World War II is a late-late-show in our national memory. The colors have faded, most of the big stars have died and the props are as strange to us now as dance-band saxophones on a scratchy old phonograph.
But this is a good day to remember WWII. Today is Sunday, Dec. 7 - just as it was in 1941 when a Japanese attack caught the United States sleeping late at Pearl Harbor.
''Wave after wave of bombers streamed through the clouded morning sky from the southwest and flung their missiles on a city resting in peaceful Sabbath calm,'' said a UPI report in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin's 1st Extra edition that day.
The headline yells ''WAR!'' in letters three-inches high. Smaller type shouts, ''OAHU BOMBED BY JAPANESE PLANES.''
The story reported ''six known dead, 21 injured,'' including the first identified fatality, ''Frank Ohashi, 29, of 2705 Kamanaiki Street,'' killed by puncture wounds during the attack.
By the time the Third Edition rolled out, the count had risen to ''over 400 dead,'' martial law had been declared and Gov. I.J.B. Poindexter had proclaimed ''a defense period to exist throughout the territory of Hawaii.''
But even those 500-lb. blockbuster headlines, probably the biggest the paper could set in type, turned out to be an understatement.
By the time the tar-black smoke had cleared, 2,409 were killed, 1,178 were wounded. The U.S. Navy fleet at Pearl had been turned into a half-submerged scrapyard of tangled steel. Among 92 ships, 18 were sunk, including Goliath ''dreadnought'' battleships Arizona and Oklahoma.
In black-and-white pictures taken by the Navy that day, the giant hulks still burn furiously, and sailors can be spotted on the upper decks of sinking ships, poised between flames and oil-coated, burning water.
Many of those men are still entombed in the sunken hulk of the Arizona, a memorial to the victims of Pearl Harbor.
The World Book Encyclopedia says that ''Remember Pearl Harbor!'' became the rallying cry for World War II. But today, many of us find it easier to remember ''Just 17 shopping days until Christmas!''
Reports that our military strength is the lowest it has been since 1941 hardly raise an eyebrow. Reports that college students don't think the Holocaust happened, or won't judge the Nazis for it, are greeted with a shrug.
Maybe that's why Kentucky state Sen. Paul Herron, D-Henderson, has proposed adding Pearl Harbor Day as a state holiday.
And maybe that's why I like reading old newspapers. They've turned sepia yellow like ancient scrolls, but they still deliver the news as if you are right there on some Hawaiian hillside, watching the world burn and capsize.
''Hundreds of Honolulans, who hurried to the top of Punchbowl soon after the bombs began to fall, saw spread out before them the whole panorama of surprise attack and defense,'' one story says. ''Out from the silver-surfaced mouth of the harbor a flotilla of destroyers steamed to battle, smoke pouring from their stacks.''
The old newspapers were brought to me by Harold C. Ziegler of Price Hill. He collected them because he remembers what an impression the surprise attack made at the time.
Soon after it, he was drafted, trained for 10 days, then shipped overseas to fight in the Solomon Islands.
''Just 10 days of training,'' he said. ''I don't know how we won the war with men like us.''
I read the news of Dec. 7, 1941, and wondered too.
What was it like to sit there with your morning coffee, and suddenly hear war explode? ''The first indication of the raid came shortly before 8 this morning,'' the Star-Bulletin reported, ''when anti-aircraft guns around Pearl Harbor began sending up a thunderous barrage.
''At the same time a vast cloud of black smoke arose from the naval base and also from Hickam field, where flames could be seen.''
Looking back now, some of the earliest reports from the surprise attack are like the hysterical babbling of an accident victim trying to get a grip on disaster.
Inside pages have Santa urging, ''Don't Delay! See and hear new 1942 GE radios now'' - next to, ''Civilians Are Warned Off Street Today.''
''Parking Commission Approves Off-Street Parking at Night'' is next to a headline, ''Family is strafed.''
At the Veterans Day ceremony in Blue Ash this year, a lot of the World War II soldiers were talking about Saddam Hussein. Usually, we compare him to Hitler. But he could just as easily be Japan's Premier Hideki Tojo, who launched the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
One of the vets pointed to my 8-year-old son and said, ''I hope he never has to go through what we went through.''
So do I. And thank you to all who did.
Peter Bronson is editorial page editor of The Enquirer. If you have questions or comments, call 768-8301, or write to 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202.
BRONSON ARCHIVE
