Five months before America entered the war, pollsters sallied forth onto the streets with numerous queries:
"On the question, 'Shall the United States enter the war to help Britain defeat Hitler?' The New York Daily News and the Chicago Tribune found war sentiment ranging from 3 out of 10 voters in New York State to 2 out of 11 in Illinois." Using the most accurate figures available to them at the time, the editors at PM Daily News compared and contrasted the two world wars for their readers in their VJ-Day issue. The day following Japan's debut performance at Pearl Harbor found American economists assessing the economic strength of that country in an effort to understand how long their military would be able to exert power:
"Government economists doubted today that Japan's economy could withstand a long war with the United States."
Four years after the Pearl Harbor attack, a Japanese newspaper editorial expressed deep regret for Japan's aggressiveness in the Second World War, click here to read about it...
"Lightning warfare suggests initiative and spirit of the offensive; it carries with it the element of surprise, not so much in the happening as in the speed and force with which the attack is launched and delivered."
Click here to read about the nature of Total war. "On March 10, 1945, a group of Superforts crossed Japan's coast line. Behind them came another group, and another in a line stretching far back toward Saipan. In a long, thin file they roared over Tokyo. They flew low and out of their open bellies spilled bombs of jellied gasoline. When they hit, they burst, spewing out billowing, all-consuming fire. The flames leaped across fire lanes, swallowed factories, destroyed skyscrapers."
Click here to read about August 28, 1945 - the day the American occupation began.
Hallett Abend (1884 - 1955) was an American journalist who lived in China for fifteen years. He covered the Sino-Japanese War during its early years and had seen first-hand the beastly vulgarity of the Japanese Army. After Pearl Harbor, the editor at Liberty turned to him in hopes that he would explain to the American reading public what kind of enemy they were fighting:
"In four and a half years of warfare [in China], the Japanese have taken almost no prisoners... Chinese prisoners of war are shot." |