Causes of great events

Pearl Harbour – 70 years ago today the Japanese fleet were on their way to Hawaii.

Historians often focus their attention on great events – the Battle for Berlin or Stalingrad or the German invasion of the Soviet Union. And we commemorate these and other anniversaries, marking the date when something of vital importance happened.

But today I want to focus on the 70th anniversary of events that were about to happen.

Seventy years ago this month three actions which were to be of great significance in the history of WW2 – indeed the history of the world – were all in preparation. Two of them would bear immediate fruit in December 1941 – and many of the historians I most respect consider December 1941 the most important month in the history of WW2, as I will explain in a later blog – and one would not be drawn to the attention of the world until much later.

What were these three actions? Well, the first is the most obvious. Exactly seventy years ago yesterday, on November 26, 1941, a Japanese fleet tasked with attacking the American naval base in Pearl Harbour, Hawaii, left the Japanese home islands. Constructed around six aircraft carriers, this fleet would eventually launch its assault on 7 December, and draw America into the Second World War.

Second, seventy years ago today, military units from Siberia were in the process of traveling west within the Soviet Union to defend Moscow. These units would, on 5 December, provide the backbone of the vast Soviet counter attack on German forces who were closing on the Soviet capital.

And, finally, in Eastern Poland near the small town of Belzec, the Nazis had begun construction of the very first fixed extermination centre. In November 1941 these gas chambers were being constructed to kill Jews from the surrounding area. Whilst the Europe wide Holocaust had not yet begun, this still marks a decisive, and horrific, moment in the history of the human race.

All these events – the Japanese fleet en route to Hawaii, Siberian soldiers en route to Moscow, the construction of the gas chambers at Belzec – were, seventy years ago today, as yet unknown to the vast majority of people. But the fuse for the momentous explosion that each would contribute to had been lit.