The US navy was quick to take the war to Japan in the Pacific, and we were invading Guadalcanal early on. This helped prioritize the Pacific war. But it was also a practical reality that we were better able to counter the Japanese in the Pacific than we were to take the war to the Germans.

Additional factors were the technical capabilities of our equipment. Aircraft like the P-38 performed well against Japan and not so well against the Germans. The P-40 was also better suited to war against the Japanese which typically occurred at lower altitudes.

He was always mentioned in the San Diego media around Dec 7. He was also a friend of my dad and my dad would visit him and that’s how I met him.

https://www.nps.gov/perl/learn/news/passing-of-john-finn.htm

He gave me a web pistol belt, white with brass fittings, but in bad condition (I still have it). He also gave me a green boonie hat. He had a pile of those sitting in a field, all faded. He picked one up and gave it to me. I remember wearing it while riding in the back of a pickup truck during summer vacation in AZ while my dad was prospecting for gold (I suspect gold prospecting was the activity that connected my dad to Finn).

As an adult, I was sent to Pearl Harbor to do repairs on a navy ship. During my down time I went to the Pearl Harbor museum and tried to visit the USS Arizona memorial. Entering they hand each visitor a card which I believe gives you your number in line but also gives some brief facts on the attack. My card ironically was about Finn. My dad had told me the story his Finn’s action that day.

He still posts on X, but not as often as I would like.

He still posts on X, but not as often as I would like.

Neptunus Lex wrote about entering the harbor aboard the USS Constellation:

https://thelexicans.wordpress.com/2017/12/07/pearl-harbor/

Tomorrow and today…

https://twitter.com/RadioGenoa/status/1997500109181845591?
H/T Blazingcatfur blog.

The irony is when the USA declared war on Japan, Hitler declared war on the US because of an ill-considered alliance with Japan. Ally with a nation thousands of miles away, the two separated by continents and oceans? Nutty.
In response, America entered the war against Nazi Germany. Has there not been that treaty, Hitler would almost surely have conquered all of Europe, England notwithstanding.

This has it almost exactly the opposite way around. Hitler declared war on the US after Pearl Harbor because he had always viewed the US as an enemy (admittedly following a long and ignominious tradition in German leadership that was not exclusive to the Nazis, but which he took far further, see the Second Book and what he says about the “American Union”), was fighting an undeclared naval war in the Atlantic against the USN and American-protected merchant marines since mid 1941, and predicted open US entry into the Atlantic/Med war on Britain’s side within a year or so anyway, so he might as well capitalize on it. Ironically Pearl Harbor likely delayed US engagement in Europe.

He also predicted he could not defeat the coming Anglo-American alliance as early as mid 1940 without either full alliance with or full conquest of the Soviet Union, hence the attempts to get the Soviets in the Axis in the winter of 1940-41 and when that fell through (largely due to his own chimp out over rather mild Soviet demands) he went Barbarossa.

Hitler was more than capable of making and breaking alliances as he wished. He just understood a showdown with the US was inevitable and that FDR was gunning for him almost as much as Hitler was gunning for the US.

These are decent overviews of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6ndO6_BOK4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnfvGMAPCko

https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/undeclared-war-in-the-atlantic/

https://www.cfr.org/blog/twe-remembers-fdrs-shoot-sight-fireside-chat