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N0KFQ > TODAY 08.12.14 16:00l 49 Lines 2183 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 41728_N0KFQ
Read: GUEST
Subj: Today in History - Dec 8
Path: IZ3LSV<I0OJJ<N6RME<CX2SA<N9PMO<N3XPD<KQ0I<N0KFQ
Sent: 141208/1455Z 41728@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.4.62
Dec 8, 1941:
Roosevelt asks Congress to declare war on Japan
On this day in 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt asks Congress
to declare war on Japan in perhaps the most memorable speech of
his career. The speech, in which he called Japan's act a
"deliberate deception," received thunderous applause from
Congress and, soon after, the United States officially entered
the Second World War.
The day before, Japanese pilots had bombed the U.S. naval base at
Pearl Harbor, decimating the majority of U.S. warships in the
Pacific Fleet along with most of the Air Corps and Navy aircraft
stationed on the island of Oahu. The bombing raids killed 2,403
people, including 68 civilians, and wounded almost 1,200.
Although Roosevelt and his advisors had received intelligence
reports indicating an imminent attack by Japan days before, he
had hoped that Japanese and American diplomats, then negotiating
in Washington, would come to a peaceful solution. He was incensed
to realize that while American and Japanese diplomats engaged in
negotiations (over Japan's recent military actions in China and
elsewhere in the Pacific), Japanese aircraft carriers had been
steaming toward Hawaii intent on attack. His words on December 8
relayed his personal indignation and fury.
Roosevelt had already proven his oratorical skills during the
Great Depression when his "fireside chats" rallied the nation's
morale. The same president who once said "the only thing we have
to fear is fear itself" declared with equal conviction that the
nation "would never forget the character of [Japan's] onslaught
against us" and vowed that the "unbounding determination of our
people... will gain the inevitable triumph_so help us God."
The stirring speech was hardly necessary_Congress and millions of
Americans, who had been hearing details of the attack in the
news, shared the president's outrage and commitment to defending
the nation. Young men flocked to armed forces recruiting stations
the next day and both houses of Congress quickly voted to declare
war on Japan, with only one dissenting vote.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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