Franklin D. Roosevelt

Remarks at Schofield Barracks, Pearl Harbor.

July 27, 1944

I am always horrified when I have to make a speech. I am not here for that purpose. But I do want to tell you all about one experience of my life. Ten years ago today, I was out here taking a review. Here there has been the most amazing change in one place that I have ever seen. I remember that review very well. There were some first World War tanks in it. I think that of the twelve that took part, seven broke down before they could get past. Some difference in ten years! Half the trucks broke down before they could get across. And the aircraft at Schofield—not more than fifteen or twenty—three-fourths of them got past, though whether they got back safely on the earth, I don't know.

At that time, Hawaii was one of our major outposts, the outpost. We weren't allowed to fortify Guam. Today, it is no longer an outpost, it is one of our rear areas, in one sense of the word. From here we are conducting a campaign, one more advanced than any other campaign of the past, largely because of the good work you are doing here at this advance base.

I am awfully glad to come back here and see it with my own eyes ten years to the day later. I wish we could stay here—see more. It is being felt all through this area- all the way down to General MacArthur's area, which thank the Lord is coming a little closer toward us, and automatically closer toward the enemy than it was two years ago.

It is good to see the three services together, because I think this morning I have seen not only the Marine Corps Air, but the Navy Air and the Army Air working so closely together in all their component parts. I wish everybody back home could see and understand a little more of what is going on out here.

It has been good to see you.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Remarks at Schofield Barracks, Pearl Harbor. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/210915

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