Today is Pearl Harbor Day

Leaflet from WWII - dropped in the Philippines from US war planes.

On this date, Dec. 7, 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.  In WWII  the Japanese were taking over the Pacific from the Philippines to Singapore to Australia and had their sites set for the U.S. Japan, apparently, was becoming more and more under the influence of fascism. Had the U.S. not intervened, it would be a very different world today.

I had a necklace that my father made out of sea shells when he was in Guam and the Philippines during WWII.    He never talked about the war and I never asked him.  My cousins and my brother, however, remember him talking about the war and how he and some other soldiers were trapped in a house when it was stormed by Japanese troops.  Somehow he and one other soldier escaped, all the rest were killed.  The saber he carried is still in our family heirlooms.

He suffered Malaria and Typhus while there, but it never seemed to affect him.

They called him "short pockets" because he barely stood 5 ft. 2 in.  My mom called him "Mighty Mouse."  One of the kindest men I would ever know.

My Dad in the Philippines