Posted on 12/07/2017 4:55:52 AM PST by central_va
I was in the ward room eating breakfast about 0755 when a short signal on the ship's air raid alarm was made. I immediately went to the phone and called the Officer-of-the-Deck to sound general quarters and then shortly thereafter ran up to the starboard side of the quarter deck to see if he had received word. On coming out of the ward room hatch on the port side, I saw a Japanese plane go by, the machine guns firing, at an altitude of about 100 feet. As I was running forward on the starboard side of the quarter deck, approximately by the starboard gangway, I was apparently knocked out by the blast of a bomb which I learned later had struck the face plate of #4 turret on the starboard side and had glanced off and gone through the deck just forward of the captain's hatch, penetrating the decks and exploding on the third deck. When I came to and got up off the deck, the ship was a mass of flames amidships on the boat deck and the deck aft was awash to about frame 90. The anti-aircraft battery and machine guns apparently were still firing at this time. Some of the Arizona boats had pulled clear of the oil and were lying off the stern.
We in Oklahoma, remember in reference the many local boys who joined the Navy and were on the Battleship Oklahoma.
Bless them and may they rest in peace.
Heroism rises to meet infamy.
Bless them all and may we never place ourselves in the same pitiful state of unpreparedness again...Obama was heading there...
Japanese aren’t taugh their history about starting WW2 or their genocide against China and POWs.
Obama actually wanted to apologize to Japan about dropping the atom bombs. They told him not to. Even they had more sense than him.
The Freeper Canteen posted a beautiful tribute last evening:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3611371/posts
I too visited the Memorial at Pearl Harbor. A very solemn moment in my life. No one was talking loudly, no kids yelling, everyone seemed to sense what the memorial was all about.
These accounts are nothing short of incredible.
Thank you so much for posting this!
“No one was talking loudly, no kids yelling, everyone seemed to sense what the memorial was all about.”
It was the same on my first visit three years ago. When I returned last year not so much. People were reminded prior to the short trip to the memorial that we were visiting a graveyard and should act accordingly. Never happened. Lot of disrespectful Americans talking, laughing playing with their cell phones. The Asian, mostly Japanese I suspect, were very respectful and acted accordingly.
Great post thanks!
It's great that you can now see the Missouri just next to the Arizona Memorial. The bookends of the Pacific War.
It happened again on September 11, 2001. It will happen again. I predict the next one will involve a nuclear device.
I was just a kid at the time but remember listening to the reports coming in over the radio that Sunday afternoon, Vivid memories 75 years later never to be forgotten.
MY HUBBY A RET. SCPO RAISED THE COLORS AT 8 AM.
That's a great question.
With all the Kaeperniks in the world, it's nice to see some decency and reverence for people respecting those fallen sailors and others who gave their lives in defense of our country.
Of course, I would imagine that those who went out of their way enough to visit the Arizona Memorial aren't the kind of people who would kneel for the National Anthem.
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