Around eight o’clock in the morn
In Nineteen forty-one
On December the Seventh
Our World War Two was begun.

We’d tried to stay out of it
And said, it was not our fight
But an attack by Jap aircraft
Made us look and see the light.

One hundred of our ships
Were docked at the Seaport
And planes parked all around
With Troops for their support.

The saddest part of the attack
Was, it was known an hour before
A Jap midget sub spotted and sunk
And that may have changed the War.

The crew of the USS Ward
Who had sent it down below
Radioed Pearl Naval Command
Who didn’t believe their story, so.

That one hour of warning
The Navy Brass failed to heed
May have saved so many lives
Maybe lost without need.

Some sixty-one years later
The truth was finally known
The sub found with the holes
Shells from the Ward had blown.

Some have said our Government
Knew of the attack beforehand
Some accounts hard to believe
And even harder to understand.

Almost twelve hundred wounded
Nearly twenty-four hundred died
Our Country shocked and outraged
While all of our People cried.

Twenty-one ships sunk or damaged
Plus more than three hundred planes
Wrecks strewn along the bottom
Which, still hold some remains.

Many years have come and passed
Since that day of infamy
With so many more battles waged
To help keep our Country Free.

So sad it takes War for Peace
But guess that’s the Human way
But seems there’s more time fighting
Than we spend with a peaceful day.

received from Del “Abe” Jones