The flags at the Embassy and at other American facilities around the world will fly at half mast today in commemoration of National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. Since I’m in transit today, what follows is a revised version of my post from December 7, 2011.

The first seconds of the attack on Pearl Harbor, recorded from an enemy fighter.

At 7:55 a.m. on a quiet Sunday morning 71 years ago today, waves of more than 350 hostile fighter, bomber, and torpedo planes darkened the dawn skies over Oahu in a surprise attack designed to cripple America’s defenses and advance a rival power’s aggressive expansion through the Pacific. No declaration of war had been issued.

On the rise and in need of resources to advance its regional objectives, Japan had already invaded Manchuria, China, and French Indochina. It was starting to push into Malaya and the Dutch East Indies to insure control of supplies of oil, minerals, and other resources needed to fuel its ongoing development.

USS Shaw explodes after being struck at the start of the attack.

Tokyo mistakenly believed that the United States would declare war when Japan launched its long-planned invasion of Great Britain’s Southeast Asian colonies. The preemptive attack by a Japanese aircraft carrier strike force on Pearl Harbor, home of the US Pacific fleet, was intended to cripple America’s ability to defend its Pacific neighbors.

While Pearl Harbor was burning, Japanese military forces attacked simultaneously in multiple other locations across the Pacific region. Guam, Wake Island, Manila, and Singapore were bombed. Malaya, Thailand, and the Philippines were invaded. Shanghai was seized. Japanese troops pushed toward Hong Kong and Burma. All the same day.

USS Arizona sinks in Pearl Harbor, taking 1,177 young Americans to their deaths.

In Pearl Harbor that day 2,402 Americans were killed and 1,247 were wounded. On American soil. While the nation was at peace. Eighteen American ships and approximately 340 American aircraft were destroyed or severely damaged.

In Washington, Japanese envoys arrived at the State Department after the attack had begun, to deliver a document from Tokyo criticizing the United States for not accommodating Japan’s demands in ongoing bilateral discussions. A declaration of war by Japan was not delivered until the next day.

USS California sinks in Pearl Harbor.

The morning of December 8th, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed an emergency joint session of the American Congress, beginning with one of the most iconic sentences uttered in American history: “Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”

The address was broadcast live by radio to the American people. Twenty-one minutes after President Roosevelt finished speaking, the Senate voted 82-0 to declare war on Japan. Twelve minutes later, the House of Representatives concurred by a vote of 388-1. (The lone dissenting vote was cast by Republican Jeannette Rankin of Montana.)

President Roosevelt addresses a joint session of Congress on Dec. 8, 1941.

A strong streak of isolationism has always run through the American psyche, including as war raged elsewhere during 1940 and 1941. The America First Committee and other non-interventionist groups remained strong despite growing anxiety over the hegemonic waves sweeping Europe and East Asia. The Roosevelt Administration had begun taking economic steps to aid beseiged Britain and the Republic of China, but strong majorities of the population and elected officials still opposed entering foreign wars.

The attack on Pearl Harbor changed all that. Americans were shocked — forever, I would argue — out of our belief that the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans provide a safe buffer from the troubles and ills of the rest of the world. In a way that few other events have, Pearl Harbor altered the course of American thinking, history, society, and politics.

Lowering the Embassy flag.

For the next several years we and our friends will commemorate the 70th and 75th anniversaries of the terrible events of that era that shattered societies and changed the world.

Since December 7th last year we at American Mission New Zealand have focused on the joint service, shared sacrifice, and common values that bound Kiwis and Americans so tightly together during the War, and which still provide the bedrock on which our relationship stands today.

We continue the Septuagennial process by planning for several important 2013 commemorations including the 70th anniversary of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s iconic island-hop tour at the height of the Pacific War which brought her to New Zealand for a week.

Today, though, is about remembering Pearl Harbor, honoring those killed that Sunday in 1941, revisiting the lasting lessons learned, and drawing strength from how friends pulled together and persisted through even the darkest of days.

As President Obama noted in his Proclamation, “We pay solemn tribute to America’s sons and daughters who made the ultimate sacrifice at Oahu. As we do, let us also reaffirm that their legacy will always burn bright — whether in the memory of those who knew them, the spirit of service that guides our men and women in uniform today, or the heart of the country they kept strong and free.”

As we celebrate the many happy anniversaries this year, we should not avert our eyes from the inconvenient truth of other anniversaries. Beginning in April twenty-three years ago, university students organized demonstrations in and around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to call for political liberalization, freedom of the press, anti-corruption measures, and public accountability of government officials. At the height of the demonstrations more than a half million protestors assembled.

Thousands demonstrate in Tiananmen Square in May 1989.

The Communist Party declared martial law on May 20, 1989. Military convoys entered Beijing overnight on June 3-4, 1989 with orders to clear and close Tiananmen. The People’s Liberation Army used live fire on its own people as it pushed through makeshift blockades in the city and entered the square. There has been no accounting of the number of Chinese citizens killed or wounded in the attack.

The iconic image of the uprising, as a single courageous citizen blocks a tank unit sent to crush the demonstrators.

In commemoration of the anniversary, Mark C. Toner,
Deputy State Department Spokesperson, issued the following statement:

“On this the twenty-third anniversary of the violent suppression by Chinese authorities of the spring 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations, the United States joins the international community in remembering the tragic loss of innocent lives.

“We encourage the Chinese government to release all those still serving sentences for their participation in the demonstrations; to provide a full public accounting of those killed, detained or missing; and to end the continued harassment of demonstration participants and their families.

“We renew our call for China to protect the universal human rights of all its citizens; release those who have been wrongfully detained, prosecuted, incarcerated, forcibly disappeared, or placed under house arrest; and end the ongoing harassment of human rights activists and their families.”

Beijing residents attacked and burned a convoy of 20 armored personnel carriers in a failed attempt to prevent troops from entering the Square.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time as the 21st American Ambassador to New Zealand. It’s been a great honor to serve the American People and President Obama in beautiful Aotearoa, and I’ve been constantly reminded of the importance of the work that diplomats do and have done. Each day on my way from the front door of the Chancery to my office, I’ve walked past the photos of the 20 ambassadorial envoys posted to Wellington before me. The first photo is of Patrick Jay Hurley, who presented his credentials here 70 years ago today.

Patrick Jay Hurley.

All of my predecessors served with distinction, but I have particular affection for Minister Hurley. The first press report that I uncovered in researching his appointment was a feature story in the Washington Post that included an eloquently disconcerting biographical judgment: “In the little blue-eyed fragment of humanity which thrust its first futile squalls across the plains of Indian Territory the morning of January 8, 1883, there was no more promise of general and diplomat than there is in most babies. In fact, there was less promise there than in most.”

Indeed, Minister Hurley’s path to Wellington makes for a compelling tale. Born in Indian Territory of the Choctaw Nation to poor immigrant Irish parents, he lost his mother at an early age, and started working in the local coal mine before he was 11 years old. He had no formal schooling until an itinerant teacher set up shop near the mine. He eventually left the mine, became a cowboy, took night classes, moved to Washington to attend law school, and paid for his schooling by driving taxi cabs. He later stated, “I learned more about human nature when I drove a cab at Fifteenth and H Streets than I have at any time since.”

After law school, Hurley returned home to open a law practice representing Native Americans, served as general counsel for the Choctaw Nation, and learned to fly. He joined a local militia, entered the U.S. Army, was sent to France during World War I, and had his first brush with diplomacy when he successfully negotiated, reputedly on horseback, with the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg for passage of American troops to the Rhine.

He returned to law and entered politics after the war, rallying the Oklahoma delegation to support Herbert Hoover at the Republican Convention of 1928. President Hoover subsequently appointed him to be Secretary of War. Hurley continued to fly his own airplane as Secretary of War until the President personally ordered him to cease and desist.

Colonel Hurley being sworn in as Secretary of War.

After the election of President Roosevelt, Hurley was promoted to the rank of brigadier general. His appointment to be Minister to New Zealand was a surprise, in part because he had been a “salty critic” of the  Roosevelt Administration and its policies. He was embraced with great enthusiasm by the media, which referred to him as “one of America’s most colorful figures,” “remarkably handsome,” and “attract[ing] attention wherever he may be, with no effort on his part.” Marshall Andrews of the Washington Post ended a profile of the new Minister thusly:

“He has gone now where all he learned of diplomacy and tact from his mine mules, from his Indian friends, from the books over which he pored by the hour, from his Irish mother and his Irish father, from the hard rough life of the frontier, will stand him and his country in good stead.  Pat Hurley is America itself going to do a delicate job in a hot corner of the earth.”

Hot was certainly an accurate description. En route to New Zealand by way of Australia after being sworn in, Hurley’s airplane was attacked by a swarm of Japanese fighters over Java. Hurley’s pilot engaged in evasive aerobatic maneuvers until American fighters responded to his distress call. The airplane was damaged, but the Minister escaped injury. He later remarked to reporters, “It’s a peculiar sensation to see guns blazing away in the air and to realize that they’re aimed at you.”

Japanese Zeros over Java.

After the Minister’s plane landed safely in Darwin, he checked into a hotel, took a nap, and ordered breakfast. This is what happened next, in the Minister’s own words:

“There was a blast and something whizzed into the room, spun my breakfast tray around and messed up everything. I leaped into my shirt and pants and ran out into the hallway when I realized I was bare-headed. Thinking it undignified for a general to be bare-headed, I ran back, got my cap and started down the hallway again when another one hit. I went skidding on my face and tumbled down the stairs out into the street.

“I looked everywhere and not a soul was in sight. There was nothing but buzzing [Japanese] planes and plenty of bombs. It’s an empty feeling – having no friends. Down the street came the planes, machine gunning. I ran and dived into the dirt alongside a house on the side which was away from the direction the [bombers] were coming. But when they got up to the end of the street, they turned around and came back. And there I was in plain view and feeling mighty silly.

“But they missed me and I started to run across the street toward a big park when another bomb hit right in back of me. It sent me rolling end over appetite. But I got up and continued running until I came to a big tree under which the flyers couldn’t see me. Then a strange thing happened. A bomb blast swept over me and I looked up and there was not a leaf left on that tree. I was once more all alone and in plain view.

“Then an Australian came up and said, ‘General, would you like me to show you the way to a shelter?’ I said I certainly would be much obliged, and he did.”

During one of the bombings of Darwin.

Only when he got to the shelter did the Minister realize that he had been hit in the attack. He brushed the shoulder injury off as “nothing serious at all,” was bandaged by a medic, and continued his journey to Wellington, where he reported from personal experience that the war in the Pacific was raging relentlessly closer to New Zealand.

The Government in Wellington had been advised by Prime Minister Churchill months earlier that Britain would be unable to provide adequate reinforcements to defend the Dominion from invasion. President Roosevelt had offered to fill the void, and thus Minister Hurley’s first order of business was to complete preparations — launched by Kiwi Minister Walter Nash earlier in Washington — for the arrival, deployment, and provisioning of tens of thousands of American soldiers, sailors, and Marines.

Minister Hurley (seated, at right) enjoying a moment with Prime Minister Peter Fraser (seated, at left) and Minister Nash (at left).

After serving briefly but successfully in Wellington, Minister Hurley departed post in August 1942. He traveled to the Soviet Union, Middle East, and Near East on special missions for President Roosevelt, and was appointed American Ambassador to China in 1944. Minister Hurley was replaced as American envoy to New Zealand by William C. Burdett, a career Foreign Service Officer who died in a Wellington hospital one year after arriving in New Zealand. (I have been unable to determine the cause of Minister Burdett’s untimely death at age 59.)

As we approach the June anniversaries of the culmination of the work of Ministers Nash and Hurley – the arrival of the U.S. Army in Auckland and the U.S. Marines in Wellington – I will from time to time share other bits of historical record and local color. Diplomacy is not a dry, colorless enterprise. It’s filled with larger-than-life personalities, world-changing events, lessons worth remembering, very human fear and joy, and, yes, the occasional indecorous appearance in public without a hat when breakfast is unexpectedly obliterated by an air raid.

At 7:55 a.m. on a quiet Sunday morning 70 years ago today, waves of more than 350 hostile fighter, bomber, and torpedo planes darkened the dawn skies over Oahu in a surprise attack designed to cripple America’s defenses and advance a rival power’s aggressive expansion through the Pacific. No declaration of war had been issued.

The first seconds of the attack on Pearl Harbor, recorded from an enemy fighter.

On the rise and in need of resources to advance its regional objectives, Japan had already invaded Manchuria, China, and French Indochina. It was starting to push into Malaya and the Dutch East Indies to insure control of supplies of oil, minerals, and other resources needed to fuel its ongoing development.

Tokyo mistakenly believed that the United States would declare war when Japan launched its long-planned invasion of Great Britain’s Southeast Asian colonies. The preemptive attack by a Japanese aircraft carrier strike force on Pearl Harbor, home of the US Pacific fleet, was intended to cripple America’s ability to defend its Pacific neighbors.

USS Shaw explodes after being struck at the start of the attack.

While Pearl Harbor was burning, Japanese military forces attacked simultaneously in multiple other locations across the Pacific region.

Guam, Wake Island, Manila, and Singapore were bombed. Malaya, Thailand, and the Philippines were invaded. Shanghai was seized. The same day. Japanese troops pushed toward Hong Kong and Burma.

USS Arizona sinks in Pearl Harbor, taking 1,177 young Americans to their deaths.

In Pearl Harbor that day 2,402 Americans were killed and 1,247 were wounded. On American soil. While the nation was at peace. Eighteen American ships and approximately 340 American aircraft were destroyed or severely damaged.

In Washington, Japanese envoys arrived at the State Department after the attack had begun, to deliver a document from Tokyo criticizing the United States for not accommodating Japan’s demands in ongoing bilateral discussions. A declaration of war by Japan was not delivered until the next day.

USS California sinks in Pearl Harbor.

The morning of December 8th, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed an emergency joint session of the American Congress, beginning with one of the most iconic sentences uttered in American history: “Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”

The address was broadcast live by radio to the American people. Twenty-one minutes after President Roosevelt finished speaking, the Senate voted 82-0 to declare war on Japan. Twelve minutes later, the House of Representatives concurred by a vote of 388-1. (The lone dissenting vote was cast by Republican Jeannette Rankin of Montana.)

President Roosevelt addresses a joint session of Congress on December 8th.

A strong streak of isolationism has always run through the American psyche, including as war raged elsewhere during 1940 and 1941. The America First Committee and other non-interventionist groups remained strong despite growing anxiety over the hegemonic waves sweeping Europe and East Asia. The Roosevelt Administration had begun taking economic steps to aid beseiged Britain and the Republic of China, but strong majorities of the population and elected officials still opposed entering foreign wars.

The attack on Pearl Harbor changed all that. Americans were shocked — forever, I would argue — out of our belief that the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans provide a safe buffer from the troubles and ills of the rest of the world. In a way that few other events have, Pearl Harbor altered the course of American thinking, history, society, and politics.

US Marines lower our Embassy flag today to mark the 70th anniversary.

Many of our friends have already started commemorating the 70th anniversaries of the terrible events of that era that shattered their societies and changed their worlds.

We join the procession today, with the lowering of flags at our Embassies, Government offices, and other facilities worldwide, to honor and remember those killed on December 7, 1941.

In the coming months and years we will solemnly mark the many other 70th anniversaries arising from the events of World War II.

Here at US Mission New Zealand, we will focus on the joint service, shared sacrifice, and common values that bound Kiwis and Americans so tightly together during the War, and which still provide the bedrock on which our relationship stands today.

I look forward to talking in future posts about our plans to commemorate the June 1942 arrival of US Army and Navy forces in Auckland and the landing of US Marines in Wellington.

Today, though, is about remembering Pearl Harbor, honoring those killed that Sunday, revisiting the lasting lessons learned, and drawing strength from how friends pulled together and persisted through even the darkest of days.