1941: Japanese planes bomb Pearl Harbor

BBC ^ | BBC

[Dubya]

Japan has launched a surprise attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and has declared war on Britain and the United States.

The US president, Franklin D Roosevelt, has mobilised all his forces and is poised to declare war on Japan.

Details of the attack in Hawaii are scarce but initial reports say Japanese bombers and torpedo-carrying planes targeted warships, aircraft and military installations in Pearl Harbor, on Oahu, the third largest and chief island of Hawaii.

News of the daring raid has shocked members of Congress at a time when Japanese officials in Washington were still negotiating with US Secretary of State Cordell Hull on lifting US sanctions imposed after continuing Japanese aggression against China.

[Northern Yankee]

Our priest remembered Pearl Harbor today during the petitions part of the Mass.

It was good to see.

[MyTwoCopperCoins]

Nice!

[mikrofon]

My late Dad (regular Army) related how he was assigned to the Aleutians after the “clean-up” was over... He also would have been with the Japanese mainland invasion force had the A-bomb not curtailed the war.

God rest his soul and those of all the brave men & women in the Greatest Generation who defended our nation...

[tubebender]

Our Lutheran Pastor also mentioned Dec 7 1941 and the Japanese attack on Hawaiian Islands. I thanked him on the way out...

[Wingy]

My Dad, who will be 90 in March, was two weeks from finishing his tour with the Navy. What could be finer? He was a boilerman on the USS San Francisco, a heavy cruiser in Pearl for a major refit. His engines were taken apart and covered two docks and he was just coasting until he was shipped home, just in time for Christmas. Someone else could put the things back together. After a celebratory Saturday night, he was eating pancakes for breakfast when the first call went out that their ship was under enemy fire. Now this was Sunday morning and he was wearing his last pair of clean dress white shorts. His first thought upon hearing the news was that he was about to screw up his shorts and he would have to finish his tour in long pants. He does admit that that was a VERY fleeting thought, as the call came to get on deck to avoid the torpedos, as the boys on deck were hurrying to get below decks to escape the strafing. Despite the mental picture, Dad assures me that it was anything but comical.

To compound the problem, there was not a single working gun on the deck as they were all in the shops for the refit. The men were reduced to shooting with sidearms and rifles. I'm told that they were not too effective against speeding planes, but they did what they could.

The rest of the story is that Dad's ship was never hit at Pearl Harbor, his engines were put together and back in service in 48 hours, and the USS San Francisco went on to fight in some of the biggest battles in the South Pacific. Dad made it through alright, but he lost a lot of friends, and he didn't eat pancakes again until 1964.

[Repeal The 17th]

Struck with the nation-wide flurry of patriotism after the attack,
my dad tried to join the army and then the navy
but was turned down by both because of his poor eyesight.
He turned to and joined the merchant marines finally arriving at Pearl Harbor
the following spring (1942) and was based from there for a year while
ferrying troops, goods, and munitions from San Francisco to Pearl,
and then all over the Pacific. I wish I could still remember just half
of the stories he told me. His travels took him all over the Pacific
to the Solomans (Guadal Canal) and to the Phillipines.
He did a second tour (1943) in the Atlantic shipping based out of New York
travelling to Liverpool and to Ghent.
He served a third year (1944) back in the Pacific again.
All of this from a 21 year raised dirt poor in rural Georgia who had
never so much as seen the ocean until he was put onboard a liberty ship.
But, yet, all of his life, Dad never felt like he did enough.
Both of his brothers (my uncles) were in regular service (1 army, 1 navy).
What a generation that was.
I fear that “we” would never be able to mount or support such an effort.

[SunkenCiv]

Sunday December 7th is Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day
UNKNOWN | UNKNOWN
Posted on 12/06/2008 1:53:14 PM PST by Dubya
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2144166/posts

[usslsm51]

Interesting note, on December 7, 1944 the Ward fired its last shot. It was struck by a Kamikaze plane at Ormoc Bay, Leyte, PI. The Skipper of the USS Ward was William Outerbridge on December 7, 1941. The Ward was burning and the crew were ordered to abandon ship after it became apparent that the fires could not be put out. All the crew escaped with a few sailors receiving burns. The USS O’Brien was ordered to sink the Ward. Another note of interest is that the Skipper of the O’Brien was William Outerbridge. I just happened to see the incident and being a radioman looked up the hull number and discovered it was the USS Ward (APD)-16.

[The Great RJ]

In an old scrapbook from my great aunt was a pencil notation “Peal Harbor bombed today, Sunday December 7, 1941. I just heard this on the radio.”

[Northern Yankee]

Wow!

Yep... I had heard about Outerbridge being on the USS O'Brien.

Watched Tora, Tora, Tora this morning. Still the best movie on Pearl Harbor out there, I think.

Thank you for you service.

Semper Fi!

[jesseam]

Naval vessels rendor honors to the Arizona on entering port or leaving port. Admiral Kidd who was using the Arizona as his flagship is still on board. I was on the USS Renville APA 227 and remembering saluting the Arizona everytime we steamed past it.

[jesseam]

remember saluting not remembering saluting—ha!

[GonzoII]

Thanks for your service, sailor.

[jamaksin]

FYI-

In late November 1941, in a diplomatic (MAGIC) message (Berlin to Toyko) Ribbentrop is quoted as "Should Japan become engaged in a war against the US, Germany, of course, would join the war immediately."

This MAGIC message was decoded in the US on 1 December 1941. Churchill, using one of the several PURPLE machines given England by the Fall of 1941, used red ink to highlight this message at about the same time.

FDR, at the White House on the evening of 7 December 1941, when meeting with the US Congressional leadership, says, to paraphrase, "We have reason to believe that Germany will declare war on us."

Germany's declaration of war against the US was delivered in Berlin on 11 December 1941, and had as its cause the US violations of neutrality, specifically FDR's undeclared war in the Atlantic.