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A Swift Response

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 8, 2008

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii - With smoke still billowing from the torpedoed ruins of the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor, Thomas Griffin's B-25 group took off from its Oregon base to search for Japanese ships or submarines along the West Coast.

They didn't find any, but four months later the group flew from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet and attacked Tokyo. The raid inflicted little damage but boosted U.S. morale and embarrassed the Japanese, who launched the ill-fated attack on Midway Island six weeks later, Griffin recalled.

"We took them by surprise," said Griffin, a retired Army Air Corps major and a keynote speaker at a ceremony Sunday commemorating the 67th anniversary of the Japanese raid that marked America's entry into World War II. He was joined by more than 2,000 World War II veterans and other observers.

Usually, the commemoration focuses on the attack on the USS Arizona, Pearl Harbor and several other installations on Oahu. But Sunday's remembrance centered more on the months following the raid and on an American response that helped defeat the Japanese and render the U.S. a military superpower.

Nearly 2,400 Americans were killed and almost 1,180 injured when Japanese fighters bombed and sank 12 naval vessels and heavily damaged nine others in Pearl Harbor.

The Associated Press

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