Posted on 12/07/2025 3:35:19 AM PST by LoveMyFreedom
Today on December 7, 1941 Pear Harbor was attacked. Please pray for everyone who lost their lives.
My dad was there. Having breakfast in Schofield Barracks. He was also in the Korean War and did 2 tours in Vietnam. He would never talk about any of it. My mom filled me in. He’s now at Arl Natl.
How many remember? I am going to announce it in Church this morning.
I remember those who remembered Pearl Harbor saying 9/11 was similar in psychological effect.
My uncle was there, at Hickam Air field. He never got off the ground. He told us that the top officials knew it was coming and he believed it was kept secret. In 1971, when he told us that we all said, “no way” but today? Now they say we knew it was coming but where exactly, we were not sure.
How many Americans today remember this date?
It was a good thing that the Japs (chuckle, chuckle*) missed the aircraft carriers.
If they "knew", why not setup an ambush like was done at Midway?
My dad was there too. He was a gunnery officer on the USS Phoenix. The Phoenix was a cruiser and therefore not targeted by the Japanese. Of course, they didn’t know it at the time. He said it took 30 minutes for the boilers to produce enough steam to get underway and get out of Pearl Harbour.
WW II veterans will be all gone soon to their final reward. We honor their memory now and forever.
My uncle was in the radio shack on the Utah. It was the first ship hit in the attack. When the order to abandon ship came, he swam to Ford Island and took shelter there during the rest of the attack. He told the family that he was at sea during the attack so that they would not worry. He kept that secret for 42 years until he revealed all to my son.
Over the years, I've come to agree. By 911, we had endured the Beirut bombing etc. and had become numb enough to not even reinstate the draft. Thank God we now have a president who's sending a new message to the world.
The Western approach of the Jap planes flew right over my house in Ewa... Must have been quite a sight...
It wasn’t just Pearl Harbor. At about the same time as Kido Butai was striking Oahu, Japanese troops were landing on beaches in Northern Malaya. Within hours, Wake would’ve attacked, Guam overrun, the Phillippines attacked, USS Wake sized at Shanghai, the US Marine legation guard at Peking captured.
People forget how massive and far reaching the Japanese attacks that day were.
I was 4 but remember sitting by the radio listening to news.playing soldier was all I did for the next 4 years.
The last captain of the USS Indianapolis nuclear submarine (SSN-697) Bill Toti tours Pearl Harbor in this Unauthorized History of the Pacific War podcast. He was also Commodore of Submarine Squadron 3 at Pearl Harbor.
Bill Toti shows his old office when he was Commodore of Submarine Squadron 3 which was also Admiral Kimmel’s office on Dec 7, 1941. He talks about the spent .50 caliber machine gun bullet that almost killed Admiral Kimmel that morning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHVRbfdmsfI
I highly recommend the Unauthorized History of the Pacific War podcast by Bill Toti and former chief historian for The National WWII Museum Seth Paridon.
Thank you mentioning the Marine guard. A friend of my parents was part of the Marine embassy guard in Hong Kong or maybe Taipei. They were all taken prisoner on December 8 or 9th, 1941. He spend the entire war in a Japanese POW camp.
I sure don’t remember Pearl Harbor myself but when Dec 7 comes each year, I observe it as a date which has indeed lived in infamy.
My recollection of 9/11 and the memory of watching as Tower 1 came down still has a rawness to it that makes me want to forget but that ain’t gonna happen.
“People forget how massive and far reaching the Japanese attacks that day were.”
You made excellent points. The Japanese attacks were massive and far reaching. They were also a recognized nation engaging in warfare that led to a declaration of war and their total defeat.
9/11 cannot be compared to Dec 7th. Yes there were lives lost on 9/11, but the devastation caused by Japan was as you say massive and far reaching. And we knew who the culprits were. A genuine war resolved the Dec 7th issue.
The 9/11 events were terrorist acts that evolved into two fake wars where there never was a goal to win, just make money. When Bush wanted to go to war President Clinton even said 9/11 could have been resolved by just going after the terrorists. I simply could not put a link to invading Iraq and Afghanistan to 9/11, I knew at that time something was wrong. It was as though the Afghan air force launched the attack on us and some how or another the mythical WMD’s in Iraq were going to be used against us.
Some peeple deed some tings.
Stinnett’s book is a load of crap. He either lies or twists the truth, or ignores inconvenient facts.
For accurate books on Pearl Harbor start with Gordon Prange’s books “At Dawn We Slept”, “December 7th, 1941”, an “Pearl Harbor the Verdict of History”.
For a good video history, The Unauthorized History of the Pacific War Podcast recently did a deep dive into the attacks :
Japanese Planning:
American Defenses:
The First Wave, Part 1:
The First Wave: Part 2:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GyedQsnW9Cw&list=PLvwPt9MhP598dzrZ450lugNO50DkweNgm&index=18&pp=iAQB
The Second Wave:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oR_2Cmq4sXc&list=PLvwPt9MhP598dzrZ450lugNO50DkweNgm&index=19&pp=iAQB
The Army at Pearl Harbor:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dyZYOy__DKY&list=PLvwPt9MhP598dzrZ450lugNO50DkweNgm&index=27&pp=iAQB
As far as the Carriers were concerned, Lexington was enroute to Midway with Vindicators to improve Midway’s defenses. Enterprise was due back at Pearl on on December 6th after delivering Wildcats to Wake, but was delayed by refueling a destroyer and bad weather. Saratoga was on the West Coast, after finishing a refit, she was loading up aircraft to head to Pearl. The rest of the carriers were in the Atlantic.
If FDR wanted to start a war, all he had to do was send some of the Asiatic Fleets destroyers to investigate the Japanese troop convoy headed for Malaya, and the shooting would have started real quick.
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.