![]() ![]() Among the American servicemen who gave their lives that day was Japanese American Private Torao Migita of Company D, 298th Infantry Battalion, killed tragically not by Japanese bombs, but by friendly fire as he was reporting for duty. And the human toll was gruesome: 2,340 Americans killed and 1,178 others wounded. But those fears were unfounded, and the battleships and aircraft in Hawaii were sitting ducks.Īs a consequence, the Japanese forces were able to hit all eight battleships at once, destroying the USS Arizona and USS Oklahoma, along with 149 American airplanes. He figured the planes could be more easily guarded against sabotage by local Japanese residents this way. Short, the local army commander, had ordered the planes at nearby Hickam and Wheeler airfields to be clustered together on the ground. Believing that the US Navy’s Pacific Fleet would be needed at full strength against the Japanese in the Pacific, the US military had amassed eight of the nation’s battleships and other support ships together at Pearl Harbor. Everyone had assumed that Japan would hit closer targets first, like the Philippines or the Malay Peninsula they’d discounted Japan’s capacity to carry out a long-range assault on Hawaii’s fortified naval base. But no one had imagined Pearl Harbor to be Japan’s likely first strike. Roosevelt and his advisers had been anticipating imminent war because diplomatic relations between Japan and the United States had completely deteriorated. Kimmell and the other commanders watched helplessly as the daring Japanese raid devastated the Pacific Fleet and crippled the defense of the naval base in a single attack. Kimmel, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet, sent out a radiogram to all navy ships in Hawaii: “AIRRAID ON PEARL HARBOR X THIS IS NO DRILL.” But Kimmel’s urgent alert could not stop the onslaught of approximately 360 Imperial Japanese bombers from raining down on Pearl Harbor and nearby army bases and airfields for almost two hours. As soon as they reached the US Navy’s Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor-a natural lagoon on the island of Oahu-they began dropping bombs and torpedoes. A pearl-gray Mitsubishi A6M Zero “Reisen” carrier-borne naval fighter and a Nakajima B5N “Kate” carrier-borne torpedo bomber with red dots on the wings launched from one of six Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carriers. Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, just before 8:00 a.m. The Honorable Daniel “Dan” Ken Inouye, male, Nisei, Honolulu, Hawaii, age 17 when Pearl Harbor was attacked 2 ![]() And I thought my world had just come to an end. They were pearl grey with red dots on the wing-Japanese. ExcerptĬhapter One: Day of Infamy CHAPTER ONE Day of InfamyĪll of a sudden, three aircraft flew right overhead. Now more than ever, their words will resonate with readers who are confronting questions about racial identity, immigration, and citizenship, and what it means to be an American. For the first time, why and how these tragic events took place are interwoven with more than 130 individual voices of those who were unconstitutionally incarcerated, many of them children and young adults. Mineta describes as a “landmark book,” he and others who lived through this harrowing experience tell the story of their incarceration and the long-term impact of this dark period in American history. It’s difficult to believe it happened here, in the Land of the Free: After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, the United States government forcibly removed more than 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry from the Pacific Coast and imprisoned them in desolate detention camps until the end of World War II just because of their race. Kamei weaves together the voices of over 130 individuals who lived through this tragic episode, most of them as young adults. In this “riveting and indispensable” ( Kirkus Reviews, starred review) narrative history of Japanese Americans before, during, and after their World War II incarceration, Susan H. A Kirkus Reviews Best YA Nonfiction of 2021
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