Though I don’t have a direct family connection to Pearl, it still resonates with me personally, as (1) my Dad had graduated from Omaha North High School in Nebraska a mere six months earlier and would soon enough find himself contributing to the war effort as a B-25 Mitchell armorer with Marine Air Group (MAG) 61; and (2) the day after Pearl, Imperial Japan began its invasion of the Philippines, which resulted in my Mom, a two-year-old girl at the time, spending three years of her toddlerhood under enemy military occupation.

Though Pearl Harbor was obviously a smashing victory for Japan – and a shockingly humiliating defeat for the United States – Hideki Tojo’s victory was not without cost: 29 planes were shot down, five mini-submarines sunk or run aground, and 25 sailors and airmen KIA.

Those mini-subs, in particular, stood out as an ignominious failure in an otherwise highly tactically successful – but ultimately strategically flawed – Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) attack.