Pearl Harbor Twitter Row Ensues After USA beats Japan In Women’s World Cup Final

A Twitter row erupted following the USA’s Women’s World Cup final win against Japan, when tweets compared it to the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan.

The offensive tweets referred to the Imperial Japanese Navy’s military strike on the US Navy base in Hawaii, which effectively brought the US into World War II.

The US Women’s football team beat Japan 5-2 to win its third World Cup title, leading to thousands of anti-Japan tweets.

“Hey Japan, that one was for Pearl Harbour. U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A.” read one tweet by Cloyd Rivers, which was subsequently retweeted more than 10,000 times.

Many of the tweets came from what appear to be parody accounts, but many apparently genuine Twitter users appeared to join in with their own remarks.

Many misguided tweeters suggested that the sporting win was somehow ‘payback’ for the attack on Pearl Harbour, apparently oblivious to the fact that the two events were completely unrelated.

The tweets also appeared to be unaware that the ‘payback’ for Pearl Harbor had already been dished out some years ago by the US, in the form of two atomics bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The offensive tweets sparked a backlash with many mocking the remarks, expressing remorse for their fellow Americans’ insensitivity and calling for people to stop.

“Pearl Harbor is trending. This is why we can’t have nice things”, tweeted Hemant Mehta.

The row caused ‘Pearl Harbor’ to become one of the top trends among Twitter users in the US.

This isn’t the first time that Pearl Harbor references have been used in relation to a sporting win over the Japanese national team.

At the London 2012 Olympics, a similar Twitter row occurred after the US women’s football team beat Japan to the gold medal, bizarrely, on the anniversary of the Nagasaki atomic bomb.