“Remember Pearl Harbor!”

IT WAS a beautiful Sunday morning on Oahu Island. Adeline, a sixth-grade Japanese-Hawaiian girl, was out in her yard in downtown Honolulu. She saw planes flying and smoke coming up from the direction of Pearl Harbor. Was it another drill?

People on Oahu were used to military maneuvers and mock gunfire, so much so that even Vice Admiral William S. Pye of the U.S. Pacific Fleet looked out of his apartment window and said to his wife: “It seems funny that the Army would be having target practice on Sunday morning.” That Sunday morning was December 7, 1941.

Hearing approaching planes, a 13-year-old boy peered out of the window. “Dad,” he reported to his father, who was the commander of Kaneohe Naval Air Station, “those planes have red circles on them.” A glimpse of the red disk, the rising sun, on the planes of the Japanese Imperial Navy, was enough to tell the whole story​—a surprise attack!

Admiral H. E. Kimmel, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, received a report of the attack over the telephone. His face was “white as the uniform he wore” as he stood stunned, watching enemy planes buzzing like wasps as they bombarded his fleet. “I knew right away,” he recounted, “that something terrible was going on, that this was not a casual raid by just a few stray planes. The sky was full of the enemy.”

“Tora, Tora, Tora”

A few minutes before torpedo explosions and bomb blasts shattered the serenity of Pearl Harbor, an officer aboard a Japanese dive-bomber saw the island of Oahu come into view. “This island is too peaceful to attack,” he thought.

The break in the clouds, however, struck Commander Mitsuo Fuchida, the flight leader of the attack force, in a completely different way. “God must be with us,” he thought. “It must be God’s hand which pulled aside the clouds directly over Pearl Harbor.”

At 7:49 a.m., Fuchida gave the attack signal, “To, To, To,” standing for “Charge!” in Japanese. Confident that the American forces were caught totally unawares, he gave the order to click out the message to indicate that the surprise attack had been made​—the famous code words “Tora, Tora, Tora” (“Tiger, Tiger, Tiger”).

Surprise Attack Accomplished

How could a large task force that included six aircraft carriers have sneaked as close as 230 miles [370 km] from Oahu and launched in the first-wave attack 183 aircraft, which dodged radar networks and dealt the U.S. Pacific Fleet such a terrible blow? For one thing, the Japanese task force took a northern route despite turbulent winter seas. The U.S. patrols were weakest north of Pearl Harbor. And the Japanese flattops maintained strict radio silence.

However, radar was watchdogging the strategic island to detect any approaching aircraft. About seven o’clock on that decisive morning, two army privates on duty at Opana Mobile Radar Station on the island of Oahu noted unusually large blips on the oscilloscope, representing “probably more than 50” planes. But when they alerted the Information Center, they were told not to worry about it. The officer at the Information Center took it for a flight of American B-17 bombers that was scheduled to come in from the mainland.

Still, did not the U.S. government smell gunpowder in the air, so to speak? The Japanese government had sent a 14-part message to its envoys in Washington, D.C., to deliver to Cordell Hull, the secretary of state, at exactly 1:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on December 7, 1941. That would have been the morning of December 7 at Pearl Harbor. The message contained the statement that Japan would break off negotiations with the United States over crucial political matters. Having intercepted the message, the U.S. government became aware of the gravity of the situation. The night before the momentous day, Franklin D. Roosevelt, then president of the United States, had received the first 13 parts of the intercepted document. After reading it, he said, in substance, “This means war.”

Although the U.S. officials felt that hostile Japanese action was imminent, The New Encyclopædia Britannica says: “They had no knowledge of the time or place at which it would occur.” Most felt it would be somewhere in the Far East, perhaps Thailand.

The 1:00 p.m. appointment had to be delayed because the Japanese embassy secretaries were slow in typing the message in English. When the Japanese ambassador handed the document to Hull, it was 2:20 p.m. in Washington. At that time, Pearl Harbor was under fire and threatened by the second-wave attack. News of the raid had already reached Hull. He did not even offer the envoys chairs; he read the document and coldly nodded them to the door.

The delay in the delivery of the intended ultimatum intensified the American rage against Japan. Even some Japanese felt that this circumstance turned the Pearl Harbor attack from a strategic surprise attack into a sneak attack. “The words ‘REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR’ became an oath that stirred up the fighting spirit of the American people,” wrote Mitsuo Fuchida, the flight commander of the first-wave attack. He acknowledged: “The attack brought upon Japan a disgrace which did not vanish even after her defeat in the war.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt called December 7 “a date which will live in infamy.” On that day at Pearl Harbor, eight U.S. battleships and ten other vessels were either sunk or severely damaged, and more than 140 aircraft were destroyed. The Japanese lost 29 aircraft out of some 360 fighters and bombers attacking in two waves, in addition to five midget submarines. More than 2,330 American lives were lost, and 1,140 were left wounded.

To the cry of “Remember Pearl Harbor!” American public opinion was unified against Japan. “With only a single dissenting vote in the House,” says the book Pearl Harbor as History​—Japanese-American Relations 1931-1941, “Congress (like the American people in general) united behind President Roosevelt in the determination to defeat the enemy.” Seeking vengeance for the raid was more than enough reason for them to open hostilities against the Land of the Rising Sun.

A Surprise Attack for World Peace?

How did the Japanese rulers justify their hostile actions? Incredible as it may seem, they claimed that it was to establish world peace by uniting the ‘whole world into a big family,’ or hakkō ichiu. This became the slogan goading the Japanese into bloodshed. “The basic aim of Japan’s national policy,” declared the Japanese cabinet in 1940, “lies in the firm establishment of world peace in accordance with the lofty spirit of hakkō ichiu in which the country was founded, and in the construction, as the first step, of a new order in Greater East Asia.”

In addition to the slogan hakkō ichiu, liberation of Asia from the Western powers became the other great goal of the Japanese war effort. Both causes were considered to be the will of the emperor. In order to accomplish this world conquest, militarists led the nation into a war with China and then with the Western powers, including the United States.

Isoroku Yamamoto, commander in chief of Japan’s Combined Fleet, though, realistically concluded that there was no way that Japanese forces could overpower the United States. He saw only one chance to maintain Japanese dominance in Asia. The Imperial Navy should “fiercely attack and destroy the U.S. main fleet at the outset of the war, so that the morale of the U.S. Navy and her people” would “sink to the extent that it could not be recovered,” he reasoned. Thus the idea of a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor was born.

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Pearl Harbor under attack

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U.S. Navy/​U.S. National Archives photo

“No More Hiroshimas!”

ALTHOUGH the Japanese were elated over the Pearl Harbor victory and remembered it while they were winning, the date was consigned to oblivion after they lost the war. When the Japanese government was asked recently about not having apologized for the attack, the chief cabinet secretary answered: “Strategically and generally speaking, I have the feeling that the Pearl Harbor attack was anything but commendable. However, matters regarding the war between the United States and Japan were settled by the San Francisco Peace Treaty.”

His words represent the feelings of some Japanese toward the surprise attack that ignited the Pacific war. Although over a million Japanese visit Hawaii every year, reports the newspaper Mainichi Shimbun, only a relatively small number visit the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial, which was built to commemorate the Pearl Harbor attack.

While the slogan “Remember Pearl Harbor!” brings back bitter memories to some Americans, the Japanese recall their sufferings with the outcry “No More Hiroshimas.” Atom bombs that exploded over the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 had a traumatic effect not only on the direct victims but on the nation as a whole.

Hearing the firsthand experiences of survivors helps us understand their feelings. Take, for example, Itoko, who was just out of school and had become a secretary at the Naval institution in Hiroshima. Even though she was inside the building where she worked, she felt the flash of the atom bomb, as though she were swayed by the light itself. “I worked with soldiers to clean the city of dead bodies,” explains Itoko. “In a river, the soldiers trawled a fishing net from a boat and recovered more than 50 bodies every time they pulled up the net. We took the bodies ashore and stacked them in fives and burned them. Most of them were naked. I couldn’t tell men from women, and their lips were swollen like ducks’ bills.” The Japanese cannot forget the horrors wrought by two atom bombs.

Why the Weapon of Mass Destruction Was Used

Professor Shigetoshi Iwamatsu of Nagasaki University, who is an A-bomb victim himself, wrote to Western newspapers more than 20 years ago to inform them of the plight of the victims. “He was stunned by the responses,” reports Asahi Evening News. “Half of the answers were that it was the atomic bombs that had stopped the Japanese aggression and it was odd for the bomb victims to appeal for peace.”

Explaining the reason for using the weapon of mass destruction, The Encyclopedia Americana says: “He [Harry S. Truman] made the decision to use atomic bombs against Japan, believing that they would end the war quickly and save lives.” Although not insensitive to the feelings of A-bomb victims, Kenkichi Tomioka, a Japanese journalist who reported the chaotic postwar conditions, admits: “Looking back at the period between March/​April and August 1945, when operations to conclude the war reached a climax putting the fate of the nation at stake, we cannot ignore the role played by the two doses of corrective medicine [atom bombs], specific for cooling hot heads, that were administered to militarists clamoring for a showdown to defend the homeland. A showdown would have meant the gyokusai (charging into death rather than surrendering) of the 100 million population.”

Nevertheless, those who lost loved ones in the atom bombings and those who suffer illnesses caused by radiation find that their pain cannot be salved by words that justify the dropping of the pikadon, or “flash-and-blast,” as the survivors called the A-bombs. Although they have long seen themselves as innocent victims, some A-bomb survivors now realize that as Japanese, they must acknowledge, as Professor Iwamatsu went on to say, the “crimes they committed in their aggression against other countries in the Asia-Pacific region.” In 1990 a bomb victim apologized for Japan’s war crimes in front of foreign delegates at the annual antibomb demonstrations in Hiroshima.

Did They Really Have Reasons to Kill?

A strong loathing for war dwells in the hearts of many survivors and eyewitnesses of Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. Looking back, some question whether their countries had valid reasons to demand the sacrifice of their loved ones.

In order to whip up fervor for the war and justify the killing, both sides launched verbal attacks as well. The Americans called the Japanese “sneaky Japs” and found it easy to fan the flames of hatred and revenge with the words “Remember Pearl Harbor!” In Japan people were taught that the Anglo-Americans were kichiku, meaning “demonic beasts.” Many in Okinawa were even led to commit suicide rather than fall into the hands of “beasts.” Similarly, after the Japanese surrendered, when American invasion forces landed at a nearby port, young Itoko, mentioned earlier, was handed two doses of poisonous potassium cyanide by her commander. “Don’t you be a plaything for the foreign soldiers,” he ordered.

However, through her Japanese-Hawaiian friends, Itoko gradually widened her views and came to realize that both the Americans and the British can be friendly, genteel, and kind. She met George, an Irishman born in Singapore, whose father was killed by the Japanese. They came to know each other and married. They are only one example of many who found their ex-enemies to be amicable persons. If all had seen the “enemies,” not through glasses tinted by war, but through their own unbiased eyes, they could have showered them with love instead of with bombshells.

Yes, peace between individuals based on mutual understanding is essential for world peace. But in view of the scores of wars fought since 1945, it is evident that men have not learned this basic lesson from Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima. However, even peace between individuals is not enough to bring world peace. Just what will it take? The next article will explain.

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While the slogan “Remember Pearl Harbor!” brings back bitter memories to some Americans, the Japanese recall their sufferings with the outcry “No More Hiroshimas!”

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Peace between individuals based on mutual understanding is essential for world peace

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Lloyd Barry and Adrian Thompson, missionaries of the Watch Tower Society, in front of Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial in 1950

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Hiroshima in ruins after the atom-bomb blast

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U.S. Army/​Courtesy of The Japan Peace Museum

When Old Wounds Are Healed

YOUNG Adeline Nako, mentioned at the outset of this series, developed a strong animosity toward her ancestors’ homeland, Japan. When other children called Japanese-Hawaiians “Japs,” she would retort, “We’re Americans.” She painted posters saying, “Wipe Out Those Axis Powers” and was at the forefront of the campaign to buy war stamps. Adeline said: “I was so proud of the 100th and 442nd battalions made up of nisei, or second-generation Japanese-Americans, who courageously fought for America.”

However, as she grew older, she started to wonder: ‘Why do people have to kill one another?’ It all seemed wrong. ‘Buddhists went to war. Christians went to war. They are all hypocrites,’ she thought. As she had started to study the Bible with the help of Jehovah’s Witnesses, she challenged her Witness teacher with the question, “Do you Jehovah’s Witnesses go to war?”

She was told that they do not take up arms to kill any man. At that time war was still raging in Europe as well as in Asia. Adeline found out that the Witnesses in Germany were being sent to concentration camps and those in the United States were imprisoned for not taking up arms in the war. ‘This must be the true religion,’ she thought.

Peaceful Mission

As her Bible knowledge increased, she was moved to dedicate her life to Jehovah, the God of the Bible. Her devotion to “the God of peace” moved her to widen out in her love by following in the steps of the five Japanese-Hawaiians who volunteered to go to Japan soon after World War II. (Philippians 4:9) They were eager to help the people in the land of their forefathers, former enemies at that, by preaching as missionaries the comforting good news of the Kingdom from the Bible.​—Matthew 24:14.

One who volunteered to help in the war-torn land of Japan, Shinichi Tohara, recalls how he felt about his mission. “I contemplated the faithfulness of the Japanese people when it came to serving human lords and the emperor,” he says. “I thought of the kamikaze pilots, who gave their lives for the emperor by deliberately flying their aircraft into enemy warships. If the Japanese are that faithful toward humans, I thought, what will they do if they find the true Lord, Jehovah?”

With such positive views, in 1949 these volunteers set foot in Tokyo, which had not long before been reduced to rubble by B-29 air raids. What did they find in the huts amid the ruins? A rather timid people who were conscientious workers. Of course, there were people who still harbored resentment and prejudice. Many, however, responded favorably to the Bible’s message of peace.

In 1953, Adeline joined those first missionaries. She eagerly helped the ones who were hungering and thirsting for the comforting message found in the Bible. She did meet antagonistic people in her preaching activities. They would tell her: “You people dropped atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki!”

“Well,” she would respond, “you know I am from Hawaii. And it was Japan that first attacked Pearl Harbor and killed many people there. But that did not hinder me from coming to Japan to tell this good news to people here.” That would usually calm them down, and they would accept literature explaining the Bible.

Thanks to the fine foundation laid by those early missionaries from Hawaii and other countries, now more than 150,000 Japanese are part of a brotherhood of those who do not “learn war anymore.”​—Isaiah 2:4; 1 Peter 2:17.

How All Wars End

Indeed, knowing one another and cultivating unselfish love toward one another is indispensable to world peace. However, that is not enough. People who loved peace and had friends on the other side were also mobilized into the Pacific war under the compulsion of “justifiable” causes. Nationalistic propaganda got the better of their natural inclinations. Although some refused to go to war even at the risk of being sent to concentration camps or prisons, their actions, though commendable, had little, if any, effect in curbing the fervor for war.

When a whole nation is led into war, more than human hands are doing the leading. Usually all involved insist that they wish to avert war. Yet, some very powerful force influences them against their wishes. The Bible identifies that powerful force as “the god of this system of things.” (2 Corinthians 4:4) Indeed, “the whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one,” Satan the Devil.​—1 John 5:19; see also John 12:31; 14:30.

However, the Bible promises that “the God who gives peace will crush Satan.” (Romans 16:20) A prelude to this crushing took place in heaven some 77 years ago. Listen to the description of what the apostle John saw in a thrilling vision 18 centuries in advance of its fulfillment in 1914: “War broke out in heaven . . . So down the great dragon was hurled, the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan, who is misleading the entire inhabited earth; he was hurled down to the earth, and his angels were hurled down with him.”​—Revelation 12:7-9.

Since then Satan the Devil has been confined to the vicinity of the earth. By maneuvering politicians and militarists like puppets, he has unleashed untold sufferings in the wars of this century. However, his impatience only reflects his having great anger, “knowing he has a short period of time.” (Revelation 12:12) Through the mighty hands of the “Prince of Peace,” Jesus Christ, God will deactivate Satan after “the war of the great day of God the Almighty” at “Har–Magedon.”​—Isaiah 9:6; Revelation 16:14, 16.

Unlike all the wars that have been waged by humans, the standard of justice that will prevail in that coming war of God is absolute. It is the standard of the Creator of mankind, who has the best interests of humanity at heart. Unlike political leaders who pressure their people into war, Jehovah, our Creator, will tell his people just as he told his nation of Israel in the days of Jehoshaphat of Judah in the tenth century B.C.E.: “You will not need to fight in this instance. Take your position, stand still and see the salvation of Jehovah in your behalf.”​—2 Chronicles 20:17.

With the dark clouds of influence by Satan blown away, individuals from all nations will enjoy true peace and security earth wide. Then the following conditions foretold by Isaiah will have become a reality. “Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth. Former things shall no more be remembered nor shall they be called to mind.”​—Isaiah 65:17, The New English Bible.

Thus, what took place at Pearl Harbor will no more be remembered in a painful way, nor will the victims of the atom bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki cry out “No More Hiroshimas!” Why? Because the following words of Isaiah’s prophecy will also be true of every person on earth: “He [God] will certainly render judgment among the nations and set matters straight respecting many peoples. And they will have to beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning shears. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, neither will they learn war anymore.”​—Isaiah 2:4.

Fulfillment of these prophecies is already being realized among Jehovah’s Witnesses, who now form a worldwide brotherhood millions strong. This becomes especially evident at international conventions of Jehovah’s Witnesses held in various parts of the world. You too can be a part of that international unity and peace. Come and learn how to be one of the people who have already ‘beaten their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning shears,’ who do not “learn war anymore,” and who look forward to a paradise soon to come on earth, where wars will never again take place.​—Psalm 46:8, 9.

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Jerry and Yoshi Toma, Shinichi and Masako Tohara, and Elsie Tanigawa volunteered to help their former enemies

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Today an international brotherhood worships God in unity and peace