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Pearl Harbor: The Darkest Hour

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Pearl Harbor : “the darkest hour”

Sunday, December 7th,1941 has become known as “ the day of infamy”. President Roosevelt even referred to this date as “the darkest hour”. However, the real question is for who was it truly “the darkest hour”. Was it the 2390 men, women and children who lost their lives? Was it the Japanese Americans who suddenly became viewed as the enemy? Or, was it our Nation who sunk to a level like the Nazis? By all accounts, December 7th, 1941 started out as a beautiful sunny Sunday morning. Until the sound of low flying planes and explosions filled the area of Pearl Harbor located on Oahu, Hawaii. When the surprise attack had ended, the nation learned of the 2,390 men, women and children who had died. Of these, …show more content…

They were only allowed to take a suitcase full of their possessions with them. Many times the rest of their belongings were sold. While these camps certainly were not like the concentration camps in Germany where Jews were killed. The Japanese Americans who were forced to live there went without many of the things they used to have. These camps were opened in 1941 and continued until 1944-1945 when people in the United States began to realize the injustice of what was being done. In 1948, the American Evacuation Claims Act was instituted. This Act by the United States government, gave $2500 dollars to each person who had lived in an internment camp. This was meant to be sign of saying they were sorry. Then in 1988, the Civil Liberties Act was given as a formal acknowledgment of the injustice suffered by many Japanese Americans. In an effort to prevent any similar event from happening again, there was a lot of public education also done about the internment. So, the question is still, who should it be said of, it was “the darkest hour”? Some people have said it was justified because we didn’t know if they could be trusted. Some say it was breaking the constitution. I think it was a social injustice against those of Japanese ancestry but maybe the true “darkest hour” was for our

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Many families sold their homes, their stores, and most of their belongings. They could not be certain their homes and assets would still be there when they returned home. Because of the rush to sell everything, properties were often sold at a fraction of their whole value. Japanese Americans were forced to move into areas that had very little to support them. The poorly constructed camps were surrounded by barbed wire and were heavily guarded by troops who had guns pointed at the their heads.

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