CENTERVILLE, Mo. (News First) – A special event will be held this weekend in Centerville in Reynolds County. Randy Tolliver is the junior vice commander of V.F.W. District 8 and says everyone is invited to attend.
“On Saturday, post 6660 in Reynolds County will hold their annual Pearl Harbor Day Remembrance Ceremony at the Reynolds County Courthouse. Now the ceremony will start at 1 PM. Remember Pearl Harbor Remembers Day is in honor of the 2,403 service members and civilians killed in the Japanese attack. Our guest speaker this year or so they told us will be representative Chris Jenkins and everyone is invited,” Tolliver says.
Tolliver explains what happened on that fateful day.
“Eighty-three years ago this week, Naval forces of Japan attacked the Pearl Harbor Navy Base. Now their objective was to prevent our challenging their aggression in Asia. Late 1930s, the Japanese controlled Manchuria and were at war with both the Chinese Nationalists and the Chinese Communists. If you think about it, at that time in history, our influence in this was really just economic. In beginning in 1940, the US restricted exports of any war-related materials to Japan.”
Tolliver says Japan’s attack was not a complete success because they failed to destroy U.S. oil storage facilities there. That allowed the U.S. to repair damaged vessels, placing them and the ones that were not damaged, into the theater of World War II, which officially just started for the U.S. The U.S. was not involved in World War II militarily until after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Once again, the Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day Ceremony gets underway Saturday afternoon at 1 outside the Reynolds County Courthouse in Centerville.
