Listen to President Roosevelt's speech to Congress, Dec. 8, 1941.
Posted on 12/06/2002 11:52:00 PM PST by 68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub
National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day Public Law 103-308
Whereas, on December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy and Air Force attacked units of the armed forces of the United States stationed at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii;
Whereas, more than 2,000 citizens of the United States were killed and more than 1,000 citizens of the United States were wounded in the attack on Pearl Harbor;
Whereas, the attack on Pearl Harbor marked the entry of the United States into World War II;
Whereas, the veterans of World War II and all other people of the United States commemorate December 7 in remembrance of the attack on Pearl Harbor; and
Whereas, commemoration of the attack on Pearl Harbor will instill in all people of the United States a greater understanding and appreciation of the selfless sacrifice of the individuals who served in the armed forces of the United States during World War II: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That December 7 of each year is designated as "National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day" and the President is authorized and requested--
(1) to issue annually a proclamation calling on the people of the United States to observe the day with appropriate ceremonies and activities; and
(2) to urge all Federal agencies, and interested organizations, groups, and individuals, to fly the flag of United States at halfstaff each December 7 in honor of the individuals who died as a result of their service at Pearl Harbor.
Listen to President Roosevelt's speech to Congress, Dec. 8, 1941.
The battleships moored along "Battleship Row" are the primary target of the attack's first wave.Ten minutes after the beginning of the attack, a bomb crashes through the Arizona's two armored decks igniting its magazine. The explosion rips the ship's sides open like a tin can starting a fire that engulfs the entire ship. Within minutes she sinks to the bottom taking 1,300 lives with her. The sunken ship remains as a memorial to those who sacrificed their lives during the attack.
Todays classic warship, USS Arizona (BB-39)
Pennsylvania class battleship
Displacement 31,400
Lenght 608'
Beam 97'1"
Draft 28'10"
Speed 21 k.
Armament 12 14" 22 5"
Laid down 16 March 1914
Launched 19 June 1915
Commissioned on 17 October 1916
USS Arizona was built at the New York Navy Yard, Brooklyn, New York, was commissioned in October 1916. After shakedown off the east coast and in the Caribbean, she operated out of Norfolk, Virginia, until November 1918, when she made a brief cruise to France. She made a second cruise to European waters in April-June 1919, proceeding as far east as Turkey. During much of 1920-21, the battleship was in the western Atlantic and Caribbean areas, but paid two visits to Peru in 1921 in her first excursions into the Pacific. From August 1921 until 1929, Arizona was based in Southern California, making occasional cruises to the Caribbean or Hawaii during major U.S. Fleet exercises.
In 1929-31, Arizona was modernized at the Norfolk Navy Yard, Portsmouth, Virginia, emerging with a radically altered appearance and major improvements to her armament and protection. In March 1931, she transported President Herbert Hoover and his party to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. In August of that year, Arizona returned to the Pacific, continuing her operations with the Battle Fleet during the next decade. From 1940, she, and the other Pacific Fleet battleships, were based at Pearl Harbor on the orders of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
USS Arizona after modernization.
Arizona was moored in Pearl Harbor's "Battleship Row" on the morning of 7 December 1941, when Japanese carrier aircraft attacked. She was hit by several bombs, one of which penetrated her forecastle and detonated her forward ammunition magazines. The resulting massive explosion totally wrecked the ship's forward hull, collapsing her forward superstructure and causing her to sink, with the loss of over 1100 of her crewmen. In the following months, much of her armament and topside structure was removed, with the two after triple 14" gun turrets being transferred to the Army for emplacement as coast defense batteries on Oahu.
USS Arizona (BB-39) ablaze, immediately following the explosion of her forward magazines, 7 December 1941. Frame clipped from a color motion picture taken from on board USS Solace (AH-5).
The wrecked battleship's hull remained where she sank, a tomb for many of those lost with her. In 1950, she began to be used as a site for memorial ceremonies, and, in the early 1960s a handsome memorial structure was constructed over her midships hull. This USS Arizona Memorial, operated by the National Park Service, is a permanent shrine to those Americans who lost their lives in the attack on Pearl Harbor and in the great Pacific War that began there.
USS Arizona earned one Battle Star for WWII.
Good morning, afternoon or evening to all our service men and women past and present, and to our allies. Thank You! for serving this wonderful country we call Home. I appreciate your efforts and sacrifices more than I can express.
For those who made the ultimate sacrifice December 7th, 1941.
"WE ARE NOW AT WAR..."
It is amazing how this poster applies ad of 9/11 to present. It should be in every American's home and broadcast as a PSA at least once an hour.
God bless our troops around the world, the veterans, our allies, and the military families who sacrifice so much for our freedom.
Today we will be saying a special prayer for those who gave the ultimate sacrifice -- on this day of infamy and all the fallen who paid for our freedom with their blood.
With this prayer we show our respect and gratitude.
We are humbled.
Tom and Lily
Tony Iantorno, an Army gunnery sergeant at Pearl Harbor, remembers carrying wounded men into the hospital
Just a reminder:
Quoting Tonk:
Feel free to e-mail me at seaside611@hotmail.com with your ideas about what you would like to see in the Canteen.
As several others have said,
This CANTEEN is FOR our Veterans; moreover, THIS CANTEEN IS FOR OUR TROOPS!
A reminder to Canteen Crew NOT to post any responses they get UNLESS the person asked them to.
The Naval Station, across Quarry Loch, was authorized in 1908. Dredging of the Pearl Harbor channel entrance began in 1910 and, on December 14, 1911, USS California (CA-6) became the first warship to pass through the new channel into Pearl Harbor. Today, the Naval complex at Pearl Harbor serves as a major homeport and "pit stop of the Pacific" for the submarines and surface ships of the US and Allied Pacific fleets.
Naval Station Pearl Harbor had its beginning in 1912 as a receiving station located at Hospital Point. In 1940 the receiving station moved to the present Naval Station headquarters building. On 07 May 1940, the U.S. fleet moved its headquarters from San Pedro, California, to Pearl Harbor. The move was undertaken with great reluctance by Admiral James O. Richardson, Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet. Richardson and most Navy officials who opposed the move thought a fleet anchored in Pearl Harbor would be unnecessarily exposed to Japanese naval strength. President Roosevelt, however, considered the move as a necessary countermeasure to growing Japanese bellicosity.
The 7 December 1941 Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor was one of the great defining moments in history. A single carefully-planned and well-executed stroke removed the United States Navy's battleship force as a possible threat to the Japanese Empire's southward expansion. America, unprepared and now considerably weakened, was abruptly brought into the Second World War as a full combatant.
The battle-scarred and submerged remains of the battleship USS Arizona (BB-39) are the focal point of a shrine erected by the people of the United States to honor and commemorate all American servicemen killed on December 7, 1941, particularly Arizona's crew, many of whom lost their lives during the Japanese attack on the United States Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
Official Homepage
Sixty One years after Japanese bombers sank the U.S.S. Arizona, the silent wreck still sheds fuel oil, drop by drop, over the memories of a hellish Hawaiian morning.
A month after the attack, Navy teams were salvaging guns and usable hardware from the battleship. Divers wearing heavy copper helmets were bringing up safes, record books, and live ordnance. Metalsmith 1st Class Edward Raymer was first to penetrate the Arizona. In his recent war memoir, Descent into Darkness, he writes how “viscous oil thickly layered everything in the harbor. The hulls of ships and the pilings on docks were coated with it, and the entire shoreline was blackened.”
When he dived to the battleship, “the dense floating mass of oil blotted out all daylight. I was submerged in total blackness.” Lights were useless because they reflected directly back into the diver’s eyes. Instructed to find and disarm an unexploded torpedo, Raymer groped his way through the spaces of the Arizona’s third deck, trailing an air hose connected to a pump topside. “I got the eerie feeling again that I wasn’t alone. Something was near. I felt the body floating above me.”
Raymer’s movement through the water had created a suction that drew floating corpses to him, bodies with heads and hands picked clean by scavenger crabs.
“Their skeletal fingers brushed across my copper helmet,”
he remembers in horror.
“The sound reminded me of the tinkle of oriental wind chimes.”
Medics wearing gas masks against nausea gathered only 229 Arizona dead from the waters before the Navy reluctantly decided to leave the rest untouched.
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