THE Battle of Ni’ihau began on December 7, 1941. Yes, it is the same day as Operation AI/Operation Z when Isoroku Yamamoto’s task force sneakily attached Hawaii. On that day, Shigenori Nishikaichi and his squadron killed 17 people when they attacked the US Naval Station at Oahu’s Kaneohe Bay. But on his way out, the Japanese Imperial Navy Airman First Class was shot down by the defenders, forcing a crash-land on the forbidden island of Niihau. In the Japanese attack on Oahu, 49 civilians were killed. On Niihau, the downed Mitsubishi Zero fighter pilot (along with the island’s Japanese-American paymaster Yoshio Harada, his wife, and beekeeper Ishimatsu Shintani) terrorized the inhabitants. Nearly a week after the Day of Infamy, Nishikaichi and Harada captured Benehakaka Kanahele and hostaged the native’s wife (Kealoha), but the Hawaiians fought back. “Ella Kanahele then bashed him (Nishikaichi) in the head with a rock, and Ben slit his throat with his hunting knife. Harada then turned the shotgun on himself, committing suicide.” The President of the United States awarded the Medal for Merit and the Purple Heart to Ben Kanahele. [https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2018/12/06/remembering-pearl-harbor-the-niihau-incident/; https://www.nps.gov/perl/learn/historyculture/civilian-casualties.htm; https://www.hawaiireporter.com/niihau-incident-benehakaka-ben-kanahele-wwii-medal-for-merit-purple-heart-1891-1962/#google_vignette]
‘Today, a different proto-fascist superpower-wannabe prowls the West Philippine Sea.’
More on Day 1 and Week 1 of the Pacific War: “Pilot Shigenori Nishikaichi carried a Type 94 when his Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero fighter was struck by anti-aircraft fire over Bellows Field, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. Crash-landing on the remote island of Niihau, Nishikaichi used his Shiki Kenju to terrorize the residents there for six days. When a farmer named Ben Kanahele resisted, the pilot shot him three times at point-blank range. Despite his wounds, Kanahele overpowered the Japanese aviator and crushed Nishikaichi to death against a wall. The Type 94’s reputation as a poor man-stopper did not improve after that incident.” [https://www.historynet.com/japans-suicide-gun/]
- Nazis praised Tokyo’s sneak attack. “If one compares the world situation of Sunday, 7 December, the day when Japan gave President Roosevelt the appropriate answer to his impudent provocations and shameless affronts, with today, one will, without doubt, conclude that the position of the Axis powers has improved in a way that even a few days before military and political experts would have thought highly improbable. All the confident predictions of the USA and England have collapsed. Those in Washington apparently thought the patience and untiring persistence of Japanese negotiators were signs of weakness. They were so surprised by the sudden attacking spirit of the Japanese army that they as yet have found no plausible explanation for what happened… One is deeply moved by the accounts of the heroic deeds of Japan’s death-defying naval airmen.” [Joseph Goebbels, A Different World, 21 December 1941; “Verändertes Weltbild,” Das eherne Herz (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP, 1943), pp. 124-130; https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/goeb7.htm]
- Prosecution of Axis Criminality. “On December 7, 1941, a day which the late President Roosevelt declared ‘will live in infamy,’ victory for German aggression seemed certain. The Wehrmacht was at the gates of Moscow. Taking advantage of the situation, and while her plenipotentiaries were creating a diplomatic diversion in Washington, Japan without declaration of war treacherously attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor and the Philippines. Attacks followed swiftly on the British Commonwealth and The Netherlands in the Southwest Pacific. These aggressions were met in the only way they could be met, with instant declarations of war and with armed resistance which mounted slowly through many long months of reverse until finally the Axis was crushed to earth and deliverance for its victims was won.” [Justice Robert Houghwout Jackson, Opening address for the United States Part 7 — Conspiracy with Japan, 21 November 1945]
- Fake news = Fascist propaganda. “The consequences of the attack on Pearl Harbor–serious as they were– have been wildly exaggerated in other ways. And these exaggerations come originally from Axis propagandists, but they have been repeated, I regret to say, by Americans in and out of public life. You and I have the utmost contempt for Americans who, since Pearl Harbor, have whispered or announced ‘off the record’ that there was no longer any Pacific Fleet–that the fleet was all sunk or destroyed on December 7–that more than a thousand of our planes were destroyed on the ground. They have suggested slyly that the Government has withheld the truth about casualties–that eleven or 12,000 men were killed at Pearl Harbor instead of the figures as officially announced… Almost every Axis broadcast–Berlin, Rome, Tokyo– directly quotes Americans who, by speech or in the press, make damnable misstatements such as these.” [US President F.D. Roosevelt, Fireside Chat, 23 February 1942]
- “Early on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, the 130 vessels of the U.S. Pacific Fleet lay quiet and serene in Pearl Harbor. American sailors were preparing to raise colors, unaware that the worst naval disaster in American history was about to unfold… The sinking of the battleship USS Arizona remains the most recognized symbol of that tragic day… Rising from the destruction at Pearl Harbor, all but three of the ships sunk there were repaired and put back into service. Less than 4 years later, the Pacific Fleet sailed victoriously into Tokyo Bay.” [William J. Clinton, Proclamation 7259, 07 December 1999]
- “Though the decades have passed, we are careful to never forget the lessons of Pearl Harbor. Our Armed Forces must be strong and vigilant, prepared to fight and preserve all we hold dear.” [Donald John Trump, Proclamation 9684 – National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, 07 December 2017]
- “On December 7, 1941… the United States was forced into a long and terrible war. A generation of Americans stepped forward to fight for our country. Their message to America’s enemies was clear: If you attack this country and harm our people, there is no corner of the Earth remote enough to protect you from the reach of our Nation’s Armed Forces.” [George W. Bush, Proclamation 8326, 07 December 2008]
- “The fact that it shattered the stillness of a Sunday morning, a time when millions of Americans were preparing to attend church services or to enjoy the quiet of their homes, only compounded the shock, grief, and outrage of our Nation…American forces in Guam, the Philippines, and elsewhere in the Pacific also suffered brutal assaults.” [George Herbert Walker Bush, Proclamation 6387, 03 December 1991]
- “We remember Pearl Harbor’s dead and wounded and its courageous survivors who fought that day and many other days as well. We remember too one of history’s clearest lessons, that weakness and unpreparedness do not build peace but invite aggression.” [Ronald Reagan, Proclamation 5751, 07 December 1987]
Today, a different proto-fascist superpower-wannabe prowls the West Philippine Sea.
