10 - Pearl Harbor

Speaker 0 00:02 So today on an incomplete history, we're going to be talking about Pearl Harbor. It's been 78 years since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. It's been 78 years since FDR made his case to Congress about why the United States was entering world war two. Since that time, historians and educators and struggled with how to discuss and how to teach world war II, particularly since the United States and Japanese conflict has such strong racial overtones today. We're going to talk about that or an incomplete history. Speaker 4 00:55 Hello and welcome to an incomplete history. I'm Hillary and I'm Jeff where your hosts for this weekly history podcast. Speaker 0 01:05 So good evening, Hillary. Speaker 4 01:08 Hey Jeff. How's it going? Speaker 0 01:10 Well, not too shabby. Just a outflows to the day, getting some holiday things done. Speaker 4 01:16 Did you drown? Cause it's raining out there and has been writing a lot. Speaker 0 01:21 Just yesterday when it started pouring, I was thinking, I was like, wow, it's been a while since we had this much December rain. Um, and we are barely into December, so yeah. Speaker 4 01:32 You're officially out of the drought though, right? Speaker 0 01:35 We, we were out of the drought last year. Um, we got into a little bit of a almost drought situation, but now we're out of that as well. Um, the problem is, you know, California, it's feast or famine. We either have a drought or we have like mud slides, so there's no median, no happy median was one. Speaker 4 01:55 But Speaker 0 01:56 anyway, how about Mississippi? Speaker 4 01:59 Things are fine here. Nothing, nothing exciting or interesting to report about the weather unfortunately. Well actually probably good thing, but yeah, things are, things are going along. We're entering finals week right now. I'm really excited about that, but I made a huge mistake because finals are all this week and I was like, well I want to do, you know, be nice to my students and let them turn their final in at the last moment, you know, so I'm, you know, having them turn it in on Friday at like midnight, but then that only gives me like two days to grade. I thought we'd have like a week to grade, but grades are due next Monday. So I'm like, Oh no. So next weekend is going to be bad. We may have to record. Oh, like Thursday or Friday this week? Yeah. Are you guys going into finals week? Speaker 0 02:46 Yeah, finals week. Is this next week? Both at SDSU and UCS D. so both the schools I teach at, I mean it hardly ever happens cause usually you CSD has done before or no. SDSU is usually done before you CSD. Um, it just happened this year. I'm not sure why. Um, plus Thanksgiving came so late. Who knows? I don't know. Um, we'll see. Anyway, so Pearl Harbor, seven, eight years. Speaker 4 03:19 Yeah. 78 years. I just read an article yesterday that said that the last survivor of Pearl Harbor, the Pearl Harbor attacks has died and that he was interred at the USS Arizona yesterday and he's the last of the survivors to be interred. Speaker 5 03:37 Oh Speaker 4 03:38 wait. Of Pearl Harbor in general or like Pearl Harbor in general. Yeah. I mean not um, not of world war two. Just a survivor that's out there for it, for sure. There's a lot of world war II vets, but, um, he, he survived the attack and was there, so that's what the art room, Speaker 0 03:57 right? Yeah. Well, I mean, before we get too in depth on this, I want to play this little clip. Uh, it's, it's a clip. Everybody's, whether they've ever listened to it or not, everybody's familiar with it and it's FTRs addressed to Congress. This happens the afternoon of December 8th, 1941. So I'm gonna play this real quick. Speaker 6 04:18 Okay. Speaker 7 04:20 Yesterday, 1941, which will limb inflammation, United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by Naval left forces of the empire of Japan. Speaker 0 04:51 So yeah, I, you know, instead of a ubiquitous presidential speech, it usually makes the list of top 10 presidential addresses ever given. Um, it's very reassuring to the public. Uh, the public had kind of gotten used to FDR coming on for his fireside chats during the great depression to kind of be the father to the nation. And this is the day after this attack on Pearl Harbor, the nation's dad coming on the radio and saying, look, here's what we're gonna do. Here's what happened. Speaker 5 05:23 Uh, Speaker 0 05:24 it's a little deceptive of a speech though, isn't it? Speaker 4 05:29 You think it's deceptive because of the sudden deliberate, vicious. We had no idea this was coming. Yeah. Speaker 0 05:37 And you know, we had talked about this when we decided to talk about this. Uh, we wanted to address this. I want to make sure people don't misunderstand. I'm not buying into a Pearl Harbor conspiracy. That's not what I'm talking about, Speaker 4 05:51 right? No, it's not about conspiracy. It's just like broader global, like understanding right. Would know that this was kind of expected. But what is the conspiracy? Speaker 0 06:03 Well, the conspiracy is that the United States kind of knows Japan is planning to attack Pearl Harbor and they decided to let it happen because it's the quickest way to get the nation end of the war because the vast majority of Americans don't seem to support us involvement in world war II. It seems to be a European problem. Maybe an Asian problem with what is doing in places like China and Southeast Asia. But for the most part, the United States, uh, citizens of the United States don't S as a, uh, a majority of them don't really want to get involved. And the conspiracy goes, this is the quickest way to make it happen. So the conspiracy is the United States government lets these sailors who died at Pearl Harbor die so the United States can get in the war. And I'd say there's absolutely zero evidence for this, um, at all. Speaker 4 07:02 I agree. I think that it's really sad to even assume something like that. And it goes kind of to what we talked about with the nine 11 conspiracy as well. We're like the U S government isn't willfully allowing people to die. That being said, touching on what you had said is that it was not sudden and completely unexpected. I think it was unexpected at Pearl Harbor, but the United States had been goating Japan sort of into war and into action for awhile and the United States needed an excuse to get in to the war because the approval rating for entering war was incredibly low. Nobody in the United States had any interest. And what's kind of important to point out though is that the, the, the United States knew that there was Japanese aggression, of course, occurring in Asia, and there was an attack on a boat, the pannay, the USS pannay in Southeast Asia in 1937 so this is four years prior, but that wasn't enough to get the United States riled up. It's this attack on not, of course, not mainland United States, but you know, a territory. And I mean, I think that they were shocked that the Japanese struck that far into the Pacific. Right. Because that's like, that was pretty scary. And, but I think that they knew that there was some sort of attack coming. Speaker 0 08:23 Right. Well, let's, yeah, I, you know, mill Naval strategists understood Japan was going to attack the United States somewhere. It would probably be in the Philippines. Um, but it was shocking when they actually were able to talk all the way into Pearl Harbor because that's pretty far. Uh, it's, it's in the middle of the Pacific. Um, we can talk a little bit about why the United States got Hawaiian Pearl Harbor. One of the main reasons, um, I would say the United States in Japan, 1941 is the culmination of something that starts in 1854. So Matthew Perry, Commodore Matthew Perry, I'm not the actor from friends, but Commodore Matthew Perry, uh, sails into Nagasaki and forcibly opens Japan to train with the West. Right? And the United States from that moment on has a very odd relationship with Japan. So right before the Spanish American war or the United States, Speaker 5 09:29 Mmm. Speaker 0 09:31 Has a fleet that's kind of sitting off the coast of Manila in the Philippines and they're kind of waiting for word. Should they invade, what should they do? And you've got a bunch of other European navies as well that are sitting there kind of waiting because the idea is, you know, if the United States doesn't attack the Spanish in the Philippines, um, maybe they should move in to get this in Japan is also there. So Japan sees the United States taking possession of the Philippines is a pretty aggressive Speaker 5 10:05 move. Speaker 4 10:07 Well, it is aggressive, right? I mean, it's a world away. And the United States making their presence known, first of all, the forcible opening of Japan, as you mentioned, but then to say, not only are we forcing you to, uh, you know, commune with the outside world, but we're also going to have a presence here that's threatening because this is part of kind of a us imperialistic strategy at this time. Uh, and it does create a tension between the two. And Japan, I would argue, starts to militarize pretty heavily in the early 20th century for multiple reasons, but one of them being as a defensive strategy or tactic to, uh, the intrusion of Imperial forces in the area. And this is also, uh, the British, the French, the United States, right. There are, there are multiple European and Western and Russians. Yeah. Then that's, that's, you know, of course, the Russo-Japanese war that happens in 1904 1905, but the Japanese are kind of reactive. Um, I would say that they're defensive initially, but then they really do start to play off fence of course, by the 1930s. But yeah, there's an amount of tension between the two countries. You're right. And it goes back pretty far. Speaker 0 11:19 Yeah. Well, I mean, let's talk about that, that, that, so Japanese war. So this is the war that FDR or not FDR theater Roosevelt gets the, uh, peace prize for, right? Speaker 5 11:33 Yeah. Um, Speaker 0 11:34 I mean he brokers peace between Russia and Japan. It's a very favorable treaty for Japan. Speaker 5 11:41 Mmm. Speaker 0 11:41 Some of that may be Roosevelt kind of realizing the United States, it would be better to have Japanese, Speaker 5 11:48 um, uh, Speaker 0 11:51 kind of Imperial aspirations in tandem with the United States and against it. So it's very favorable to Japan. Um, and then there's this commerce and navigation treaty that the United States and Japan sign in 1911. So things by 1911. I think things look pretty good actually, the problems with Hawaii. So when the United States annex is why in the 19th century, it pisses a lot of countries off. Right? This isn't even getting into the, the question of Hawaiians and, and how that plays out. It pisses a lot of people out. A lot of people don't realize the United States and great Britain almost go to war at the end of the 19th century. Speaker 4 12:32 Right. Because again, it's, it's an intrusion into a region, far beyond the mainland United States. And there are a lot of countries who were involved in imperialistic projects in those regions, in the United States. Entering into that is, it's not acceptable. Speaker 0 12:48 Well, I mean, Hawaii sits in the middle of the Pacific and Alford theater Mehan who's the stable strategist, says, you've got to have these fuel depots, these coaling stations initially, but they eventually become fuel depots. As we moved to petroleum, he says, you have to have these all around the world because the key to kind of running a global empire is Naval power. And the key to enable power is having places you can refill your ships. It's strategic. That's, that's what it is. It's, it is the ultimate strategic location in the Pacific. I mean, Hawaii is to the Pacific as Panama is to linking the Pacific with the Atlantic, right? The key places the United States wants to control, um, but other places want to control them as well. And the United States, I mean, nine to 11 things seem to be going okay. However, kind of this Imperial, these Imperial aspirations start to accelerate in the 20s and by 31 it really sours, right? The military government assumes control in Japan because of they're just not getting out of the depression. And this new government is very much focused on assembling kind of a, a broad Japanese empire in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific. Speaker 4 14:18 Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned 1931 because I think that that's an important signpost. And every time I teach world war two, I always say that it started in 1931 and that throws a lot of people off. And of course, if you Google, when did world war one start? Right? ASIS, 1939 but I think that's, Oh, excuse me, I'm sorry. World war II. I think that that's just a really Eurocentric way of looking at it, right? Like, yes. In 1939 it did start in Europe, but there were really, uh, intense developments happening in China, um, and Japanese imperialism. In 1931 there was an invasion of China. Millions of Chinese were dying and the Japanese were spreading out all over. Um, the Asian continent for years, and by 1937, this reaches a fever pitch really, um, with Japanese invasions and major Chinese cities all the way down on the coast. Speaker 4 15:12 They just start, you know, taking over main, main regions in China. And, uh, you know, that to me, although it's not, you know, the Europeans have been involved yet. I mean, that is really indicative to me of the start of the second world war is this aggression of, of the Japanese. And, uh, when you're thinking about casualties and stuff, I mean, a lot of times we don't talk about how the Chinese suffered in the fact that we were actually allied with the Chinese. Um, for many missions during the second world war. That kind of all gets glossed over. And I mean, we'll talk about that in a little while because there's, there's an argument to be made about why the reasoning for that is, but 1931 is this major signpost, Speaker 0 16:02 right? Well would, you know the Japanese army, you know, as you said, attacked Manchuria annexes it. Renames it meant Shu quo, um, secretary of state Henry Stimson and kind of says, we're not going to recognize this. Uh, but the U S does nothing to back that up. It's simply a diplomatic statement. There's no military or economic retaliation that happens. And in fact, the United States after the annexation of Manchuria is still providing Japan with almost all of its iron and steel that's being imported. And it's selling Japan 80% of the oil Japan uses. And that oil is fueling the Japanese Navy and the Japanese military machine. Speaker 4 16:44 That's so uncomfortable to think about, right? Yeah. Speaker 0 16:48 I mean, this is the thing, right? I mean, it's, it's when the United States, when Japan actually, um, becomes aggressive against China, it does. So with American oil. Speaker 4 17:00 Absolutely. And, and it's, yeah, the Americans fuel there. They're mass murders free basically, but they are not. But everybody in the world, like all these other countries are very uncomfortable by what the Japanese are doing. I mean even to the point where there were Nazis who were stationed in China watching what the Japanese were doing and writing about, Oh my gosh, like this is the most atrocious stuff I've ever seen. Right? And so there were people who were very aware of what was going on, but then behind the scenes and maybe not so behind the scenes like the United States oil is literally fueling the Japanese incursion into these regions and the, and the murder, um, and just outright chaos that's happening. But it's also the stop of providing that oil to the Japanese, which launches the United States into the war. Ultimately, it's complicated and it's, it's uncomfortable, like I said, but it's kind of sad. Speaker 0 18:04 So Japan goes to dementia in 1931 and this continues a 1937 is kind of the worst of these early years. I mean, this is the thing, if you're Chinese in 1937, world war II seems to be full and swing and progress. Right? Um, so the rape of Nanking happens in 1937. Speaker 4 18:25 Yeah. So we have a two week time span, which is also the anniversary of, of that happening right at this moment in December because it happens, I think in the first two weeks of December of 1937, hundreds of thousands of Chinese people are massacred in a two week timespan in Nanking, um, raped Richard. No, it was civilians predominantly. Um, and so the Japanese army goes in and whole scale mass occurs over 200,000 people in the course of two weeks. And this is what I was talking about, the Nazi soldier who was stationed there, John, Rob, uh, he has a diary that writes about this. If anybody's interested in reading a little bit more about this, I would recommend Iris chain's book the rape of name King and it's required reading for world war two, but it really sort of fleshes out what was happening in China and to the Chinese people. Speaker 4 19:26 Well before world war II breaks out in Europe. And like you said, if you're a Chinese person, you know very well that world war II starts a lot sooner than 1939. Um, and as a matter of fact, that's how they teach it in China of course too. But I have an argument I want to make about why we don't talk about that. And then I say we can do, we can do it later as I think it can make it later, but, okay. Well tell me when you want to make it kind of rounds out the discussion. But there's an argument to be made. I would say Speaker 0 20:00 so 35 and 36 Congress passes these neutrality acts as this is meant to keep the United States out of any war that might erupt. So, you know, 35, 36, there's already an inkling that a war is gonna happen in Europe and kind of, there's already this conflict happening in Asia. So they pass these neutrality acts. The United States can't sell goods to countries at war, but it's reliant on the president actually triggering the acts. The president has to implement them. And FDR by 36 really wants to give China aid and the face of this Japanese aggression. So he doesn't trigger the neutrality acts, um, because he wants to kind of do this. But the United States doesn't directly challenge Japan until 30 and 39 is when the U S cancels the 1911 treaty of commerce and navigation. Speaker 5 20:54 Mmm. Speaker 0 20:54 Which says we're no longer gonna trade with you. Speaker 5 20:57 Mmm. Speaker 0 20:58 And they told Japan, you need to get out of China. Japan does not get out of China. So in 1948, the United States embargoes, oil, gasoline and metals to Japan. So this is a lot of people say, here's where we know Japan, we're going to force Japan's hand on this because the only place they can go that's kind of near Japan to get oil. Uh, the Duchy standees. But between HSA, if you look on a map and you look at where Japan is and you look where the Duchy studies are, the Philippines sit right there in the way. And the United States has possession of the Philippines. So the United States, Naval strategists know Japan is probably going to attack the Philippines now. And they're kind of ready for that. Speaker 5 21:45 Mmm. Speaker 0 21:47 1941 July of that year. The United States finally freezes all Japanese assets as well as embargo in remaining resources being sent to Japan. And you know, this is, you know what, how else was Japan supposed to react? Speaker 4 22:12 Right? Yeah. I mean, because they had such a broad war being raged, they required in order to literally fuel it, they required this. And so they of course acted with aggression and they had been so aggressive and had been so successfully aggressive with no pushback essentially up until this point. So I think that they kind of felt pretty high and mighty about it. Like, well, we can continue to fight, you know, and I think they saw the United States is too far away really to really, really want to get involved in what was going on. And they thought that, well, maybe if we, um, attack like we can, I don't know if they predicted the all out war. I mean, but that's the whole famous quote. We've awoken a sleeping giant. Right? Speaker 0 23:04 Well. So November 26 of 1941 Cornell hall, he's a secretary of state, sends this note to the Japanese ambassador in Washington, D C and this is the whole note. And he says, the United States will remove the embargo if Japan does every one of the following things, remove all troops from China, remove all troops from Indochina and your Alliance with Germany and Italy. So I think it's basically telling Japan everything you've done, you have to undo immediately. Um, here's the issue though. Uh, even though these are petroleum fueled vessels, these are diesel fueled boats. It takes a while to move them places. So when whole delivers that ultimatum on November 26, the fleet is already sailing towards Hawaii, Speaker 4 23:55 right? They're already on their way. And the plan is already underway because the Japanese him for approves of the plan by November 5th, because they had been planning it and you know, so yeah, it's already on its way. And the United States kind of anticipated attack, not attack necessarily on Pearl Harbor, but it's important to remember that the United States moved to the Pacific fleet from San Diego to Hawaii. Right. So they had all of the fleet or a good amount of the Pacific fleet in Hawaii and it had been in San Diego and it's because they were strategic about positioning themselves to be closer to what was happening in Japan without maybe without necessarily realizing that that was going to be a point of attack because like you said, it made far more sense to attack the Philippines, which they did. Right. So on Pearl Harbor. Yeah, Speaker 0 24:51 and it's like you said, the Japanese strategy seems to have been kind of, they're conflicting accounts of what exactly it was. The Japanese strategy seem to have been kind of take the Philippines, do a quick strike into Pearl Harbor, cripple the U S Navy so the Japan can kind of consolidate its control over Dutch into Indonesia, the DACI, Cindy's Indochina, the Philippines, solidify their control over all this places. So the United States could not dislodge them from that. And then they can negotiate a treaty with the United States. Um, you know, there were some Japanese strategist who wanted Hawaii. There are some that wanted a strike onto the West coast of the United States, but it seemed the, the ones who had the most ability to get kind of their voice heard were okay with not pushing that far across the Pacific. They wanted this kind of East Asian, Southeast Asian empire. Um, the problem always for Japan though, is you've got kind of multiple groups buying for power within this military government. Um, and the quote you said, I fear we've awakened a sleeping giant. Uh, I don't recommend historical movies very often because a lot of them just start terrible. Um, don't take an a story into an historical movie. Did we just ground the entire time? Um, but there's a movie I watch every year that I love. It's called Tora Tora, Tora. Um, it was co-produced, uh, with between Japanese and American production companies and it actually is a really balanced kind of view of the lead up to Pearl Harbor. Um, it's an amazing movie. I highly recommend it. Speaker 4 26:42 It's a primary source. Speaker 0 26:44 It was made very shortly after the war was made in the 70s so that's not quite practically a primary course, that degree, the primary source for night, early 1970s. Speaker 4 26:56 I remember my grandpa had that movie, he recorded it from TV and he had it on VHS and he had it labeled in his handwriting. Tor, Tor, Tor. He loves that movie too. And um, yeah, I, I was really waiting for you to say I recommend you watch Pearl Harbor with Ben Affleck and Josh Hart. Speaker 0 27:14 Oh no, please don't watch it. Like that movie at least does try to capture what it would've been like to be on a, um, the Arizona or any of the other kind of battleships or boats that get destroyed and kind of what it would've been like to be there. But that's about the only thing to recommend that Speaker 4 27:35 one, one thing that is interesting is that the attack sequence in that film is almost in real time. It's like one hour and three minutes attack sequence. And so that's kind of interesting. I mean all of the other like stuff is, you know, not great, but I have to say, I was like, I think I'm middle school when that came out. Wow. Wow. I loved it. I thought it was fabulous. Fabulous cinema. Speaker 0 28:02 So the morning of December 7th, 1941, remember, this is Hawaii. So this is just before 8:00 AM Hawaii time, which is 18, 18 Greenwich. Meantime, a 353 Imperial Japanese aircraft's including fighters, dive bombers, level bombers, and torpedo bombers. And it turns out the torpedo bombers and the most devastating ones of these attack into waves. They're launched from six aircraft carriers. Um, they damaged every single one of the eight, a battle ships at Pearl Harbor. In fact, four of them were sunk. Speaker 5 28:41 Mmm. Speaker 0 28:42 Amazingly, only the Arizona was unable to be raised right. All the other six. Speaker 5 28:50 Mmm. Speaker 0 28:51 Uh, all the other ones, Speaker 5 28:53 Mmm. Speaker 0 28:55 That had been damaged, were returned or service and actually fallen in the way Speaker 4 28:58 we actually fought the war, which is kind of incredible, right? That they raised them up and then they went off to fight in the war. I mean most of this equipment is, you're not going to just say, well that's it. Speaker 0 29:08 Well it's, it's interesting cause they're building this trolley excision in San Diego right now. They've been working on it for years and it's like, you know, and world war II we got things done quickly. Speaker 5 29:18 Mmm. Speaker 0 29:19 I don't understand why it's taking so long to go, let's try the line. But they also destroy cruisers, destroyers, mind layers. But what they don't get, and this is key, what did they not get at Pearl Harbor? And it's what they wanted wasn't the battleships, the was the aircraft carriers. Speaker 4 29:38 Right? Those are the big, the big ticket Chapin. Speaker 0 29:42 They thought they could catch the aircraft carriers in Pearl Harbor. And again, I go back to that movie cause they do a good job of talking about the strategy. The strategy was to let one or two vessels start to escape and then to sync those vessels at the mouth of Pearl Harbor. That's basically trapping all the other ships in Pearl Harbor. Um, Speaker 6 30:06 okay. Speaker 0 30:07 Now, there was a declaration of war that was supposed to be delivered right before the attack, but it wasn't, and this is, that's a little shady. This is the problem. Right? But at the same time, I mean, if they had, if they had delivered the declaration of war and not attacked immediately, what would people at Pearl Harbor have done? They would have thought that they would have taken ships out of there. So they're not sitting ducks, things like that. I mean, it's a smart move for Japanese officials to do this. However, they understood the way diplomacy worked and they, this was supposed to be delivered right before the attack happened. It was supposed to not give the United States enough time to respond. We, Speaker 4 30:58 but there's this think about when it happened, right? I mean, it's like eight o'clock in the morning on a Sunday. Totally unexpected. I mean, it, just thinking about mobilizing and stuff so quickly. I mean, it was just, it was totally crippling. And what's most important to me about the attack is not necessarily what happens at Pearl Harbor, but the coordinated attacks. A lot of people don't know that there were coordinated attacks all over. Sure. Uh, the U S held possessions in the Philippines, Guam, wake Island, um, some British empire places for Hong Kong. Right? All of these British holdings were attacked as well. And what's important about that is there weren't as many casualties, but there were, um, equipment casualties, right? So it totally crippled. So first of all, the Pacific fleet had been moved from San Diego to Pearl Harbor, completely crippled the fleet there, but then a lot of the airplanes, um, personnel, equipment, all this stuff in these islands, these strategically held islands, the Philippines, wake Island, Guam, they're also attacked at the same time. And a lot of people don't realize that, but that's why it took the United States so long to be able to turn the war in their direction. The United States suffers defeat after defeat after defeat through December, all the way into about June of 1942. The United States is suffering a lot of defeat at the hands of the Japanese because they had been so crippled by these strategic attacks, not just on Pearl Harbor, but in a lot of those holdings in other regions. Right. Speaker 0 32:47 Yeah. I mean it's, so let's kind of shift to, you know, we can kind of go and do a deep military history and talk about kind of how the attack played out and stuff. But I kind of want to move to kind of the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. So Pearl Harbor happens and FDR delivers is his famous address. And you know, I played the clip and we heard some of that, but he continues on and says this, he says, um, Speaker 0 33:14 the United States was at peace with that nation and at the solicitation of Japan was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking towards the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. I, you know, so this is saying, look, we were not at war with Japan and we were actually trying to negotiate things and they attacked a deed. One hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing and the American Island of a wall hood, the Japanese had bashed the United States and his colleague delivered to our secretary of state of former reply to a recent American message. So this is a reply to the the to hall, uh, Cordell Hall's ultimatum. Uh, and while this replies stated, it seemed useless to continue existing diplomatic negotiations. It contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack. Now the declaration of war gets delivered afterwards. Right. Um, how does the American public react to them? Speaker 8 34:10 Yeah, Speaker 4 34:10 well, so everyone was afraid about how the public would react to entering the war, but then when the attack happens, it's a rallying cry. But because the declaration of war comes from Japan, and then very shortly after, I believe it's on the eighth of the ninth, right? Germany and Italy also declare war on the United States. So the United States has no other choice but to say, okay, I guess we're full blown and more now because war had been declared on the United States. So the public I think is mad after the attack. Speaker 0 34:47 Mad in a different way than they are at the Germans Speaker 4 34:51 in a very different way than they are. Oh absolutely. So executive order nine zero six six is internment of Japanese Americans into concentration camps. So I always talk about concentration camps with my students during world war two and I talk about concentration camps in the United States and people don't like to use that term, but that's actually what it means. Concentrating a specific group of people in one location and they're imprisoned. And this is what happens to Japanese Americans. It doesn't happen to German Americans. It doesn't happen to Italian Americans. And some would say, well the Germans and the Italians didn't tack the United States Japanese did. Okay, true. But the declaration is short from everybody. Yeah. And initially, I mean there are a lot of casualties happening. Speaker 0 35:45 Sherman, you boats set off the coast of the United States and destroy you as vessels. I mean it's so, it's not, it's not that. So February 19th, 1942, this is what FDR signs this executive order into fact and, and basically it says you've got to either move pass this line or you're going to be kind of put somewhere. Um, and some Japanese Americans do voluntarily relocate. Correct. Speaker 8 36:16 <inaudible> Speaker 4 36:16 yeah, but a lot don't. And their property is seized, their businesses are seized. Um, I mean the, a lot of Japanese Americans have decades to recover from this. So yeah, there there's just a very different response. And why, why is there such a different response? Speaker 0 36:39 Well, so do you like dr Seuss? You're a graduate of the university of California San Diego. Speaker 4 36:45 Um, you know, ever since I started teaching world war two, I was a little, little nervous about this fella ever son. Speaker 0 36:51 Yeah. Cause the, cause he has this little 1942 propaganda cartoon, um, in New York and it shows California, Washington and Oregon and it's got thousands of Japanese men lined up. And how do you know they're Japanese? Cause they've got little mustaches and small eyes and these glasses on and they're all dressed identically and they're all lining up to a little hut that says honorable fifth column. And another Japanese man is handing out tea and tea to each of them. And another man is on top of the hut looking East or looking West across the Pacific. Um, and it says waiting for the signal from home. And this is the big issue I think, right, is that they are not viewed as part of the United States. They're viewed as something else. Speaker 4 37:47 They have loyalties to the Japanese empire instead of, cause I don't think that they're seen necessarily as like espionage or something, but that their loyalty would ultimately lie with Japan rather than the United States. And there isn't the same level of suspicion about Germans or Italians. Although during the first world war, that's certainly the case. But during the second world war, it's not the same. And Theodore Geisel, dr Seuss is heavily involved in these propaganda campaigns that demonize de-humanize. The Japanese Disney Speaker 4 38:26 does the, uh, Popeye, the sailor man, you should see cartoons from the forties. Oh my goodness. Like it's almost inappropriate to show, unless it's for educational purposes. I mean, I would never let a child see this, right. Um, incredibly racist depictions, dehumanizing depictions of Japanese. And it's because there's this vitriolic hate toward the Japanese people in the wake of Pearl Harbor, but it's so clearly driven by, um, racial difference is that the Japanese look different than people in the United States. They have a different language. They don't, they're not Christian. Right? Um, and so some of these issues that we've talked about that creep up in the 19th century about religion, about race, about, you know, um, differences with people and then like how that spurs conflict. All of those things really come to a head when it comes to the second world war and the Japanese, because you have total opposite, right? Opposite language, opposite side of the world. Um, not Christian look different, right? Like, so you have all these things that kind of, uh, meld into one and it makes it almost simple for people in the United States to not even consider Japanese people to be human. And so that gets into John dowers argument. There's this really good book called war without mercy. And I think we wanted to talk a little bit about that, but that's kind of his argument. Right? Speaker 0 39:52 Right. Well, I want to talk about really quickly, so 120,000 people are relocated, right? A forcibly relocated. Speaker 5 40:01 Mmm. Speaker 0 40:02 There's been questions. It's the largest force relocation of people in us history. I would say in a single kind of incident maybe, but I have colleagues who study kind of native American history who would argue something very different. Speaker 5 40:19 Right. Um, Speaker 0 40:22 they would say this is probably just the latest in a long line of relocations. The U S government kind of does, but 120,000 people are forcibly. Okay. And they start to circulate these, Speaker 5 40:34 Mmm. Speaker 0 40:36 These questionnaires by 1943 in the camps and there they're actually trying to recruit, um, Nisei men. So these are second generation Japanese Americans into the army, uh, or Navy or air force. Um, and questions 27 and 28 are the most notorious ones. These are the loyalty questions. Are you willing to serve in the armed force to the United States on combat duty? Wherever ordered question 28, will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any and all attack by foreign and domestic forces and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, other foreign government power organization? Um, most of the men said yes. Speaker 5 41:23 Mmm. Speaker 0 41:26 Only, um, about 20% of Nisei men gave negative or kind of ambiguous answers. Speaker 5 41:36 Mmm. Speaker 0 41:40 I mean, so a lot of these Japanese Americans in turn, they want a chance to actually prove their loyalty, right? I mean, they've been relocated. Their families have lost their businesses on the West coast. Speaker 5 41:53 Mmm. Speaker 0 41:54 Uh, their homes, businesses, a lot of them were involved in agriculture, particularly on the central Valley. Um, they've lost all of this and they're still, they still want to prove their loyalty. Speaker 4 42:09 Can you imagine? That's incredible. And there were, there were, you know, troops, Japanese descent, who fought for the United States, even in the wake of being interred. Speaker 0 42:22 Right now, Hawaii is, the situation is very different, right? They, they turn under 2000 people in Hawaii because like a third of the population in Hawaii are of Japanese ancestry. Speaker 5 42:38 Mmm. Speaker 0 42:39 And they can't, you know, Japan's a big, uh, or Japan, Hawaii has a lot of agricultural work. They also have support work for the kind of the military installations there. They can't really afford to enter a third of the population of Y Speaker 4 42:55 when they felt they were somewhat contained there too, I think. Speaker 0 42:58 Right? Well, yeah, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but you bring up dowers book, which is really great. Right. So why don't you tell us a little bit about tower's book. Speaker 4 43:08 So John dowers book war without mercy. He makes an argument about what is the difference between the way that the United States wages war against Europe and the Germans and the Italians. Um, and what is the way the United States wages war against the Japanese? And his argument is that when it comes to the Japanese war and war in the Pacific, that there is zero mercy for the Japanese because of the propaganda that has been so widespread that dehumanizes Japanese people. And it creates such a wall of difference between Americans and the Japanese that there's no extension of humanity or of, as he would say, mercy to anybody who's Japanese. And because they draw such differences and almost Speaker 4 44:07 know, kind of make this argument that there, there's no need for a spread of humanity because they're not deserving of it. And an extension of this argument, there's an article with an extension, this argument about the types of propaganda in the United States. And you can see a lot of the propaganda that depicts Japanese people. It'll depict them literally as or insects, vermin in need of being exterminated. And that type of language, it's heavily racialized. Um, and it, it creates this wall of difference. And so the fighting that takes place in the Pacific ends up being so much more brutal and outright and the support for it on behalf of the American people. There's, there's two things happening. There's like wanting vengeance of course, but the fact that there's just such a difference, there's, there isn't a shared ancestry that the American people see. And so it ends up being this outright war against the Japanese people because there's just no, there's no desire to even see a commonality. Speaker 0 45:21 Well, from, from a Japanese perspective, what are Japanese soldiers being told about Americans, Japanese soldiers, Speaker 4 45:27 the propaganda for them. And, right. So this is the second part of dowers argument is that there's no mercy to the United States either because of the propaganda that people in the United States are the devil. They're PR, they're depicted as satanic, um, as completely evil, uh, that it would be better to just kill yourself rather than be taken prisoner by someone from the United States, the Americans. Um, and so the propaganda that was launched back and forth to the people in each respective country painted the other S just, Speaker 0 46:07 well, Japanese water told Japanese women or told us soldiers will rape you and kill you. Speaker 4 46:13 Right? And so there were so many suicides that took place of, in anticipation of a takeover. Uh, and so with each side spreading such intense propaganda sort of rumors. I mean the Japanese used to spread leaflets over towns and stuff with the propaganda. The United States used to Spradley flips over town with propaganda saying, you know, we're not going to hurt you and stuff, but they would spread it out to you and say, you know, they are going to hurt you. And I mean it was just like this back and forth constant propaganda machine, uh, between the two countries of who was going to win out in terms of winning over the minds of civilians. Right? Because this is, we're talking about civilians and civilian support, uh, cause it's not just the military against the military. It's like it requires some level of cooperation on behalf of civilians. And the war ends up being no mercy because they each see one another as the devil. I don't know how else to say. Outright pure evil. So they're going to take each other out. Speaker 0 47:19 It's, and this kind of leads to this conclusion, right? Where the United States do since nuclear weapons. And, and we will have an episode at some point in the future kind of dedicated discussing that because it is kind of a, a compelling moment in us history and, um, to talk about, but you know, it's the casualties for the United States compared to what happens in Europe. The casualties in the United States, Speaker 8 47:52 Mmm. Speaker 0 47:54 In this war with, with Japan are just staggering. Speaker 8 47:59 Right? Speaker 0 48:01 And then you look at your pants, right? And then you look at Japan and the numbers really horrifying. But I just want to give some so casualty statistics for the Asia Pacific region. So China is far away the country that suffers the most, um, 18 million civilian deaths in China. And a lot of those are the, are indirectly the result of the war, right? They're result of kind of starvation, things like that. But some of them are the result of being killed. Um, Japan, I'm not including Kirsha Managa Saki, uh, 1.7 million killed or missing. These are soldiers. So not civilians, uh, the United States, um, almost 112,000 killed or missing soldiers over a quarter of a million wounded. They've got another 22,000 who are prisoners of war. Um, I mean it is just, it is horrific and Speaker 9 49:15 <inaudible> Speaker 0 49:18 I would say a big factor in this, a big factor. Why it's so easy for people to let the interment happen and to kind of buy into the demonization of the Japanese. The depiction of them is from, it is California, particularly a lot of people outside the West coast don't understand this, but California in particular has a pretty lengthy history of demonizing Asian immigrants. Right? The Chinese first than the jet. We get the Chinese exclusion act, the Japanese, there's also South Asian. Um, I mean there's all these kinds of Asian groups that get demonized, um, including people from places that you wouldn't think like Filipinos, Speaker 8 50:03 right? Speaker 0 50:04 Yeah. There's doesn't seem to be a distinction between nationalities of Asian people in the United States and there is just a lot of discrimination. Um, although I would say this, I would say this like, so life magazine and I will put a link in the show notes. Life magazine runs this ridiculous photo story in 1943 and it's, I think it's titled how to tell a China man from a Jap and it's just the most incredible, like you look at it and you're like, how do they do this? So they, and it's this very, they're doing exactly what Nazi propaganda <inaudible> are doing with kind of Eastern Europeans and Jewish people. Um, and Roma people there adjust what people in the United States do later with African-Americans. I mean they're doing it with the Chinese and the Japanese and they kind of characterize the Chinese are taller, have longer legs, whereas the Japanese are very short. Um, and it's this kind of scientific pseudo-scientific I should say approach to kind of distinguishing between these two groups because again, I had stayed suddenly finds itself an ally of China during the war. And there's this kind of, Oh, we've got to make sure people understand the Chinese are good, the Japanese are bad. Speaker 4 51:34 So this is a great segue because you're right that that ends up being something that's, that's disputed or discussed in the middle of the war, that the Chinese are an ally and the Chinese did fight alongside the Americans. The Americans tried to help the trainees quite a bit, but that flips immediately after the war. And I think that that's a good segue into the argument I wanted to make about why our memory of war in the Pacific is so different, and it's because we become allies with the Japanese in the wake of the war. We occupy their government, we rewrite their constitution, we force them into being our allies. Meanwhile, the Chinese are in their own civil war. I will say dong and Shanghai shack and the United States. Speaker 0 52:21 Do you know why? So a very popular form of bread in Japan is kind of this white milk bread, but it's a very white, squishy bread. It's kind of like wonder bread, but much better. It's much better than wonder bread. Do you know why it's so popular in Japan? Sounds like it's delicious. I don't know. Well because during the U S kind of occupation of Japan after the war, you know, foods in short supply, rice is in short supply. The United States kind of takes it upon themselves to kind of make sure Japanese school children are fed. And one of the things they do is every Japanese school child gets two slices of this white squishy bread on their plate for lunch. So you have a whole generation in Japan who grow up on this very American bread. Um, and it's, it is perplexing that we go in 19 early 1945 the United States and Japan are as diametrically opposed mortal enemies as you could possibly. And by 46 47 they are now increasingly joined at the hip as allies. Correct. Speaker 4 53:34 It's forced friendship because the United States will have an episode, like you said, about the dropping of the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but the United States had bombed out so much of Japan at this point. It's not like there were no attacks on the Japanese mainland. Tokyo was being firebombed on a daily basis more than decimated. And so when the, when the United States drops the bombs, they dropped bombs on such kind of unknown ish cities because the larger cities had already been bombed out. I mean the Japan had been completely, uh, wrecked by United States incursion, embalming, um, of their, of their major cities. And so when the Japanese surrender in August of 1945 forced into a friendship with the United States because they didn't really have any other choice in the United States, goes over and kind of rebuilds their whole system and says, you're just going to behave the way we want you to behave. And women were actually really involved in the writing of the Japanese constitution, which I'd love to talk about at some point, but, and the United Speaker 0 54:48 back to Pearl Harbor. Cause let's, I want to talk about, like, I want to make sure listeners understand we're not, this isn't an excuse for what happens on December 7th. What we want is context, right? Like why does it happen and it, and it's a surprise, but it's also kind of not a surprise, but it's not that conspiratorial surprise. Um, and people lose their lives, right? You've got these sailors. I mean, I cannot imagine being trapped below decks on one of these ships and dying. You suffocate, you drown, whatever. Um, what a horrific way to die. You know, it's a Sunday morning. Um, you know, people really aren't expecting anything to happen and suddenly this happens. Um, so it's this awful attack and it's, it's, um, a complete Japanese victory apart from the fact they don't get those carriers and the United States is able to repair those battleships. But I mean, what do we do with it? How do we teach Pearl Harbor specifically without it kind of being a, Oh, the Japanese were so awful for doing this. I mean, what do we do with that as far as educators? Speaker 4 56:07 Well, I think it's, I think it's okay to say that this was a horrific thing, particularly the way that I like to approach is like, the Japanese had been doing really horrific things for years at this point. For 10 solid years, the Japanese had been massacring people all throughout Southeast Asia, Japanese army, the Japanese army who were Japanese people. So I like to approach it by saying this is one attack in a series of attacks that the Japanese military has undertaken over the past 10 years, starting with that invasion of Manchuria. And that it's just one more instance of Japanese aggression and it's just moved basically into another region. Um, and <inaudible> I don't, I don't think it's wrong to say that the Japanese were being aggressive, right? I mean, I think that unfortunately what ends up happening in the wake and the discussion of it, because Japan becomes an ally, we lose out discussing what was happening in China and what happened to the Chinese people as a result of this militarism of the Japanese. Speaker 4 57:22 And because China becomes a communist nation in the wake of the war, the United States has been quick, I think, to forget the atrocities that happened to the Chinese people. So I like to talk about that in class. It's just like, look, Japan was doing these things. Um, and <inaudible>, you know, and it's not, it's not to paint, you know, like, Oh, there's a good guy and there's a bad guy. It's not about that, but it's just like, I think it's important as educators to recover some of those lesser known instances of what was happening in the Pacific prior to the United States, his entrance to the war. How do you approach those if you think that there's a different, Speaker 0 58:06 you know, I, I kind of talk about, I've had the good luck, um, to always have a couple of vets, uh, in my 20th century U S classes. Um, and I kind of couch it in the phrase of, first of all, you have to consider this as work time. Even though the United States isn't officially at war with Japan, this is war time. Japan is, has kind of been kind of expanding. They view their situation as being forced by the United States. So they approach it as a war time problem that has to be solved. So they kind of approach it that way. Um, but second, you know, I always get back to things, it's kind of what you talked about also, right? It's like a lot of people die. And, uh, prior to Pearl Harbor, um, and the United States, you know, we have to recognize this is this terrible loss for the United States. Speaker 0 59:08 Um, it does galvanize public support for entry to the war. I am amongst a group of people who view the United States involvement in the war as generally a good thing that the United States for the most part is trying to do the right thing. Um, particularly towards the end of the war. The United States seems really to try and to be doing the right thing. Um, but it's, it's sticky, right? It's a really sticky situation. Um, I think when I teach it that the good thing is, is, you know, if you start us in the Pacific with Pearl Harbor and you kind of end the official war with the dropping of the bombs, it's a really good book. And for students because one is kind of Japanese aggression and the other is, does the United States go too far? And I think it's an interesting thing. You kind of throw all these other topics we've talked about. Speaker 0 00:06 Um, but before we kind of wrap it up, I would like to kind of, because it is kind of the 78th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, just kind of quickly talk about, uh, give some data here. So the Arizona, which is a battleship, um, it gets sunk. It's a total loss. A 1,177 sailors die a port that the Oklahoma capsizes a 429 are dead on that, um, it's a total loss as well. The West Virginia, uh, sunk, however it's returned to service in 44, 106 dead on that, the California sunk, returned to service the beginning of 44 a hundred debt on that. The Nevada, um, did not sink, but was severely damaged, was returned to service October 40 to 60, died on that ship, the Pennsylvania, um, never left service. Uh, but nine did die aboard it. Tennessee, um, hit by a couple of bombs, five dead, but it returned to service. February 42, the Maryland for dad, similar situation with the Tennessee return by 42. Um, and then you get kind of cruisers and destroyers and auxiliary crafts. Um, and I think it's, you know, for Americans, I think stepping back and kind of re memorializing Pearl Harbor is kind of a more serious Memorial day in a lot of ways. Speaker 4 01:42 It's very serious Memorial day. And it, I think what's important about it too is that it's not just memorializing those who died on that day, but it's memorializing the start of a very bloody conflict for the United States and globally of course. But it's, it is an important day of remembrance for those who lost their lives right then. But it's also an important day of remembrance of look, this is when the war takes a shift for our country and it's our way of looking at it. Well, there, Speaker 0 02:16 I mean there are only two conflicts the United States is involved in. We're virtually, apart from the revolution where virtually every family in the country is touched by the conflict somehow, whether they lose somebody or they know somebody who's dead, right? It's the civil war and world war two, Speaker 4 02:36 right? I mean it's, it is all encompassing and we can have lots of discussion about this in the future, but it really does impact every single person, civilians as well as the military. And I talk to my students about this. It's like we've been in a war for close to 20 years now. Do you think about it every day? And they were like, no. It's like, well, world war II, you were thinking about being in war every day. People were being drafted, there were rations, uh, women were going to work. I mean the United States of America was completely offended during this time. So it is important to think about that and to think about Pearl Harbor as a marker of the start of the United States, his entrance. And if you're teaching American history, if you're teaching us history, it's really important, like you said, kind of the book end. Speaker 4 03:25 But when I teach it from a global perspective, I always do talk about, you know, the 10 years prior first just because it's important contextually to understand what had been happening. And when you're thinking about the attack, you know, trying to think about it from a historical perspective, it was strategically intelligent of the Japanese to do what they did. You know, it made sense what they did. They were trying to stop the United States from thwarting their plans, complete domination in Southeast Asia, and it was a successful attack. So if you're thinking about military strategy wasn't a very, it wasn't a bad strategy, but when we're thinking about it from our country standpoint, it's absolutely devastating. Um, and you can ask people, you know, I remember asking my grandma when I was little when I learned about it, do you remember Pearl Harbor? It's like, yeah, of course. You know, she remembers exactly what she was doing when she heard about the attack. And so it's really prevalent in our minds as a day of remembrance, and I'm glad that we dedicated some time to talking about it on the anniversary of the speech of president Roosevelt. But the public memory aspect is really interesting. Speaker 0 04:43 Yeah. So, uh, I think it's a great conversation. Um, we get definitely go on, uh, in the new year. Uh, I definitely want to go back to talking about the incarceration of Japanese Americans. I think there's a lot we can talk about there. The Vietnam. Yeah, I mean we haven't even come close to kind of touching on everything there. Um, and as Hillary indicated, we definitely want to talk about kind of the, the dropping of the bombs that are injured by Nagasaki. Uh, I mean these are pivotal moments in us history and you, you know, you can't shy away from them when teaching. Um, before we go, I'd like to thank you for listening. I'd also like to remind you, if you listen to us via Apple podcast, please, um, leave us a rating and write a little review. Let us know how much you enjoy the show. Uh, similarly, if you listen to us on another platform that you're mr review, we're available on YouTube now. You can just search for an incomplete history and that should pop up. If you do listen to us via YouTube, uh, please subscribe, leave a comment if you like. That really helps us out. Um, also you can go to our website and incomplete history.com. You can leave comments. Speaker 2 05:55 You also seek Spanish show notes. I'd like to take you there for listening. This is Jeff and I'm Hillary. Thanks for listening. Until next time.