The United States was brought forcibly into World War Two by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7th, 1941.
They caught the U.S. Pacific Fleet at anchor, totally unprepared and utterly surprised. Pearl Harbor was a disaster for U.S. arms. More than 2,000 soldiers and sailors were killed, and almost the entire U.S. line of battleships was sunk or crippled.
It was a massive shock to our country, a source of sadness and anger, even of hate.
But one western leader in particular rejoiced at the Japanese attack. Rejoiced to himself, at least. Inwardly, Winston Churchill saw the Pearl Harbor attack as very literally Britain's salvation in World War Two. Before the shock had worn off, before any victories had been won, and with many defeats yet to accrue, Churchill saw what was coming, now, with the world's most powerful country in the war.
He said a series of words about what he saw. They aren't a "few," but they're incredibly powerful and near perfect. And they're one of my favorite quotes in all of military history.
This is what Winston Churchill said about his learning of the Japanese attack:
"No American will think it wrong of me if I proclaim that to have the United States at our side was to me the greatest joy. I could not foretell the course of events. I do not pretend to have measured accurately the martial might of Japan, but now at this very moment I knew the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all! Yes, after Dunkirk; after the fall of France; after the horrible episode of Oran; after the threat of invasion, when, apart from the Air and the Navy, we were an almost unarmed people; after the deadly struggle of the U-boat war -- the first Battle of the Atlantic, gained by a hand's breadth; after seventeen months of lonely fighting and nineteen months of my responsibility in dire stress, we had won the war. England would live; Britain would live; the Commonwealth of Nations and the Empire would live. How long the war would last or in what fashion it would end, no man could tell, nor did I at this moment care. Once again in our long Island history we should emerge, however mauled or mutiliated, safe and victorious. We should not be wiped out. Our history would not come to an end. We might not even have to die as individuals. Hitler's fate was sealed. Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to powder. All the rest was merely the proper application of overwhelming force."
"We had won after all," and we'd just suffered a terrible defeat. But, indeed, they had.
Their "fate was sealed," and it was.
"Ground to powder," and they were.
"...the proper application of overwhelming force."
He saw it all coming.