3 of the 5 are only indirectly (very indirectly) related to PH.
I hate list, especially the X things you didn’t know about. More likely, the things the author didn’t know about, but everyone else, yea, we knew.
The author asked the viewers to post 5 more facts about Pearl Harbor. One fact was that the Japanese also attacked Hong Kong on that day. One of my parents’ friends joined the marines in 1936 and was stationed at the American embassy as a marine guard. He told me that their papers or id cards had not been signed by the proper embassy official.
He spent all of WWII in a Japanese POW camp. Many of his fellow marines did not.
Let me get this in pre-peremptorily: FDR did not know that Pearl Harbor was coming, though arguably he should have.
Tx fer the headsup! Dec. 7, 1941 was my father-in-law’s 18th birthday and he remembered it well; 3 years later he parachuted into Belgium w/ the 82nd Airborne. We’ll remember him in our prayers tonight.
Well, I managed four out of the five.
The one I didn’t know is that the USS Phoenix/Belgrano was one of the “few ships to survive” Pearl Harbor. I knew she was a survivor and that she was sunk during the Falklands, but I’m pretty familiar with the OOB of the USN at Pearl Harbor and am SHOCKED to learn from this that only a “few” ships “survived.”
:-)
Here’s one thing people may not know tho - the night of the Pearl Harbor attack FDR’s nerves were so bad that he got himself coked up.
Shouldn’t need to be mentioned, but if at all possible, remember to tell people to display the flag on the 7th.
However, assume that the fleet had been moved out of Pearl Harbor before the attack and was in deep water off the Hawaiian Islands when attacked. Assuming the same sort of losses to the fleet at anchor occurred while at sea, the loss in life would have been staggering, much more than actually resulted. Additionally, those vessels that were salvaged and used later during the war would have been gone forever, unreachable.
In the end, I'm of the opinion that, regardless of whether the authorities knew of the attack or not, if the strike was going to happen, it was better that the fleet was anchored in Pearl Harbor.
I know that some will say that, with warning, the fleet could have fought off the attack, but these were WWI era battleships, not the anti-aircraft powerhouses that followed later in the war, with no fleet air cover, and the land-based planes were definitely inferior to the Japanese aircraft. Sure, we might have shot down a few more aircraft, but the fleet losses would have been much much worse.
One of my favorite little-known facts about Pearl Harbor involves CBS News legend Edward R Murrow. He had become a media sensation for his coverage of the London Blitz and had returned to the States a few weeks earlier. FDR invited him to the White House for dinner on the evening of December 7, 1941.
After learning of the attack, Murrow called the White House expecting the invitation to be cancelled. Instead, he was told to join FDR (and others) for drinks and a light supper. Murrow arrived at the appointed hour and was ushered into a meeting with the President, Wild Bill Donovan and others.
According to Murrow’s widow, Janet, the CBS legend returned his hotel suite late in the evening, extremely agitated. He spent the night pacing the floor and chain-smoking. He told his wife that FDR had provided information that he equated to the “story of the century.” But he didn’t know whether to report it or keep it to himself. Ultimately, Murrow (an FDR supporter) decided to keep it to himself and carried the secret to his grave.
1. Washington knew it was coming, and avoided effectively warning the local commanders.
2. Former Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt held to conventional naval wisdom that the battleships could survive an air attack at Pearl, but arranged for the lightly armored carriers to be moved to locations of safety.
3. The Japanese cut and ran rather than finishing the job with a third wave.
4. At least 6 American planes were downed by friendly fire, including one pilot who had shot down a Japanese plane.
5. Commanders at Hawaii were made scapegoats for doing the same things that earned MacArthur hero status.