Blog #1

Ben Mertz

Blog #1

            On the morning of December 7, 1941, A day That will Live in Infamy,” Franklin Delano Roosevelt…out of nowhere, some 343 heavily armed warplanes launched from six aircraft carriers attacked, in wave after wave, the United State’s massive naval base in Hawaii.

            It was a complete surprise. Japanese bombers attacked at 7:51 in the morning and sank ships with sleeping men on board. The USS Arizona plunged to the bottoms with more than 1,117 men getting watery graves. The attack destroyed 188 aircraft, sank four US navy battleships and crippled another eight, killing 2,402 personal.

             The attack was intended to knock a hole in America’s Pacific fleet so the Empire of Japan could attack, conquer and torture the people of the Philippines, China, Malaysia, Vietnam, and other countries. In this campaign the they attacked and killed people from the United States, Australia, the Philippines, England and the Netherlands. The brutality, and torture inflicted by Japanese male soldiers rank as some of the lowest moments of humanity in the history of the world.

             It was a complete shock, called a “sneak attack,” and it jumped the US into both wars, against Germany and Japan. Anti-war Americans quickly caved in, and the entire country mobilized for war, An explosive manufacturing sector launched names like Uncle Sam and Rosie the Riveter and nationalism ran high as the USA readied for war. USA had survived the Great Depression. Programs like FDR and WPA , got the economy on track. The USA was rebuilding, Japan was attacking China and all hell was about to break out in Germany.

       The rise of Hitler’s 3rd Reich reached an evil crescendo when Germany attacked the Netherlands and Poland (1939). Poland fell in less than a month to the massive German assault war machine called Blitzkrieg, and unstoppable air force bombing squadrons called Luftwaffe.

             While the US had avoided war in the 1930s, the war found America soon enough. With the bombing of Pearl Harbor America entered and changed the face of the war forever.

Works Cited


http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/modules/ww2/index.cfm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II