Posted on 12/07/2011 5:33:33 AM PST by Old Teufel Hunden
http://www.life.com/gallery/66991/rare-and-unseen-pics-after-pearl-harbor#index/0
(Excerpt) Read more at life.com ...
I got mad at the japs all over again.
I know exactly what you mean, but I want to comment further. I don't know many Japanese Americans personally, but FWIW my experience with them is very positive. Words like "respectful" and "productive" come to mind. Unlike our foreign invaders from the south.
I was at the memorial at the same time as some Japanese. They were very somber and respectful. Unlike an American couple who let their kids yell and run around like it was an amusement park.
My Uncle Joe was a radio guy for the Navy. He was stationed in Hawaii Dec 5, 1942. He said no one believed they were being attacked.
Wife and I visited Pearl Harbor and the Arizona Memorial a year ago. On the US Navy boat going out to the memorial, I’d estimate 20 percent were older Americans and the rest were Japanese.
I asked one young Japanese national what brought him to visit the Arizona. His answer was “I came to see what my grandfather’s people did. Our generation just can’t believe it.”
My Grandfather, who’s a WWII vet, was almost in Pearl Harbor. He had been drafted into the Air Force shortly before but they gave him a choice of where he could go be stationed. He *almost* took the job in Hawaii but opted to go to an Air Force base in Tennessee instead. A few months later Pearl Harbor was bombed.
A friend of his took the job in Hawaii after he turned it down and lost his arm in the bombing.
I worked on Ford Island for a few years recently. It could be eerie to do a walk about, and look at things. The cot off superstructure of the Arizona is over near the tip of Waipio Peninsula, across the channel from Ford. Did some field testing over there and eyeballed the wreckage. Just a pile of rust and rivets now.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.