Jewells of Thought

December 6th the day before chaos erupted on the Hawaiian Islands. I used to think only about the day of the massacre and nearly forgot about the day before. What were people doing before the kamikaze Japs unloaded their frustrations onto the American and Hawaiian people?

We know now that Japanese spies were asking questions of the area businesses in advance of the day in December in which they embark on this suicide mission. The movie, Pearl Harbor shows a spy contacting a dentist asking what seemed like random questions. They weren’t though were they! About the troopship movement or where they were being anchored. These questions were not naive and the businessman fortunately contacted the Military Command with this information.

A Spy had been found guilty for the December 7th tragedy. His name was Bernard Julius Otto Kuehn. He offered to sell intelligence to the Japanese in November 1941. Kuehn provided some highly specific details on the U.S. Fleet. This man had contacts within Japan and no surprise with Germany since he was a Nazi himself. He had moved to Hawaii in 1935 the man was loaded with no job and had two houses.

The FBI in 1939 had him in their sights and they and the Army couldn’t find proof of actual spying. Not until that fateful December day. They finally arrested him the day after and he confessed. His sentence was 50 years hard labor and he was deported and that was the end of this Nazi Spy in Pearl Harbor.

Pearl Harbor was a big change for the American people. I know that it changed my Grandpa Leo. I truly believe that was the day he made his decision to join, he just wanted to finish high school first. What were his thoughts on life in general though before Sunday, December 7th happened is what I would like to know?

What would he have done differently if there hadn’t been a war to fight in? Would he have gone to college if he hadn’t gone directly to war? What were those thoughts going through his head the day before the world changed?