A little bit of history, right under my fingertips

[Corsair]

so I was helping my mom go through some old papers from my grandfather who was a funeral director for Heinz-Rinaldi Funeral Home. I found this page with hand-drawn Japanese characters on it. On the back it says, in my grandpa's handwriting, "Reserved for Guests, Funeral of Col. Kazue Shinjo, December 7, 1941 3:00 pm." I think to myself, wow, he was running a funeral for a japanese official right when Pearl Harbor was being bombed (3:00pm here is 9:00am in Hawaii). So I google it and I find this!!!

http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/waiwai...dm999000c.html

Radical author blames US priest for 1941 Day of Infamy
Pearl Harbor became a sneak attack by "dirty Japs" rather than the first shots of the legitimately declared war Japan intended because of a boring American priest's long-winded eulogy that took hours instead of minutes, reports Shukan Shincho (7/29).

Japan's Foreign Ministry apologized to the Japanese people a decade ago for a bureaucratic blunder among Japanese Embassy staff in Washington that meant they only handed a formal declaration of war to U.S. State Department officials after Imperial troops had opened hostilities in Hawaii on Dec. 8, 1941, Japan time.

But non-fiction writer Michinori Saito claims it was a clerical error of a slightly different sort to the one the ministry claims that caused the fatal delay that Dec. 7 morning sparked fury among Americans and ultimately led to Japan's near destruction in World War II.

Where the official line lays blame for the tardy declaration on embassy clerks' mistaken readings of codes and mistyped messages, Saito says it was the unnamed American priest who presided over the funeral of a Japanese spy on the morning the attack occurred who prevented Japanese officials from getting the declaration in before any shots were fired and thus ensuring Japan's reputation was tarnished for all time.

Being laid to rest in a Washington church on the morning of the Pearl Harbor attack was Kazue Shinjo, who posed as an employee of Mitsui & Co. posted in New York to spy for the Japanese military.

Shinjo died under mysterious circumstances on Dec. 4, 1941 and was to be buried three days later. As preparations for Shinjo's funeral began, Japanese Embassy staff in Washington were frantically translating encoded telegram messages that emanated from Tokyo the night before forces opened their assault. The complete message was a formal declaration of war that was meant to be handed to the U.S. government by 1 p.m. Washington time on Dec. 7.

Officially, it was the bureaucratic bungling that meant the declaration of war wasn't handed over until 1:50 p.m., by which time Japanese Zeros and Betty Bombers had already begun what was one of the most embarrassing moments in U.S. history as it was caught unawares, though would later exact a swift and deadly vengeance.

Saito, in his book Kaisen Tsukoku ha Naze Okureta ka (Why Was the War Declaration Late?), says that rather than botching preparation of the declaration, embassy officials, including Japanese Ambassador Kichisaburo Nomura, were at Shinjo's funeral. The funeral was supposed to finish quickly, but the priest giving the sermon dragged on and it took two hours before it was over. Pen pushers rushed back to the embassy and finished the vital documents, but, by the time they handed them over it was already too late.

Furious at the assault unleashed without a declaration of war, then U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt denounced Japan, famously calling Dec. 7 1941 a "day of infamy" and Americans, then fractiously divided in their opinions on the fight against fascism, famously united with anti-Japanese hatred enflamed to previously unthinkable levels.

"While researching for the book, I learned that Shinjo had been a military man closely involved in Japan's preparations for war. I've got a feeling Americans may have had something to do with the funeral going so long," Saito tells Shukan Shincho. "I'd like my readers to know that there are still many facts sleeping in the darkness of history."

Saito may be askew in suggesting Americans deliberately invited the attack, but there's little chance of mistaking his view of Japan's secretive Foreign Ministry.

"Suppression was a ministry trait even 60-odd years ago. In this case, in particular, when Japan lost the high moral ground to the United States, it seems the ministry went out to cover up the dirty parts of its diplomatic strategies," the writer tells Shukan Shincho. "Everything I've researched and written for this book really should have been carried out by the Foreign Ministry."

July 25, 2004

[ck5794]

damn. thats pretty interesting.

[Wisey]

Thats really neat!

[nfgfan1123]

you could prolly donate that to like the smithsonian or somthing

[fuzzy]

i'm a sucker for stuff like that. thats amazing.

my grandfather was in WWII and wrote letters to his wife and sister all the time. It wasn't till we cleaned out his sisters house when she died that we found out my grandfather was wounded a second time. The letter basically said I wanted you to know... I am ok... but please dont tell my wife she'll worry too much. He never told her or my dad when he got back and basically took it to the grave with him. Had she not saved all his letters in a box, we would have never known. My dad had his father's purple heart. The army was able to verify that he had been wounded twice and issued the oak leaf cluster to go with it.