Erie Pennsylvania’s Bureau of Tourism does not boast of its weather during the winter months.
Erie, Pennsylvania which lies on the southern border of Lake Erie, usually does not experience balmy temperatures in the month of December. During my childhood and adolescence, our home was only two blocks from the lake.
But on this Sunday in early December, the outside temperature climbed to 71 degrees Fahrenheit.
Our family had returned home from Sunday School and Church. Mother, Dad, my younger sister Mary Jane (Janie) and I enjoyed the customary Sunday midday dinner (probably chicken with all the fixin’s).
Janie and I changed out of our Sunday clothes and went outside to play. A group of boys had a tag football game going on the vacant lot across Fourth Street. I ran to join in.
The football game stopped when suddenly a low-flying single engine plane roared over our heads. The yellow fuselage and red and blue circle on the underside of the wing showed it was a Royal Canadian Air Corps fighter plane.
The plane climbed, twisted in a tight turn and descended rapidly, leveling off at what seemed like just a few hundred feet above ground.
It hurtled toward the lake, then turned and came racing back, engine noise drowning all other sound. Once more the pilot throttled into a steep climb, banked and headed out over the lake.
As I remember, soon after the RCAF plane flew out of sight, Mother called loudly, telling me to come home right away.
The radio in the living room was on. That morning, Sunday, December 7, 1941, Japan had attacked U.S. naval and air bases at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. As an eight year old kid, I had never heard of Pearl Harbor. Hawaii was not yet a state. Later that day Americans learned that the air raids continued for almost two hours.
When the attackers flew back to their aircraft carriers, more than 2,400 Americans lay dead. Another 1,200 were wounded. The Congress quickly declared war on Japan, Germany, and Italy. The United States was at war for the second time in the 20th century.
The best estimate of the number of deaths in World War II ranges between 50 and 60 million people with the majority being civilian casualties. 20 to 25 million military personnel from nations spanning the Earth lost their lives. 25 to 35 million civilian died, primarily from strategic bombings, genocide, massacres, torture and famine.
World War II was the largest and most violent military conflict in human history. Few if any families in the world escaped the war years unaffected. Undamaged.
On August 6 and August 9, 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The bombs and the radiactive shock waves killed between 150,000 and 246,000 people, most of whom were civilians. The Japanese surrendered less than a month later.
The war officially ended September 2, 1945. I was twelve. Janie would be eleven the next month. During those four years of fearing for the lives of loved ones, air raid blackout drills, men and women enlisting, thousands of civilians working second jobs to help with the building of warplanes and warships, blue star flags in house windows signifying a son serving overseas, too many blue stars replaced with a gold star stating that their son was never coming home again. For the men and women who survived weeks, months even years of combat duty, World War II never ended during their lifetime.
So it is with the survivors of every war, the combatants and their families. Many combat veterans killed other human beings, and saw their brothers and sisters killed before their eyes. Such horrors can completely alter the unique combination of characteristics that make up a person's way of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Often the change is destructive. And sometimes the transformation is permanent.
War casualties don’t stop when wars end. We rightly honor the sacrifices of the men and women of our military and of their families. We need to understand that men and women of other nations rightly honor the sacrifices of the men and women of their own armed forces.
Has any war resulted in lasting changes for liberty, justice, freedom and peace on earth?
Has any war ever waged been the war to end all wars?
The Battle of the Somme River during World War I provides devastating evidence of the futility of war. The battle began July 1, 1916 and was called off by the British War Council November 16, 1916.
During those five months, British and French forces gained just seven miles of territory, but never did break through the German lines. They suffered over 57,000 casualties in the first day of the battle.
On November 18,1916, British Commanding Officer General Haig shut down the offensive. The Allies had only advanced seven miles (12 km) and there was still no breakthrough in sight. No victory by either side. Only suffering and death.
The British Empire had suffered 420,000 casualties and the French 200,000 in the process. German losses were at least 450,000 killed and wounded.
According to historical records, the Battle of the Somme resulted in over one million casualties across all sides, with more than 300,000 fatalities combined between the British, French, and German armies.
“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
Plato
“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.” General Dwight D. Eisenhower
“Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony—Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?”
- Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front
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