An Important Pivotal Date In Recent World History Has Passed Us By Without A Peep

I was going to post this yesterday but decided not to as it wasn’t really modelling related, but then I thought what the hell, my site, my call on what I post. Yesterday was the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbour, the 7th U.S. time, the 8th our time. Not usually that much of a big deal for us here in NZ.

For me I’ve always seen it as a pivotal date both personally and historically. Personally because on December 6th 1941 my Grandfather was a 17 year old in Pennsyvania raising hares on his Father’s plot while his dad was wildcatting. A week later he was a U.S. Navy sailor and three years later he was knocking up a nice Kiwi girl thus creating my mother. No Pearl Harbour = No me. At least not the me I am right now.

Historically you have to be a little more obtuse. Pearl Harbour brought the U.S. into World War two but more importantly it kicked off the U.S. Military industry. An industry that over the next 60 years would pump literally billions of dollars into technology ( billions of billions probably by now ), especially when combined with the cold war which itself may never have come about had the U.S. never entered WWII.

That investment in technology has resulted in much of what we have today, advances in military technology eventually leads to advances in everyday life. And I don’t just mean things like Nuclear Power. World travel because of aircraft advances, automotive advances, engines, radios, television just to name a few. And of course computers, that one big thing that has changed all our lives in just 20-30 years. That Navman in your car , without years and years and billions and billions of dollars wouldn’t be there. No Satelites, no GPS, no Navman. No iPhone for that matter. Teenage girls would be so much more normal.

It isn’t to say that these things wouldn’t have come about in the normal course of things, but when you created the U.S. Military Industry monster in 1942 and then fed it for 60 years with wars and promises of wars I don’t think it’s too far from the truth to say that if the Japanese hadn’t pulled the U.S. into the war that our lives today may have been much less advanced, perhaps still in the 50s, maybe the 60s.

Of course that all falls into that wonderful what-if world, but I like to think that the what-if was less desirable than the “What-Is”, so although it may seem terrible to say that the attack on Pearl Harbour advanced the world, I do think that in a way it has. I personally see it as one of the biggest pivotal moments in recent history because without it the world may well have been a very different place.

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