Seventy-four years ago today, at 7:48 in the morning local time, American servicemen looked into a bright Hawaiian sky and saw treachery hurtling toward them.

Fighters. Dive bombers. Torpedo planes.

Japanese.

Air attack commander Mitsuo Fuchido, according to a National Geographic timeline, had already ordered his telegraph operator to tap out the words: "to, to, to," for "attack," then "to ra, to ra, to ra," for "attack, surprise achieved." Some Japanese pilots interpreted "to ra" as "tiger."

Torpedoes knifed toward American battleships. Bombs plunged into rows of neatly parked American warplanes.

Thunderous explosions. Sheets of flame.

A bomb pierced the forward deck of the battleship Arizona and set off its gunpowder magazines, lifting the mighty ship out of the water amid a gigantic ball of fire that took the lives of 1,177 servicemen.

Americans fought back with anti-aircraft guns, fighter planes and deck fire from warships, but when the smoke cleared, four battlewagons lay on the bottom of Pearl Harbor and four others, along with a host of other vessels, littered the harbor in various stages of ruin.

More than 2,400 Americans were killed.

The sheer treachery of the attack, on a date "which will live in infamy" in the words of then-president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, guaranteed any debate over America's entry into World War II would cease. Men joined the military in droves, women went to work in factories, and the leviathan of the American economy got to work defeating the warlords of Japan and the dictators of Europe.

Suffused through America's reaction to, and memory of, Pearl Harbor was the necessity that we never forget, and always be prepared.

But it is easy for evil people to prey upon the members of an open society, which is why it is crucial we remain vigilant. Part of being vigilant is never forgetting the events themselves, and the lessons we should have learned from them.

On this day we pay tribute to the people who gave their lives on that sunny day in Dec. 1941, and to all the men and women who came after them and sacrificed their lives so that we may write these words, and read them.

Never forget.

REPRINTED FROM THE NORTHWEST FLORIDA DAILY NEWS

Photo credit: Naval Surface Warriors