Now yYou have to see 'Tora, Tora, Tora', a joint US/Japanese effort to tell the story of the attack on film. I've read a number of books on the subject but the film does a good job of showing the big picture. Like nearly everything else that rates a monument, the attack could have been prevented/stopped any number of ways by any number of people on either side but war was getting all the breaks that day.

Here's a tidbit I've never forgotten: The admiral who was in charge of Pearl harbor the days leading up to the attack was watching the destruction from a command center atop a hill when a 50 caliber round smashed through the window and bounced off his chest, having spent all of its momentum on the way there. He picked it up and said 'it would have been better if it had killed me.'

Puts your routine bad days at work in perspective.

--G