It is testimony to the importance of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that the quantity and quality of the web sites devoted to Pearl Harbor are superior to that of any other subject I have studied on the world wide web, which I have been surfing practically since its inception
       One only has to look at the aerial photograph of Pearl above and the map to the left to understand why the United States based its Pacific fleet there. The immense harbor with its narrow entrance to the ocean makes it the perfect defensible location from sea attack for a large fleet. It is obvious that it can be attacked by air but this was not obvious in 1941. This was only 38 years after the Wright brothers flight at Kitty Hawk. Although the Germans had tested large scale bombing by air in the Spanish Civil War this was still only a theory in the minds of military strategists. That the destruction of almost the entire pacific fleet could be effected by an air attack was no more imaginable in 1941 than crashing hijacked planes into tall buildings was before September of 2001. ( although it was certainly understood by Japanese Admiral Yamamoto )
       I have touched on only one aspect of the attack on Pearl Harbor. It is impossible to do justice to the varied meaning and far-reaching effects of the events of December 7, 1941 in this space. The end, once and for all, of the U. S. attitude that what happens across the ocean is not our affair which was first espoused by George Washington himself in his last speech as President, the U.S. entering the war against Nazism, and the revelation of the importance of air power are only a few of the many consequences of this, the most notable day of the twentieth century.