On this Day in History… December 11th

Dec 11

On this Day...

by Gerald Boerner

“No one can guarantee success in war, but only deserve it.”
— Winston Churchill

“In modern war… you will die like a dog for no good reason.”
— Ernest Hemingway

“War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.”
— Thomas Mann

“It is a fatal error to enter any war without the will to win it.”
— Douglas MacArthur

“In time of war the first casualty is truth.”
— Boake Carter

“In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.”
— Winston Churchill

“Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.”
— John F. Kennedy

“All great civilisations, in their early stages, are based on success in war.”
— Kenneth Clark

“An act of violence whose object is to constrain the enemy, to accomplish our will.”
— Douglas MacArthur

“Only the defeated and deserters go to war. •Henry David Thoreau All diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means.”
— Benito Mussolini

“When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war. War settles nothing.”
— Dwight D. Eisenhower

“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.”
— Albert Einstein

“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse”
— John Stuart Mill

“War alone brings up to their highest tension all human energies and imposes the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to make it.”
— Benito Mussolini

“Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war. •Otto Von Bismarck Peace with a club in hand is war. •Portuguese Proverb The sinews of war are five – men, money, materials, maintenance (food) and morale. •Bernard Mannes Baruch The greatest conqueror is he who overcomes the enemy without a blow. •Chinese Proverb Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount.”
— Otto von Bismark

War Declared against the U.S. by Germany

The results of the attack on Pearl Harbor are many and significant.

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and hastened the entry of the United States into World War II on the side of the Allies.

The day after the attack, President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed a joint session of United States Congress. Roosevelt called December 7 "a date which will live in infamy". Congress declared war on the Empire of Japan amid outrage at the attack and the late delivery of the note from the Japanese government breaking off relations with the U.S. government, actions considered treacherous. Pacifist Congresswoman Jeannette Rankin, a Republican from Montana, cast the only dissenting vote. Roosevelt signed the declaration of war later the same day. Continuing to intensify its military mobilization, the U.S. government finished converting to a war economy, a process begun by provision of weapons and supplies to the Soviet Union and Great Britain.

The Pearl Harbor attack immediately galvanized a divided nation into action. Public opinion had been moving towards support for entering the war during 1941, but considerable opposition remained until the attack. Overnight, Americans united against Japan in response to calls to "Remember Pearl Harbor." American solidarity in the war effort probably made possible the unconditional surrender position later taken by the Allied Powers. Some historians, among them Samuel Eliot Morison, believe the attack doomed Japan to defeat simply because it awakened the "sleeping beast", regardless of whether the fuel depots or machine shops had been destroyed or even if the carriers had been caught in port and sunk. U.S. industrial and military capacity, once mobilized, was able to pour overwhelming resources into both the Pacific and Atlantic theaters. Others, such as Clay Blair, Jr., and Mark Parillo believe Japanese trade protection was so incompetent that American submarines alone might have strangled Japan into defeat.

Perceptions of treachery in the attack before a declaration of war sparked fears of sabotage or espionage by Japanese sympathizers residing in the U.S., including citizens of Japanese descent and was a factor in the subsequent Japanese internment in the western United States. Other factors included misrepresentations of intelligence information (none) suggesting sabotage, notably by General John DeWitt, commanding Coast Defense on the Pacific Coast, who had personal feelings against Japanese Americans. In February 1942, Roosevelt signed United States Executive Order 9066, requiring all Japanese Americans to submit themselves for an internment.

Germany and Italy declare war

On December 11, 1941, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy declared war on the United States, and the United States reciprocated, formally entering the war in Europe.

Hitler declares war on the
United States, 11 December 1941

German dictator Adolf Hitler and Italian dictator Benito Mussolini were under no obligation to declare war on the United States under the mutual defense terms of the Tripartite Pact. However, relations between the European Axis Powers and the United States had deteriorated since 1937. Earlier in 1941, the Nazis learned of the U.S. military’s contingency planning to get troops in Continental Europe by 1943; this was Rainbow Five, made public by sources unsympathetic to Roosevelt’s New Deal, and published by the Chicago Tribune. Moreover, with Roosevelt’s initiation of a Neutrality Patrol, which in fact also escorted British ships, as well as orders to U.S. Navy destroyers first to actively report U-boats, then "shoot on sight", American neutrality was honored more in the breach than observance.

Having been unaware of Japanese plans, Hitler was initially furious that the United States had been dragged into the war at a time when he had not yet acquired full control of continental Europe. Hitler, who had previously declared the Japanese "Honorary Aryans" claimed that this is what happens when your allies are not Anglo-Saxons. However, he decided war with the United States was unavoidable, and the Pearl Harbor attack, the publication of Rainbow Five, and Roosevelt’s post-Pearl Harbor address, which focused on European affairs as well as the situation with Japan, probably contributed to the declaration. Hitler underestimated American military production capacity, the nation’s ability to fight on two fronts, and the time his own Operation BARBAROSSA would require. Similarly, the Nazis may have hoped the declaration of war, a showing of solidarity with Japan, would result in closer collaboration with the Japanese in Eurasia, particularly against the Soviet Union. Regardless of Hitler’s reasons, the decision was an enormous strategic blunder and allowed the United States to enter the European war in support of the United Kingdom and the Allies without much public opposition.

Declaration of War on the US by Adolf Hitler

Deputies, Men of the German Reichstag! A year of events of historical significance is drawing to an end. A year of great decisions lies ahead. In these serious times, I speak to you, deputies of the German Reichstag, as the representatives of the German nation. Beyond and above that, the whole German people should take note of this glance into the past, as well as of the coming decisions the present and future impose upon us.

After the renewed refusal of my peace offer in January 1940 by the then British Prime Minister and the clique which supported or dominated him, it became clear that this war – against all reasons of common sense and necessity – must be fought to its end. You know me, my old Party companions; you know I have always been an enemy of half measures or weak decisions.

If the Providence has so willed that the German people cannot be spared this fight, then I can only be grateful that it entrusted me with the leadership in this historic struggle which, for the next 500 or 1,000 years, will be described as decisive, not only for the history of Germany, but for the whole of Europe and indeed the whole world.

The German people and their soldiers are working and fighting today, not only for the present, but also for the coming, nay the most distant, generations. The Creator has imposed a historical revision on a unique scale upon us… (Continued)

Other Events on this Day

In 1816…
Indiana becomes the nineteenth state.
In 1882…
The Bijou Theater in Boston is the first theater lit by electricity.
In 1941…
During World War II, Germany and Italy declare war on the U.S., which responds in kind.
In 1972…
Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt land on the moon during the last Apollo lunar landing mission.