Remember Pearl Harbor

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voorhees

Lifer
May 30, 2012
3,834
937
Gonadistan
Remember Pearl Harbor and those brave souls.

I watched the history channel show and saw that the oldest survivor is 104. We are losing them on average of 500 per day. Sad.

Lost my grandfather in 2005. He was a European theatre veteran.

 

pappymac

Lifer
Feb 26, 2015
3,273
4,269
Amen.

For those of you in the Baltimore area, go visit the USCGC Taney Museum today. It's the last military vessel floating that fought during the attack on Pearl Harbor and she continued to serve on active duty until Dec. 7, 1986.
I hear the Japanese Prime Minister is visiting Pearl Harbor today with the current President. I won't say anything political about that.

 

jguss

Lifer
Jul 7, 2013
2,414
6,222
Pearl Harbor was the day before my dad's 15th birthday.
Three years later he was in the Navy; by the time he was through training the war was largely over. He served on a Mt McKinley class ship (the USS Eldorado) in the Pacific.
By minor coincidence I started my first real full time job in Chicago on the 40th anniversary of Pearl Harbor.

 

ashdigger

Lifer
Jul 30, 2016
11,379
70,058
60
Vegas Baby!!!
Tragic Day. I talked to a Pearl Harbor Survivors wife yesterday. Although her husband passed away 4 years ago, she told me that he NEVER talked about it until he was in his late 80's. I spotted her because here in Nevada they released Pearl Harbor Survivor license plates.

 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
The Pearl Harbor attack was a brilliantly planned and executed air assault, a horror for my brethren sailors of an earlier generation, and a terrible strategic error by the Japanese that poked the hornets nest of U.S. entry into the war. Many Japanese flag officers knew this was a mistake from the beginning. The U.S. "got it back" much earlier than the end of the war at the Battle of Midway, where Admiral Nimitz laid off the island to the northeast (I believe it was) and then caught the Japanese aircraft carriers between launches of flights and basically ended Japanese naval dominance in the Pacific for the duration of the war, despite much bloody resistance at sea and on the islands. At Pearl Harbor itself, the Japanese had an enormous tactical set-back, despite their massive victory, but hitting battleships but no aircraft carriers, which was an intended target. The carriers were all elsewhere at sea or getting refitted in yards on the mainland.

 

wyfbane

Lifer
Apr 26, 2013
5,117
3,517
Tennessee
Hard to imagine that level of mayhem. The scope of it and the fact that we were on the receiving end of that whooping trumps any experience I had in combat.

 

jackswilling

Lifer
Feb 15, 2015
1,777
24
It won't be long before it is largely forgotten. Yes, let us remember The Day That Will Live In Infamy. My Dad is a WWII Vet. He lied and got in the Navy at age 16 as he was an orphan with few options. Served on The Battleship New Jersey. Said the 16s made a big impression.

 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
jacks', depends on the interest, or lack of interest, in history. The Battle of Midway prompted by the Pearl Harbor attack was likely the largest and most decisive naval battle in history, surpassing England and France at Trafalgar and Athens in the Peloponnesian Wars. Unless technology gives the species total historical amnesia, I think these battles will remain with us, conspicuously or not.

 
Jun 27, 2016
1,273
117
I hear a looping news-reel on the radio about a fellow named Ray Weser and his latest adventures, and was trying to find out if he served during WW2. It says that he made his way into the National Guard at 14 years of age, so that would have been around 1929. This is the most informative article that I could find about his most recent escapades.
http://www.dcourier.com/news/2016/sep/27/almost-102-prescott-valley-hospice-patient-treated/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFTmVwPDidI

 

cabinfever

Starting to Get Obsessed
Oct 6, 2016
117
3
My Dad was US Coast Guard during WWII. The USCG became part of the Navy after Pearl Harbor. Dad was part of a Higgins boat crew. It was their job to land Marines on the various island beachheads at we fought our way toward Japan. Once the men were landed, the Higgins boat crews brought supplies to the islands and carried the wounded and dead back to the ship. Dad says it was a constant flow of boats back and forth from the beachhead to the ships.
This is a photo taken of Dad and some of his shipmates at Pearl Harbor after the Battle of Saipan. Dad is backrow, center with the cocked hat.

Dad_Siapan_WWII.jpg

Today, I do what I can to honor our WW2 vets by taking them through parades during our summer festivals.

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beefeater33

Lifer
Apr 14, 2014
4,063
6,119
Central Ohio
^^ Good on you Sir!........... :clap:

The Country needs more people like you, my hat's off to you and thanks for posting that!............. :puffy:

 

buster

Lifer
Sep 1, 2011
1,305
3
My ten year old was telling me about what his class learned about Pearl Harbor today in class. He had some questions and I tried to answer them as best I could in a way he would understand.
Then I told him the story of his family's connection to that day. His great grandmother told it to me. My mother in law was born on Oahu. Her father was a civilian mechanic at Pearl Harbor. She told me he was a forgetful man. He had been working on a ship and forgot a tool in his truck. He went to fetch it and as he was getting it from his truck the Japanese bombers came over the hillside and bombed the ship he was working on. She told me how scared she was not knowing if he was ok. They owned a small grocery store and she was there with her three small children. He returned late that evening saying that he had to stay and do whatever he could to help. She then smiled and said he was a forgetful man but that day his forgetfulness saved his life. I never met him but I'm glad I met her. Today I told their great grandchild their story and I hope he remembers so he can pass it on to his children.
Today we remember the men who served and those who paid the ultimate price. How their loved ones suffered I think is sometimes forgotten or not mentioned? Such a terrible day for so many. I like to think of how worried his great grandmother must have been and how overjoyed she must have been when her husband came through that door. Many wives and mothers were not so lucky.

 

flmason

Lifer
Oct 8, 2012
1,131
2
I read an article on USA Today which stated that 4 of the 5 remaining Arizona Battleship survivors attended a memorial service in Hawaii today. Also divers later in the day will place the cremated remains of 2 crewmen inside the ship.
That is a great honor to Rest In Peace with their former crewmen.
This memorial service may be the last for the surviving members since they are all n their 90's

 

Sjmiller CPG

(sjmiller)
May 8, 2015
544
1,010
56
Morgan County, Tennessee
There is a story that at the end of the attack the Japanese admiral, Yamamoto, said "I fear all we all have done today is to awaken a great sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." Quite an accurate statement if he did say it.

 
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