By Catherine Ellerton

Moapa Valley Progress

. – - . . .- .-. .-..

Today is the 70th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into World War II.

The code continued relentlessly until the fateful message had been delivered – PEARL HARBOR BOMBED!

Overton native, Harry B. Perkins had joined the Naval Air Force on August 8, 1941. He was in training at the Radio Training School to become an Aviation Radio Man when, on December 7, 1941, the instructor coded the fateful message.

Perkins recalls that there had been a tension in the air for while. When the message finally came, the general feeling was “So it is. Here we go!”

The draft had been in affect for about four months and the saying was “Goodbye, Dear. I’ll be back in a year.”

Chuck Jenson, now a local resident, who in 1943 was drafted into the Navy Seabees – Heavy Equipment Maintenance/Repair – remembers that he was still working on his folks’ farm in So. Dakota. The neighbor came by and told them that Pearl Harbor had been bombed.

On December 7, 1941, local veteran Al Biederman was working on the railroad and, try as he would, he could not join the service because the railroad was essential to the war effort. It carried troops, ammunition, tanks and people to their disembarkation points. They had heard scuttlebutt that something was going down, but no one paid much attention to it.

Local veteran, Max Getz said that he was working in Brigham City, Utah, when Pearl Harbor was bombed. His memory was of the shock that everyone felt.

Moapa Valley resident Joe Eckman recalled that he was aboard the USS Atlanta on a shakedown cruise in the North Atlantic when the word was received. He states that the feeling was that “different times were coming and it wasn’t going to be peace time.”

The first part of a Japanese diplomatic note breaking relations with the U.S. was received by U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull on December 6, 1941. The second part of the note was delivered on December 7 to the Japanese ambassadors and picked up by American intelligence. The message was clear. War was to be declared that afternoon. The U.S. sent warnings to the Pacific bases; however, the note to Hawaii was sent by commercial telegraph and radio. The bicycle messenger on his way to deliver the coded message ended up being in the middle of the battle.

The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor began at 7:55 A.M. and lasted until 10:00 A.M. Within that two hour period Japan had nearly accomplished what it had set out to do which was to cripple the United States Pacific Fleet.

But the Japanese underestimated the Americans. The aircraft carriers were not at Pearl and so went untouched, the submarines were not attacked and the repair dockyards and fuel-oil storage tanks were undamaged. America came out swinging.

On December 8, 1941, the United States declared war on Japan. On December 11, 1941, Nazi Germany and its Axis declared war on the United States.