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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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Posted on 12/06/2002 11:03:54 PM PST by SAMWolf
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are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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| 'Unless we fail in our objective -- this thread is designed to stir your emotions and memories and to bring out the patriotism in you.' -- SAMWolf, US Army Veteran
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| Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. We hope to provide an ongoing source of information about issues and problems that are specific to Veterans and resources that are available to Veterans and their families. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel free to address their specific circumstances or whatever issues concern them in an atmosphere of peace, understanding, brotherhood and support.
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"This is no drill!"
Military and Naval aircraft at Oahu's airfields were second only to battleships among the Japanese target priorities, though the reason was different. While Pearl Harbor's battleships represented American strategic "reach", and had to be eliminated to safeguard Japan's offensive into Southeast Asia and the East Indies, Oahu's aircraft had to be taken out for a more immediate reason: to protect the Pearl Harbor attack force. U.S. fighter planes, if they could get into the air in any numbers, would be a serious threat to Japanese bombers. U.S. Army bombers and Navy patrol planes potentially imperiled the Striking Force's invaluable aircraft carriers.
 Less than one hour after the attack on Pearl Harbor, USAAF 2nd Lt.’s Ken Taylor and George Welch make an aggressive strike back against the enemy. Taylor, flying his P-40 Tomahawk, is seen bringing down his second enemy aircraft, an Aichi D-31A dive-bomber, on the morning of December 7, 1941. Welch is in close as they chase Japanese planes heading for the open sea. In the background, palls of smoke rise from Hangar 6 housing the naval float-planes, the battleship Nevada, beached off Hospital Point, and the up-turned battleship Oklahoma. The Japanese first attack wave therefore assigned many fighters and bombers to airbase supression, the fighters to set planes afire with machine gun and cannon fire and the bombers to wreck them with high explosives. The second attack wave also had airfield strikes among its tasks. Wheeler Army Airfield, in central Oahu, was Hawaii's main fighter base. It was heavily attacked. Of some 140 planes on the ground there, mainly P-40 and P-36 pursuits, nearly two-thirds were destroyed or put out of action. A similar proportion of the B-17, B-18 and A-20 bombers at Hickam Army Airfield, adjacent to the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard, was also wrecked or damaged enough to keep them grounded. Many men were killed at Hickam when the Japanese bombed their barracks. Smaller Bellows Field in eastern Oahu was also hit, destroying several P-40s, including two whose pilots courageously attempted to take off in the teeth of the enemy onslaught.  U.S. Navy and Marine Corps air stations on Pearl Harbor's Ford Island, at Ewa to the west of Pearl and at Kanoehe Bay near Bellows Field, also received concentrated attention from the raiders. Ewa's aircraft complement, mainly carrier-type bombers and fighters, was reduced from nearly fifty operational planes to less than twenty. Ford Island and Kanoehe, home to several squadrons of long-range PBY patrol seaplanes, were massively attacked, with Ford Island losing about half its planes and Kaneohe all but a few. These very successful Japanese strikes thus prevented any significant aerial opposition, though the few Army fighters that got airborne gave a good account of themselves. Later on December Seventh, surviving bombers and patrol planes were sent out to search for the Japanese carriers. They found nothing and confronted considerable "friendly" anti-aircraft gunfire when they returned to their bases. Ford Island Naval Air Station, in the middle of Pearl Harbor, was headquarters of Patrol Wing Two, and an important target for the Japanese first wave raiders. Reportedly, the initial bomb of the whole attack burst there, prompting the message that electrified the World: "Air Raid, Pearl Harbor--this is no drill.". Several PBY patrol seaplanes and other aircraft were destroyed on Ford Island, and one big hangar was gutted. In all, 33 planes were put out of commission there. Several planes from the aircraft carrier Enterprise, which was approaching Hawaii after a mission to Wake Island, arrived in the midst of the attack. A few were shot down by the Japanese and more by understandably jittery American anti-aircraft gunners. However, several of these planes, and others from Ford Island's own complement, were airborne again within a few hours, sent out to search for the enemy. Some, at the end of a very long day, were shot down by their fellow-countrymen as they returned from these unfruitful searches.
Kanoehe Bay, on the east coast of Oahu, was the site of a major Navy patrol seaplane base. A new facility, with some of its buildings still under construction, this Naval Air Station was home to three Patrol Squadrons. It had 33 PBYs on the ground or floating just offshore when the Japanese arrived. Of those planes, all but six were destroyed, and the survivors were damaged. Only the three Kaneohe Bay PBYs then out on patrol were fit for service at the end of the raid.
 A tribute to the Americans who got airborne on the "date which will live in infamy". A thrilling image of a lone P-40B and Japanese Val Despite the effective Japanese counter-air effort, a few Army P-40 and P-36 pursuit ships got airborne, including some from the small, and untargeted, airfield at Haleiwa on Oahu's north coast. These shot down perhaps as many as eleven enemy planes of the second attack wave, losing four of their number in return, two while taking off and one to American anti-aircraft fire while returning to base. In the midst of the raid, twelve unarmed B-17C and B-17E four-engine bombers arrived over Oahu after a long flight from California. Unaware of the events then unfolding at their destination, several of these were attacked. Though unable to fire back, only two B-17s were destroyed, both after landing, an early indication of the toughness of the "Flying Fortress" in combat. Two Navy SBDs flying into Oahu from the carrier Enterprise, were also downed by enemy action during the raid. One of these may have been the victim of a mid-air collision with its opponent near Ewa Field.
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Nell Thoza
Date: 04 Dec 1997
I was 23, and in a TB hospital in Santa Rosa, California.
The radio was our contact with the outside world, and after the initial announcement that day, there was nothing on but news of the attack. We all listened to the same reports over and over wondering what it would mean to us personally.
Being in California, there was some fear that the Japanese would go so far as to attack us.
My dad was already 51, so old enough not to go, but I had two brothers, one 26 and one 20, that were eligible. The 20 year old did go, and was an Army Medic in the Pacific, mostly Borneo.
When we heard the news, we never dreamed it would last so long. We thought it would be a matter of months.
I later married a fella who went to Africa with the Tank Corps and was gone for 2 1/2 years.
To this day when I hear - Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree - Have I Told You Lately That I Love You - Coming in on a Wing and a Prayer - You are My Sunshine, they take me back to a time of rationing, black and white news clips of "Our Boys," and, of course, loneliness for my soldier overseas.
Thanks Nell, from all of us...
Carlo
There was no CIA at that point in time!
Phil Harvey
Date: 05 Dec 1997
Comments
My father was Chief Electrician at the Spencer-Kellogg plant on Terminal Island, which was located in the Long Beach or Los Angeles harbor as I recall. I was 7 years old at the time.
Soon after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, an anti-aircraft gun was placed on top of the tallest building at the plant - to protect the harbor and ships, military and commercial, I presume.
Some time later, my father had to go back to work one night after supper - just to check on some equipment, to make sure it was running OK. I went with him, hoping to see the anti-aircraft gun. Dad was showing me how copra was processed when we suddenly heard air-raid sirens. Then all the lights were turned out and some men went scrambling to the anti-aircraft gun. Search-lights came on in several places and began searching the skies. I was there with my dad, up on the gun tower, watching everything, feeling like I was in the middle of the war.
It turned out to be a false alarm - just a civilian plane, not a bombing raid. I was glad of that, but a little disappointed too, that I didn't get to see an enemy plane shot down.
Thanks Phil, from all of us. We will remember you brave dad with you and pass your words down to our children, so they are never forgotten..You have My Word!
Carlo
Bill Fenley
07 Dec 1997
I was only a little kid at the time. Just 3 1\2 years old. I can remember it just as plain as day though. We were living on a farm in Tioga, Texas (Gene Autry's home town by the way). I was down in the field with Dad. He was gathering some left over corn with the old John Deere and a trailer, and I was riding in the trailer. I remember seeing Mom come running down from the house with the news. The rest of the day was spent glued to the radio. We lived somewhat near Perrin AFB, and I can remember many nights, hearing airplanes go overhead and sneaking out of bed, climbing out the window onto the back porch to watch their lights blinking red and green overhead. My Dad tried to enlist, but was turned down, as he was farming, and also had just one kidney. Two of his younger brothers did enlist, one in the Air Corps and one in the Infantry. Both survived to tell about the great war.
Thanks Bill,
People like your father, and the families like yours all over America, made our wonderful country safe for everyone else. He may not have served in the services, but he raised a fine family that love this nation. You with him, and your mother, Made America what it is today, THE GREATEST NATION ON EARTH.
Carlo
As a native of Arizona and the granddaughter of a WWII Vet, the Arizona holds a special place in my heart.
For more information on the USS Arizona, click---> Here
Thank you....GG
Francis J. Thomas didn't pick his 75 minutes on the stage of history. It picked him.
But 61 years ago today, on Dec. 7, 1941, there was no bigger stage in the world than Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. And there were no minutes more important than those that began with the first Japanese torpedoes at 7:55 a.m.
Thomas, who has lived in Aloha for just more than a year now, was a Navy lieutenant commander in charge of the battleship USS Nevada.
So it was Thomas, now a robust 98, who directed one of the most heroic, and ultimately futile, sorties in Navy history. Under his command, the old Nevada managed to get enough oomph to its steam turbine engines to get under way and at least try to take a losing battle to the enemy.
And he was directing the run for deep water when the order came in for the ship to stay in the harbor. So it was on his watch that he let the Nevada drift into the mud at Hospital Point and beach itself.
Still, it was one of the few high points on the most disastrous day in Navy history, when the Pacific Fleet lost 18 ships and more than 3,500 casualties to a surprise Japanese raid.
Most of the hundreds of histories and historians say the order to keep the Nevada from leaving the harbor was to keep it from sinking in a critical part of the channel and blocking the harbor for months. But less asked is another question: Could the Nevada have made it to the blue water? Thomas thinks so.
"We could have gone out to sea," Thomas said this week. "We had no problems with the engines. We felt like we could make it, and we didn't understand at the time why they wouldn't let us."
Duty swapped Thomas was an accidental hero that day. He wasn't even supposed to be in charge.
"We got back from maneuvers with the Arizona and Oklahoma on Friday night," Thomas said, "and all the senior officers went home. They had homes and families on shore, but my family was back in Coronado (Calif.) so I didn't have a home. I stayed on the ship.
Another lieutenant commander was scheduled to be in charge, but swapped duty with Thomas so he could go to the movies with his family that day.
And so it was that at 7:55 a.m., Thomas was alone in the ward room eating breakfast when, while the Nevada's band played the national anthem, the Japanese struck. At first, Thomas said, he thought he heard the hammer of rivet guns at the shipyard across the channel.
At 8:01, according to various histories, somebody sounded general quarters and Thomas went to his battle station below the main deck. From there, he climbed an 80-foot tube to the armored conning tower to take command of the ship.
"Nobody knew what was going on," Thomas said, "but the anti-aircraft guns were already shooting back. We got the word for all ships to get out of the harbor."
Two boilers already had steam left over from the previous week's training run, and had been left running to provide power to the generator, which ran the ship's electrical system. It wasn't full steam, but it was enough to get the Nevada going.
Thomas first had to counterflood the ship to deal with torpedo damage on the port bow, then, at 8:50 a.m. the Nevada shuddered away from its moorage. "We first had to back away from the Arizona," Thomas said. "Then we had to swerve around it to get away."
Up above, according to later interviews with Japanese pilots, the planes took notice of the opportunity to sink a battleship and block the channel at the same time. U.S. admirals worried about the same thing.
So Japanese planes swarmed in while the Nevada inched along at a painfully slow 5 knots and its gun crews fired back as best they could. "Then we got the order," Thomas said, "It said: 'Nevada, do not -- repeat, do not -- leave the harbor.' "
The Nevada passed battleship row to the end of Ford Island and Thomas made plans to drop anchor. A swarm of dive bombers found the range and hit the mark. "I had the anchoring party standing by to drop the anchor," Thomas said. "A bomb came down right on them."
So Thomas steered the still-drifting ship toward Hospital Point and, at 9:10 a.m., the Nevada's run was over. About that time, the ship's skipper, Capt. F.N. Scanland, showed up to resume command. Thomas went back to being the ship's somewhat anonymous damage control officer.
War versus terrorism The Navy awarded Thomas the Navy Cross -- second only to the Medal of Honor. "I'm the only officer," he said, "ever to be awarded the Navy Cross for running a ship aground."
Thomas was, and remains, unperturbed about his day in history. He doesn't recall being at all nervous during the action ("we'd been training for this") or particularly mad at the Japanese.
After the war, he and his wife, the former Betty Schoch -- they were married in 1935 -- set up house in Ohio and raised four children. Thomas went into the steel business and stayed in the Naval Reserve, from which he retired as a rear admiral. The couple retired to Florida, then to Austin, Texas, and to Columbia, Mo., where Betty died in 1998. When son Brian moved to Aloha late in 2001, the admiral came with him.
When terrorists struck the East Coast in 2001, Thomas got mad. "One was Japanese and military," he said, trying to draw a comparison between the his first taste of war and the terrorist attacks. "The other was terrorists. I've never been too mad at the Japanese, but I didn't think too well of the terrorists."
At least, he reasons, the Americans had a chance to shoot back at Pearl Harbor, however futile. Thomas has his doubts about what might have happened to the Nevada had it made the open sea -- "They probably would have sunk us out there."
Perhaps. But in Francis Thomas' 75 minutes of history, while ships all around it were burning and sinking at their moorings, Nevada charged.
That always gets my goat too. But I'll guarantee you the Hiroshima bombing anniverary gets all kind of coverage.
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