On the day of the Japanese assault, two forward American observers warned a squadron of planes was fast approaching Hawaii but their commander waved them off, explaining it was a formation of U.S. Roosevelt was officially warned the prospects of a Japanese attack were ever greater. In the autumn of 1941, President Franklin D. Seventy five years ago on December 7th, 1941, a surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in Honolulu stunned the military commanders on that sunny Sunday morning even though there had been warnings as early as January of that year the Japanese could be planning just such an ambush. In short order America was at war in Afghanistan and Iraq against jihadist groups and the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein. We later learned the CIA and other Washington intelligence agencies had spent the summer in states of high anxiety after picking up signals Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden were planning a surprise strike against the U.S. In rapid succession the Pentagon was attacked by a hijacked American flight and a United flight went down in Pennsylvania after a passenger revolt. It was a bold, brutal sneak attack for which we had no warning until the first airliner crashed into the upper reaches of the south tower.
About ninety minutes into our NBC News coverage of 9-11, with the eery, almost slow motion television images of the fatally wounded twin trade towers dominating every television screen I thought, “My God, is this our Pearl Harbor?” ★ There were so many similarities and yet so many differences.
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