Posted on 12/07/2020 3:40:00 AM PST by GeorgiaDawg32
79 years ago today the attack happened at 1 p.m. eastern time.
God bless the heroes of that conflict.
That is all.
Bump. Dad ended up out in the Pacific with his brother because of that. Both survived. Lot of men lost.
My uncle was in the Navy during WW2, Arthur Hopkins, we even still have his Navy book where he had to sign the chapters he was required to read. What’s bizarre is the book was made water proof so it looks like it’s just a week old. I remember my Aunt telling me when he left his hair was jet black, when he came back it was white. He was killed in a motorcycle accident in the 1980s
I simply can’t imagine going toe to toe with the japanese navy at almost point blank range.
Guns, planes, shrapnel, blown apart bodies, sinking ships...I can’t imagine the horror.
No wonder his hair turned white..
The link leads to a huge collection of WWII audio, starting in 1932 with the rise of Hitler. If you don’t turn it off, you’ll go right through to 1946. It’s a fantastic resource for history buffs.
John Daly was one of the first, if not the first, to announce the Pearl Harbor attack.
He was also the first to read a translation of the Japanese surrender.
There are no newsmen like John Daly left in the world.
Correction:
“...Japanese surrender” should read “Japanese Imperial Rescript,” which explains to the Japanese people why they’re surrendering.
Yep, the Kamikaze, and if the ship sank they had to deal with sharks and if they survived that they risked getting picked up by the Japanese and tortured if not outright killed. The thing is I don’t know what happened with him as he never ever ever talked about his service, it was too much I guess, so God knows what he went through. Same with my Grandad John Lumsden who was Scottish and served in WW1 as a pipe major for the Queens own Cameron highlanders, he never ever talked about what he went through and I lived in the same house as him for 20 years when he moved to the USA. He tried to first join when he was 14 to get away from his father who was an abusive alcoholic and then they finally took him at 16. The only thing I know about what happened is his friend lost half his foot from trench foot from flooded trenches. We visited him in Scotland in the 1960s and he told me first hand. I still have his bagpipes and even the same straight razor, leather and brush he used to shave with and this stuff is from 1915
I wonder how many 18 years could name the decade in which WWII was fought? Same with the Civil war, and WWI.
For bonus points name which side Germany, England, France, US, Japan, and the Soviet Union (trick question on the Soviet Union since a case can be made they were on both sides at some point).
One of the best books on this subject that I have read is “Neptune’s Inferno” by James D. Hornfischer about the Naval battles around the Solomon Islands between August and November 1942.
The American and Japanese Navies were fighting each other tooth and nail from a position of relative parity, and while it is easy to look at this time in retrospect and think the end result was a done deal, it was anything but that.
The savagery was astonishing.
Ships passing inadvertently between two other ships hurling shells at each other at point blank range, and crew seeing the shells pass between the stacks, masts, and rigging.
Destroyers passing 400 yards abeam of Japanese battleships at night going in opposite directions, the American destroyer pumping five inch rounds from every available gun into the superstructure of the Japanese battleship, and the crew could see the impacts immediately after firing, and the metal glowing cherry red from the fires they started inside.
American crews, in the silence before a battle before the rounds began firing, being suddenly illuminated by the searing searchlights of a Japanese warship, and the illogical, but common feeling of men being caught on deck in that searchlight beam, that somehow, hiding behind a locker to get out of the beam of light made them feel...safer.
One of the participants said that the fight was like “a barroom brawl after the lights had been shot out.”
At longer ranges during those night actions, seeing the glowing eight inch shells, a full volley of nine, ascending like a flock of birds, disappearing into the bottom of the clouds, then reappearing under the clouds near the horizon, and the flashes and glow of rounds that hit.
Of seeing the radar reflection of an enemy (or friendly) vessel being hit, and actually seeing the radar registration flicker and shudder under the blows.
I have read a lot of books on this particular campaign, as it really was the first coordinated air, land, and sea battle in history, and fought with such tenacity on both sides.
Remarkable book.
FDR maneuvered the US into that war.
Wow that is incredible, talk about frayed nerves. My dad was in the Navy as well, he told me when those guns went off it was louder than anything you can imagine, just shook you to your core. My greatest fear though would have been thrown in the water from a sinking ship at night and having to deal with sharks in the dark. Oh maaaaaaan, I would go out of my mind.
With sincere reverence for your fallen heroes of 1941, November 3, 2020 may come to be viewed as America’s new Day of Infamy. The Japanese were an external enemy that temporarily crippled the US Pacific Fleet and posed no threat to America as a nation. But they were an identifiable enemy that was defeated through direct confrontation and resolve
The domestic enemies that are on the brink of stealing this election are far more insidious, and have a real opportunity to destroy the America of the Founders. It will be far more difficult for Patriots to displace the leftist cabal that has conspired against your country. They control the media, tech, education, government budgets, law enforcement, the national security apparatus, and will soon control the borders and the military. I don’t see anyway for America to escape this fate except through massive bloodshed. “Live Free or Die” may soon be replaced with “Submit or Die”. These people are that evil.
I am with you on that.
It is interesting that sharks were a far bigger problem in the South Pacific and the Guadalcanal Campaign than was let on.
Nothing could be done about it. Men were going to go into the water. And the sharks would be there. And nothing could be done. Later in the war, they tried shark repellent, but it was useless.
There is a scene during the loss of the carrier USS Wasp, where the predations of the sharks were going on in full view of the ships trying to rescue the survivors, until “darkness brought down a curtain on the horrible scene”.
It was considered bad form to talk about sharks, and when someone would bring them up, everyone else would tell them abruptly to shut the hell up. The Navy didn’t address it, because there was nothing to be done.
There was apparently a great big elephant in the room, and by common agreement between sailors and leadership, everyone just pretended that elephant wasn’t there.
Because nothing could be done about it.
NOT A DAMNED ONE OF THEM !!!
“The Attack on Pearl Harbor Was No Surprise”
9-minute video based on former World War II Navy officer Robert Stinnett’s research eventually published in a book.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1niZil4lNjU&feature=emb_logo
One of my friends who was in during the 1960s told me that during survival at sea training the instructors emphasized that if you are in the water, your first priority was to try to get yourself out and on to some kind of floatation. They didn’t say “sharks” directly, but alluded to something like dropping several levels on the food chain if you are floating free in deep water.
“That was the war the great Obama won and saved the world for socialism.” -18 year old public education student.
God bless the heroes in any conflict.
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