Remembering the Attack on Pearl Harbor — A Day of Infamy

The prelude to what was called “America’s Greatest Generation”.

The flag in the background of this picture is the one my father, the late Tracy Read Warner, and the gentleman in the wheelchair, his friend and fellow soldier, Mr. Darwin Swanson, raised just moments before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor over Hickam Field, the Army Air Corps base above Honolulu, on December 7th, 1941. The photo was taken on the 75th anniversary and Mr. Swanson was 95. The soldier on the right is my brother, Major Wynn Warner. (Picture from the author’s personal collection.)

In the United States there are three remembrance holidays that we commemorate each year that have a connection to the military and which, while I have never served, I am particularly attached to.

When I was in college during the Vietnam War, my draft number was 283 which meant I would not be called unless we escalated into another World War. And so, I am one of the only males in my family to have never been in the armed services.

Instead, these three holidays: Memorial Day, Veterans’ Day and Pearl Harbor Day remind me to give thanks to my family members who did serve. Because of them, I did not have to.

This last of these remembrances, Pearl Harbor Day, comes every December 7th to commemorate the surprise attack by the Japanese. It was labeled “A Day of Infamy” by President Franklin Roosevelt. Each year, I make a tradition of watching a WWII movie about the Japanese attack in 1941. It used to be that I watched the 1970’s film “Tora, Tora, Tora”. A couple of years ago, I found a new movie, a musical based on the 1953 movie “From Here to Eternity” which labels the soldiers and sailors at Pearl Harbor, “The Boys of 1941”. But mostly I watch the 2001 Michael Bey Movie…