70th anniversary of the start of the pacific war

On this date, 8th of December, 1941, the attack on Malaya by the Japanese begun the Pacific War. About an hour and a half later on the 7th of December, 1941, the bombing of Pearl Harbor brought the US into WW2.

 

My father volunteered to serve after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was barely old enough to join, but they weren't checking age much in those days. He served in the Pacific Theater until Japan surrendered. He never spoke much of the war as is usually the case for those who saw action. He did tell me about a Japanese submarine they sunk once. Cancer eventually got him. He was the toughest and most honest man I ever met. I have his flag proudly displayed in my living room.

 

My father's father was in the Australian 8th Division 2nd AIF and was sent to Singapore, which, if you know your history, the British surrendered. He spent the rest of the war as a POW but was accidentally listed as killed (I guess some other poor family was told their father was alive who had died, I don't know?) and my grandmother had remarried by the time he returned. I imagine that caused all sorts of legal nightmares. Anyway, she got back with my grandfather and in 1950 my father was born. I guess that worked out.


I had another family member that I know of (everyone above my parents is dead and both were born after WW2) serve and he was killed in North Africa. I don't know of anyone else but I'm sure there were some.

There was my mother's father but he was a flight instructor in the RAAF, which pissed him off no end when the war started and they wouldn't let him transfer to an active squadron.

 

Grand-dad was 2/14th. Kakoda, Borneo, Palistine, Lybia, Shaggy Ridge (off top of head) a few more.

Other than bad memories 2 things he returned with still hold strong.

1 was a piece of Frangipani that would have been the root stock to the 1000's of frangipannis around the district.

2 was a Japanese officers sword, now displayed in a glass and walnut wood box. The wood comming from a huge walnut tree he used to sit under in his vegetable patch.

 

Did he know Bruce?

 

Actually, I am one of those that places the start of this war much earlier, 7 July 1937. That is when Japan started the Second Sino-Japanese War. And a few months later in 12 December 1937, Japan opened fire on both US and UK gunboats which were assisting in the evacuation of Nanking.

And in September 1940 you had the invasion of French Indochina. Once again an attack on an Allied nation. But since France had essentially ceased to exist by this time, not much attention was paid to it.

There were a large number of incidents during next 4 years, and it was only a formal declaration of war between the 2 sides thet prevented this war from being better known to the general public. December 7/8 is is smply the day that Japan took off the gloves.

 

By the way, just finished "Fly Boys" which uses the story of American flyers captured on Chichu Jima to examine both Japanese and American motivations and actions. I found it fascinating.

 

But the Pacific War was a world war. Attacking China, etc didn't meet the definition of a world war which is a war involving many important nations. China at the time was weak. French Indochina at the time was hardly a world power with France having being smashed. They were wars but they weren't world wars.

 

The Frank Capra's film serie "Why We Fight" reached the same conclusion that Mushroom did. WW2 started with the Japanese aggression in china and Italy's Ethiopian campaign. That one proved to the world that the League of Nation was just a useless forum without any power, kind of like the UN today.

 

Pity that those wars don't meet the definition of a world war.

 

They didn't ask for your opinion then, and we don't really care for it now...

 

And yet you're in MY thread, Einstein.

 

And yet, this isn't your personal forum... All are free to participate.

Those movies were made at the request of the DoD at the time. I bet they had the authority to call those two wars part of the second world war if they wanted to.

Wars don't just happens. The tension has to build up before it reach the boiling point. Those two war , just like the Austrian Anschluss (sp?), czeckoslovakia, the rhine land, all were the first movement of a symphony.

 

The term world war isn't even American so I don't give a flying (*)(*)(*)(*) if the DoD at the time decided they were world wars. The rest of the world didn't. The definition of the term doesn't support it.

 

The rest of the world did. The fact that your tiny country has a "penis" envy in regard to the rest of the world doesn't change anything. People don't care about your own personal opinion on what make or doesn't make a world war.

 

No, the rest of the world does not consider 1937 to be the start of WW2 and it's not penis envy to say so.

 

Well not the rest of the world since we are at least two against one right here.

The only dates that are set in the second world war are the day each front ended.

Japan started the second sino-japanese war in 1937 and that war ended in 1945 when Japan surrendered. It was just another front, isolated from the rest but it wasn't a separate "thing". It was part of the big japanese empire dream. The same dream that made them invade Hong-Kong and attack Pearl Harbor.

Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935 and was kicked out 1941 by the British. It wasn't an isolated "thing" either since it was also a part of a master plan that Mussolini had of recreating his own roman empire.

What sept. 9, 1939 was, it wasn't the start of WW2. It was just the date at which the Allies, France and Britain entered the already existing war. And even then they didn't really do (*)(*)(*)(*) for months while the Germans were ransacking Poland.

 

Sorry a world war is a war involving many important nations. Better luck next time.

 

So you say... Nobody care...

 

So says the Oxford English Dictionary.

 

They aren't in the millitary business. I don't consult to learn about military history.

 

Sigh. It's like talking to a (*)(*)(*)(*)ing rock but less informative.

 

Already going for the PA?
Wow that didn't take long.

You still haven't presented anything that would invalidate my position beside an appeal to authority fallacy.

Ho well... I expected more from someone who as a tank as his avatar.

 

Um, you used that fallacy.

 

Nope, i didn't. The DoD IS an authority on this subject. The Oxford Dictionary is an authority on vocabulary, not on military matters. If we were playing scrabble it would be a great source but we ain't, so...