80th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor

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Today is Dec. 7th, the 80th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the catalyst to our government declaring war against Japan and entering WWII. I was profoundly moved when my family had the privilege of visiting there in 2018. Some day nobody will be alive who was actually at Pearl Harbor when it happened. That is why documenting through oral history interviews and personal papers is critically important for our national heritage. My Dad always talked about how the news over the radio and the declaration of war affected him, the shock of his consequent drafting as a 35 year old married man and plumber, and his overall negative experience serving in the South Pacific as a U.S. Navy SeaBee. The Clarke does not have any manuscripts related to anyone who was in Hawaii on Dec.7th. Those are more appropriately housed in the archives at Pearl Harbor. We do have the scrapbook of a man who served in Hawaii later in the war, 1943-, Floyd Dain. He was in Pearl Harbor during a 1944 commemoration event. I've previously blogged about his scrapbook. Please consider donating  the letters, photographs or scrapbooks of American veterans to an archives to preserve them. If they were Michiganders, consider a Michigan archives. If you have questions, contact me.

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