Free Republic

It sounds like a familiar story: on a bright Sunday in December, nearly 70 years ago, Japanese planes blazed out of the sky to strafe and bomb an American warship while it lay at anchor. The surprise attack caught the crew off-guard, and despite valiant action, the ship was critically damaged, had to be abandoned, and soon sank. If you said December 7th, 1941, Pearl Harbor, you’d be wrong. The date was December 12, 1937, and the place was the Yangtze River in war-torn China. The vessel? The gunboat USS Panay. It was a sudden and deliberate attack that might...

Norman Alley's Bombing of USS Panay Special Issue 1937 Newsreel (1) Reel 1 - "Nanking" (2) Reel 2 - "Uncensored!!! Unedited!!! The U.S.S. Panay Bombing in its entirey - exactly as photographed!" (this newsreel special is 22 minutes long, with music and narration)

SUNDAY IN HELL: PEARL HARBOR MINUTE BY MINUTE [....] The Sinking of the SS Cynthia Olson [....] The day before sending the SOS, the Cynthia Olson, captained by Merchant Marine Master Berthel Carlsen, was 300 miles off San Francisco, under way at 10 knots, when unknown to her crew, the Japanese submarine I-26, submerged at periscope depth and searching for potential targets, spotted and began tracking her. Commander Minoru Yokota, captain of the I-26, had been ordered to accompany I-10 in reconnoitering the Aleutians, then after 5 December, to deploy to a point between San Francisco and Hawaii to report...

America Declares War on Japan - President Roosevelt Speech [Full Resolution]. On December 8, 1941, President Roosevelt declares war on Japan, the day after Japan bombed Pearl Harbour. Roosevelt gives a speech at a joint session of congress.

The History Channel presents Pearl Harbor. The Definitive documentary of the day that will forever live in infamy.

Cynthia Simison has written a first rate story of Pearl Harbor, gathering information from two 93 yr old survivors of the Japanese attack. CiR has reprinted a portion of Ms Simison’s article and included a link to the remainder. Read and remember the events of this deadly day in America’s history as related by men who lived it. There can be no better lesson in the importance of anticipating the villainy of our enemies rather than reacting to it. “Remember Pearl Harbor. Keep America alert.” For a generation of Americans, they were words by which they, and their children, lived....

What if FDR's speech after Pearl Harbor was given using Obama's attitude?

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941 (December 8 in Japan). The attack led to the United States' entry into World War II.

In honor of the Pearl Harbor anniversary, we look at some interesting facts related to the “date which will live in infamy”. Hosted by Benari Poulten, a Master Sergeant in the U.S. Army Reserve and veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.

Pearl Harbor, Arizona Memorial

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941 (December 8 in Japan). The attack led to the United States' entry into World War II. The attack was intended as a preventive action in order to keep the U.S. Pacific Fleet from interfering with military actions the Empire of Japan was planning in Southeast Asia against overseas territories of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States. There were simultaneous Japanese attacks on the U.S.-held...

World War II did not neatly end with Japan's surrender on September 2, 1945. At its height the Japanese Empire was more than 20 million square miles of land and sea. Soldiers in isolated regions fought on for years after the surrender some unaware the war had ended, other refusing to believe. Some hide in the jungles alone, others fought in groups and continued to make attacks and conduct guerilla warfare. These men were called Japanese Holdouts, or Stragglers and their stories are some of the most fascinating human interest stories of the 20th Century. Do you have a holdout...

The folks who run the Yorktown say a lot of kids love the ship, but no kid has ever fallen for a sailor who served on the vessel like these two boys have fallen for Mr. Harding. Which is why, for this trip, the Yorktown made special arrangements for a surprise visitor: Mr. Harding. The boys ran to embrace him; hugging an old salt never felt so sweet. It was hard to tell who enjoyed it more, or who needed it more. Over the years Mr. Harding says he'd kept most of his war stories to himself. "I guess I...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- After 58 years of marriage, Lyle Bouck and his wife, Lucy, are still helping each other down the front walk. "I didn't think we'd live that long," laughs Lucy. At one point, Lyle didn't even think he'd make it to the altar. Sixty years ago, Bouck was a young, whip-smart lieutenant, commanding a U.S. Army intelligence and reconnaissance platoon made up of 18 elite soldiers -- the eyes and ears of a fragmented Allied force pushing through Belgium toward the German border. By mid-December 1944, they had just about reached the border. But there was a huge...

The Battle of Leyte Gulf was the biggest and most multifaceted naval battle in history. It involved hundreds of ships, nearly 200,000 participants, and spanned more than 100,000 square miles. Some of the largest and most powerful ships ever built were sunk, and thousands of men went to the bottom of the sea with them. Every facet of naval warfare—air, surface, subsurface, and amphibious—was involved in this great struggle, and the weapons used included bombs of every type, guns of every caliber, torpedoes, mines, rockets, and even a forerunner of the modern guided missile. But more than mere size...

If Mike Barnicle were around at the beginning of WWII, perhaps he would have written "we better not fight back. It might make Hitler mad." On today's Morning Joe, the cringing former Boston Globe columnist, second-guessing a united front against terrorism, worried "wouldn't . . . creating a NATO force just add fuel to the recruiting fever that ISIS employs within Europe?" Maybe Mike should start referring to ISIS as Borg. After all, he apparently believes that resistance is futile. View the video here.

SAN ANTONIO — Norman Kleiss lives in a modest apartment in San Antonio. When I first reached him on the telephone, I almost started to shake. It was like going back in time. I could hear the engines roar over the Pacific Ocean; the tide of World War II was about to change. “So you want to talk about the Battle of Midway?” Kleiss asked. Boy, did I. It’s incredible that still living among us is this amazing American war hero. Norman Jack “Dusty” Kleiss is 99 years old. What did he do in the war? With fuel running low,...

If you were on Google earlier this week -- and let's face it, you were -- you may have spotted a Google Doodle which celebrates the life of one of Hollywood's most iconic actresses. Hedy Lamarr, an actress of the golden age of cinema, would have been 101 years old this week, although simply calling her an actress might be something of a misnomer. As well as appearing in films, Lamarr also applied her incredible intellect to a series of scientific and technological endeavors, which eventually earned her a place in the National Inventors Hall of Fame and practically...

In the summer months, a parade of icebergs break way from the Arctic and make their way south drifting through the region called Iceberg Alley. Divers visiting the Bell Island shipwrecks often divert to make a dive on these floating giants. (All photos: Jill Heinerth)Few people know that Bell Island, in Newfoundland, Canada, was directly attacked during World War II. In 1942, German U-boats twice raided the island in an attempt to disrupt the flow of iron ore being transported from mines on the island. This high-grade ore was used to supply steel critical to the war effort.Germans knew that if...

The Army deployed 65 infantry divisions for the Second World War. Each was a small town with its own equivalents for community services plus eight categories of combat arms. Units such as artillery, engineering, and heavy weapons engaged the enemy directly. Yet of all categories, the foot soldier faced the greatest hazard with the least chance of reward. Except for the Purple Heart and the coveted Combat Infantryman’s Badge, recognition often eluded them because so few came through to testify to the valor of the many. The infantryman confronted the most dismal fate of all whose duty was uninterrupted by...