Today’s annual remembrance of the sneak attack at Pearl Harbor has an especially salient echo given that it’s a Sunday. I am reminded of Captain Billy Mitchell’s interwar warning, quoted in The Airman’s War by Albert Marrin. By chance, I happened to find some color footage from the Pearl Harbor attack. It’s mostly just buildings burning, but the historian in me is thrilled by seeing one day 84 years ago suddenly alive in any capacity.

The Japanese will not politely declare war . . . Hawaii … is vulnerable to the sky. It is wide open to Japan. Yet we bring our Navy in at Pearl Harbor and lock it up every Saturday night so that the sailors can spend their week’s pay to please the merchants and politicians. . . . And Hawaii is swarming with Japanese spies. . . . That’s where the blow will be struck — on a fine, quiet Sunday morning.” –