while it raged must never, ever be repeated. George Santayana said it best: "Those who forget their history are condemnned to repeat it"; the blank stares I get from too many of the younger folk when the Rape of Nanking, the German invasion of Poland, or Pearl Harbour comes up in the conversation I find extremely disquieting when viewed in light of George's dictum.

[S.L.N]

For me WWII is alive and well, but then again ive heard first hand from members of my family who fought in it what it was like to see the flag on iwo, the effect that the attack on pearl had on a group of high school students, and what it was like to see/hear a flight of p-38's roar overhead........

[Space]

Like it or not, the Second World War could be called the defining event of the twentieth century; more than any other event, it shaped the consciousness of the entire world and united us all (at least for a time) with the idea that such a terrible conflict must never happen again, and the atrocities practiced while it raged must never, ever be repeated.

They said that about WW1 also. And it will be just as true after WW3.