|
Pearl Harbor survivors Survivors of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on New York met Pearl Harbor veterans yesterday and paid their respects at the Arizona Memorial in a solemn and emotional visit that several said would be the highlight of their Hawaii vacations.
embrace NYC victims
A gathering unites those who
Special: Fading voices
saw past and present attacks
Sailor's wish honored
Intel gap cited in Pearl attackBy Christine Donnelly
cdonnelly@starbulletin.com"It's humbling to be here. So many times, we've heard what we went through was called the Pearl Harbor of the 21st century. So to be here and see what these men went through and to actually meet some of them, it's a privilege," said Thomas Rowe, 41, of the New York Police Department's emergency services unit.
Starbulletin.com
special section
Fading voices: Honoring those
who died on Dec. 7, 1941
Click to enter the special section
Fourteen of the 23 New York police officers killed on Sept. 11 were from Rowe's unit, which has a total of 300 people and was among the first to respond to the disaster.Rowe, who was at Ground Zero on Sept. 11, got a hug and a pat on the back from Hank Freitas, 80, who was stationed on the USS Tangier when the Japanese attacked on Dec. 7, 1941.
"I'm proud of you guys, real proud," Freitas, who lives in Walnut Creek, Calif., told Rowe and other New York rescue workers and family members who visited the memorial yesterday.
"I am honored to meet these people. It's a sad thing they've gone through, a great loss. If anybody can understand, we can," said Freitas, who came to Hawaii this week with fellow members of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association to mark the 60th anniversary of the Japanese attack that plunged the United States into World War II.
The New Yorkers, mainly family members of New York police, Port Authority police and New York firefighters killed Sept. 11, visited the museum and memorial in two groups of about 300 people, one group on Tuesday and one yesterday.
Among the visitors were sisters Laura Sheppard, 33, Denise Cross, 28, and Lisa Wylie, 35, whose 60-year-old father was among 343 New York firefighters killed. Their dad, Dennis Cross, was a New York Fire Department battalion chief and a veteran of the Vietnam War.
Denise Cross said that of all the cities that have offered free trips to rescue workers and their families, Honolulu stood out because it offered the chance to visit Pearl Harbor, the site of so much sacrifice by American heroes of an earlier generation.
"That's why I wanted to come. It means so much to be here," she said.
"It truly is sacred ground, just like the World Trade Center is now," added Sheppard, noting it strengthened her to see Pearl Harbor veterans being honored after 60 years. "Those heroes have not been forgotten. I hope New York does that, preserves part of the (WTC site) as a memorial forever, so our father and everyone else (who died) will be remembered, too."
KOBE, Japan >> Japan may have attacked Pearl Harbor because decoded U.S. cables did not prepare its leaders for American demands that the imperial army withdraw from China and Southeast Asia, a Japanese scholar said yesterday. Historians say Pearl
attack prompted by
intelligence discrepancyRecently declassified documents
will help re-evaluate history, a
Japanese expert saysBy Mari Yamaguchi
Associated PressPreviously classified Foreign Ministry documents reveal a turning point that may have persuaded doves in the Japanese government that war with the United States was necessary, Kobe University law professor Toshihiro Minohara said.
"The discovery will probably help re-evaluate the history of this period," Minohara said before announcing his findings.
That turning point came in November 1941, just weeks before the Dec. 7 attack that killed 2,390 and plunged America into World War II.
Japan and the United States had been at odds for years over the imperial army's march through Asia. On Nov. 22, 1941, Tokyo intercepted a Chinese telegram saying the United States would propose allowing Japan to keep its colonies if it abandoned further aggression, Minohara said.
The telegram was sent from the Chinese Embassy in Washington to Chinese government officials in the wartime capital of Chungking, now Chongqing.
The sudden possibility of a compromise strengthened the position of Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo, who opposed war with the United States and was trying to persuade militarists in the government to back down, Minohara said.
But the official U.S. position sent to Japan on Nov. 26 was entirely different: Agree to withdraw from China and Southeast Asia, or say goodbye to a diplomatic solution.
That message, sent to Japan's embassy in Washington by then-Secretary of State Cordell Hull, was interpreted as an ultimatum and convinced pacifists in the Japanese government that war was inevitable.
"I was so shocked, I even felt dizzy," Togo later wrote in his memoirs. "At this point we had no choice but to take action."
Researchers also said Japan broke secret codes employed by the United States, Britain, China and Canada between May 18, 1941, and Dec. 3, 1941.
Kobe University professor Makoto Iokibe said that "defies the common belief ... that Japan was behind in the information war against the U.S. and others," the agency reported.
But Japan's extensive spying operations misguided it about Washington's intentions. Intercepted telegrams from multiple sources, including U.S. telegrams, suggested the United States was about to propose the two nations cooperate on obtaining natural resources in Southeast Asia, Minohara said.
Japanese scholars researching declassified government documents also say Japan may have tried to warn the United States about the attack.
The documents say staff at Japan's embassy in Washington were slow to decipher a de facto declaration of war and did not hand it to the U.S. government until almost an hour after the attack began.
