Get the horns:
Posted on 12/07/2022 6:41:05 AM PST by j.havenfarm
My friend Lou Conter was on the deck of the USS Arizona when the Japanese attacked on December 7. Today he’s one of two remaining survivors of the Arizona. I’m please to report he’s still well at 101. I visited him a few weeks ago, and will see this great man again this weekend.
Since 2017 I’ve posted here each year my son’s 2017 Eagle Scout Project video biography of Mr Conter. In honor of him and all those who fell, and those who lived to fight on to victory, I present it again now. https://youtu.be/T_L0kWTqPiA
Thank you.
BTTT for Pearl Harbor Day. Thank you for the video.
Get the horns:
My dad, WWII vet, would have been 100 last February.
> “RIGHT THERE WHERE YOU PUT IT YOU M**********RS!”
My wife’s Uncle Cliff was at Pearl Harbor and to his dying day was similarly opinionated. Plus he would disdain all Japanese products with vicious contempt. But he could distinguish the difference between Japan and Americans of Japanese origin or ancestry. I recall the subject of the 442nd came up because one of his neighbors had served in that regiment, a man he respected for proving his loyalty in a very difficult way. He also knew about the Issei who served in the Navy during the Spanish-American war.
Sadly everyone in my wife’s family thought Uncle Cliff was just an irredeemable racist due to his experience, with no understanding of the nuance.
Google sucks
They took their assignments and used the tools they had.
Looking at the current state of our nation, there are days it is difficult to comprehend the sacrifice on their part being worth it. Jimmy Stewart’s wartime experience flying the B-24 is a pretty awesome story, as well.
That picture of the destroyer USS Shaw exploding always haunts me. Good Lord that must’ve been the magazine that went up.
Looks to me like both magazine and fuel going up.
The Empire of Japan earned what it got, including the event depicted in the second picture.
My Uncle Dave was in the Navy aboard the cruiser USS Santa Fe and barely survived combat in the Pacific and my late father-in-law was a Marine. My dad was getting ready to graduate high school in 1945 and he would have been drafted into the fighting had the bombs not been dropped. My father-in-law was wounded on Iwo Jima. He was recuperating from his wounds when the bombs were dropped and like a million other guys in the Pacific he got to see his next birthday. He came home, married and started a family, four girls, one of whom today is my wife.
“They did- IN SPADES! It sickens me to hear and read people get weepy every August 6th. and 9th. The world doesn’t get weepy every December 7th.”
Yep, I met a gentleman who survived the Bataan Death March. After visiting with him on numerous occasions, it’s very difficult to feel sorry for Japan being nuked. They got what they deserved.
My father’s uncle was aboard USS Vestal that morning
I missed this post in Dec. Most of the comments seem to be memories of parents or grandparents.
That event changed my life. On Dec 7, l941 or perhaps Dec 8th.I was at my grandparent’s farm. I was sitting with my grandfather’s sitting on his lap, when I heard this: “On Sunday, December 7, 1941, A day that will live in infamy. the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in the Territory of Hawaii was attacked by 353 Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service aircraft in a surprise military strike,” I had just turned 8 yrs old on Dec 3, 1941. From my Grandfather’s response to that radio announcement by President Roosevelt. I can still remember his anger and his predictions of what was coming.
I don’t think he ever realized how much that changed my life. Short version: My family was moved (literally) from the deep wilds of Tennessee to the “war center” at Huntsville, Ala. Both parents assigned to war “work” and we children saw a city, electricity and indoor plumbing for the first time. Our food was rationed though. So we raised Rabbits in the back yard for meat. Our uncles went overseas.
Ask me about the coming war. Be ready people.
OH, look at the post number....33. Year of my birth.
Reading Descent Into Darkness.What a story.
my uncle was on Vestal moored alongside Arizona....
God bless him. I’m returning next month for the 82nd anniversary observances.
I used to golf with nicest guy one could ever meet. Very quiet and soft spoken. He was a LT. in the Marines on the 2nd wave on Iwo Jima. He never mentioned in all our time on the course. He son finally told me the story.
I did visit the memorial when I was on vacation in Hawaii. Long enough ago to see elderly people crying over lost relatives.
I’m old enough to remember that day. We were having dinner at a friend’s house and I was 5. My dad didn’t believe in making me sit through the whole dinner after I finished, so I was in the living room with the radio on. And here came Roosevelt announcing the air strike. I went in and told my parents and other adults.
The next day, every man in America went down to the draft board to sign up. My dad had a heart murmur, so was rejected. But he became one of many “Dollar a Year” men, those who had civilian skills that would help people if we were invaded. He was in the restaurant business and knew how to feed many people well and economically.
I used to golf with a paratrooper who landed in Normandy - just a regular guy.
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