Rants and Ramblings: random commentary about culture, media, politics, technology and whatnot.

day of infamy

Today marks the 65th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which led to the U.S. entering World War II. I came across two Pearl Harbor-related features today which were rather interesting:

• New York Times: Pearl Harbor Revisited - The paper ran a multi-part series about the post-attack reconstruction of Pearl Harbor that was blocked from publication in 1942 due to wartime censorship. Interesting stuff that I’ll have to make time to read when I have time this weekend. I’m not entirely sure why this is in the Opinion section. What I’ve read of the story betrays some definite U.S. boosterism that one wouldn’t see in modern journalism, to be sure, but I find that somewhat unsurprising given the period in which it was written.
• Washington Post: One Last Mission for Ship Sunk in Pearl Harbor Attack - Takes a here-and-now rather than a retrospective approach, looking at research on the current (and possible future) state of the sunken U.S.S. Arizona.

My favorite retrospective of Pearl Harbor to date is the excellent multimedia timeline that National Geographic and Second Story put together in 2001. It’s five years old (ages ago in Internet time), but it was really well-done and still holds up well.