Powerful Accounts of Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941

Japan's strategic blunder

When the date “December 7” comes around each year, many if not most Americans recall, or should recall, the words of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941. It’s a date “that will live in infamy.”

One of the last Pearl Harbor survivors, Bob Fernendez, 100 and in hospice, is the focus of a poignant profile in The LA Times on Dec. 7, 2024. He was a 17-year-old sailor when the Japanese attacked. Nobody knows exactly how many Pearl Harbor survivors are left, but the estimate is less than 20. The article is well worth your time, and probably temporarily available for free. Click.

Aircraft carrier named for Pearl Harbor hero.

CBS Sunday Morning: “Instead of presidents or admirals, an African American enlisted sailor – a hero during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor – will be honored when the USS Doris Miller is christened. David Martin talks with Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly, who broke with tradition to name the next Navy aircraft carrier after an enlisted man, and with relatives of Doris "Dorie" Miller, who was not initially recognized for his valor on that "Day of Infamy."

More on Dorie Miller, the first African American to be awarded the Navy Cross.

FDR’s brief but famous speech to Congress one day after the Japanese attacked the American base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Below that, survivors reflect on the day; an examination of why Japan attacked the U.S.; what American movies tend to leave out; and the perspectives of historian Heather Cox Richardson and journalist Dan Rather.