the 7 dec 41 japanese attacks were not only against hawaii; philippines, malaya and singapore were hit too. i spent most of my career in asia, memories of what the japanese did died slowly. my dad was an m.p. in europe, he landed on omaha beach early on 6/6/44 without a scratch. a high school classmate was a crewman on another landing craft on his trroopship, he was sent home badly wounded and later met my grandmother to tell her of her son. my dad's landing craft was milling around for awhile until it was ordered to just dump them anywhere on the beach and return to get more troops. he went in over his 6'2" head. a shorter guy grabbed him and they both went under until my dad pushed him off and got his footing. he never knew what happened to the short guy. by the time he got off the beach he had no ammo left for his carbine but had no memory of firing it. the rest of his war was spent directing traffic, chasing blackmarketers and collecting pows, until his scout car ran over a friendly landmine by mistake. he was ok but banged up. at v-e day he was offered a short ocs course as he had been trained in amphibious warfare, which he guessed meant a ticket to the japanese invasion. he declined, he used up all his luck at normandy, he explained.