December 7, 1941....

[bassman]

Lest we forget......

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor

[Rams]

Wasn't even born yet but, I know survivors.   Lost Uncles due to this and the war that followed.

Not one American alive today isn't living a different life than what could have been due to that attack.   

[old2soon]

Happened couple years before I was born. BUT Compliments of Uncle Sugars Canoe Club-better known as The United States Navy I was at Pearl Harbor and Hickam Field in the 60s and saw some of the Still visible damage-bullet dimples in the concrete of the hangers-that was inflicted on 7 December 1941. And the Arizona-THAT by itself was very moving. Twice off the Yorktown CVS 10 I was present at a wreath laying ceremony over the last known position of U S S Yorktown-CV 5. A lot of the major battles of WWII between the empire of japan and The United States Navy were at sea and I've only ever seen pictures and video evidence of the damage inflicted by both sides. Lotsa young uns have no idea at all that a lot of the fall out from WWII we are Still dealing with to this day. Read an account earlier today where we have only 5 survivors left from the Arizona. And some still have No idea at all how close America was to the bone when WWII kicked off. RIDE SAFE.

[scooperhsd]

Maybe the national News will have their names and current locations.

[spongebob]

My Great Uncle was there..
Went in the Navy in 1935.... got out in 1966

[Beardo]

I’m in Hawaii with the family and we went to Pearl Harbor today. What an experience. Also toured the USS Missouri and the Bowfin.

We wanted to go on the anniversary but were worried it would be too packed with people and we wouldn’t be able to see all that we wanted to see. By 2pm, there was hardly anyone there. Kinda surprised us.

[The emperor has no clothes]

I’m in Hawaii with the family and we went to Pearl Harbor today. What an experience. Also toured the USS Missouri and the Bowfin.

We wanted to go on the anniversary but were worried it would be too packed with people and we wouldn’t be able to see all that we wanted to see. By 2pm, there was hardly anyone there. Kinda surprised us.

It is rather sad that most visitors to Hawaii never go there. How did you like the Missouri ? Pretty impressive isn't it ?

[Beardo]

I’m in Hawaii with the family and we went to Pearl Harbor today. What an experience. Also toured the USS Missouri and the Bowfin.

We wanted to go on the anniversary but were worried it would be too packed with people and we wouldn’t be able to see all that we wanted to see. By 2pm, there was hardly anyone there. Kinda surprised us.

It is rather sad that most visitors to Hawaii never go there. How did you like the Missouri ? Pretty impressive isn't it ?

Yeah, considering we were there on the anniversary, it was sad there weren’t more people there. It was nice to see a bunch of kids shaking the hands of the Pearl Harbor vets and thanking them for their service.

The Missouri was great. A lot of areas are roped off for renos but it was very interesting. Cool to be on a ship that played such a big part of the last century.  

Was funny to hear the tour guide tell the story about how the Canadian representative signed the WW2 Japanese surrender in the wrong place...so then the remaining people to sign it had to sign in he wrong spot, so they had to initial the mistake, like when you make a mistake on writing a check. I can just hear the Canadian guy...sorry about that. Sorry. My mistake. Sorry.  

The Bowfin was really cool too. I’ve watched a lot of documentaries on it and to see inside, the conditions they lived in...wow.

[J.Mencalice]

Published a year ago, but the history is eternal...

http://www.denverpost.com/2016/12/04/pearl-harbor-colorado/

https://b0f646cfbd7462424f7a-f9758a43fb7c33cc8adda0fd36101899.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/s/1/1509722566/harpercollins_us_frontbookcovers_648H/166948.jpg

Excerpts may be read:

https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062645357/all-the-gallant-men

[Serk]

[Savago]

A bit of humor...

[Jess from VA]

Entertaining, but a completely false premise.

We nuked Nippon because it was likely to cost the US a million dead to invade and win (not to mention national treasure).  It was a sound military and political decision to nuke them (and no apology is warranted, ever).  And people mostly don't understand, Curtis Lemay's incendiary bombing campaign on every major city and industrial complex in Japan, killed many, many more Japanese (and destroyed many more cities) than our two little anemic nukes did.  (Yes, they were very anemic)

Stalin got in late (very late) with Japan (up in Manchuria), but no way he was going to invade their homeland.  He was too busy working to own all of Eastern Europe.  Churchill understood this entirely, but lefty Roosevelt just gave those countries and people away to the Communists (and never believed Stalin murdered 22,000 good polish military officers, policeman, and people with education in the Katyn Forrest).  (The NKVD murdered more than 111,000 Poles in total in 1937-8)

[scooperhsd]

Entertaining, but a completely false premise.

We nuked Nippon because it was likely to cost the US a million dead to invade and win (not to mention national treasure).  It was a sound military and political decision to nuke them (and no apology is warranted, ever).  And people mostly don't understand, Curtis Lemay's incendiary bombing campaign on every major city and industrial complex in Japan, killed many, many more Japanese (and destroyed many more cities) than our two little anemic nukes did.  (Yes, they were very anemic)

Stalin got in late (very late) with Japan (up in Manchuria), but no way he was going to invade their homeland.  He was too busy working to own all of Eastern Europe.  Churchill understood this entirely, but lefty Roosevelt just gave those countries and people away to the Communists (and never believed Stalin murdered 22,000 good polish military officers, policeman, and people with education in the Katyn Forrest).  (The NKVD murdered more than 111,000 Poles in total in 1937-8)

The whole politics on ending WWII (on both sides) were a mess, as well as the other decisions that were made in conjunction with it.

On the Japanese side - the military was prepared to sacrifrice every man, woman and child in a mass suicidal defense of their homeland. After the bombs were dropped, the Emporer of Japan , in the war Council meetings, told the Generals and Admirals to end the war - (this was a bombshell of the highest magnitude to them - even larger than the dropping of the bombs) - he had previously said nothing or just went along with the military on their plans.

On the Allies side - Truman had been elected VP with FDR's 4th election as president, but until FDR's  untimely death, he was pretty much in the dark about the A-bomb program. When he was briefed, he made the realization (from advice of his senior military advisors) the  Japanese mindset and the expected casualities from invading the islands - he decided that the Japanese NEEDED the shock value of the bombs to kick them into the peace talks.

As mentioned by Jess, The Russians were officially NEUTRAL with Japan until after both bombs were dropped. Their excuse was that it would take time to transfer their army from Europe to Asia. When Russia DID join the Pacific war, it was merely to grab some territory in Manchuria. MacArthur (and Nimitz, as well as the brass in DC (George Marshall and Ernest King)) were both aware that this was their intention, and so the plan was to try to knock the Japanese out to prevent the "division" of Japan into Russian and Allies spheres of influence like happened in Europe.

Even with the agreements on the ending of the war, the USN went into Tokyo Harbor at Condition I (General Quarters) until it was shown that the Japanese were going to follow the terms.

And I'm pretty sure I just scratched the surface. The History of WWII occupied the vast majority of my high school (and Jr High) personal reading, especially during class.

[Robert]

French ambassador uses Pearl Harbor Day to blast U.S. for betraying France in 1930s

he French ambassador to the U.S. marked Pearl Harbor day by reminding America that it had failed France in the 1930s by insufficiently confronting Nazi Germany.

Gerard Araud tweeted Thursday afternoon that “In this Pearl Harbor day, we should remember that the US refused to side with France and the UK to confront the fascist powers in the 30s.”

Mr. Araud deleted the tweet within a few minutes, though not before it had been screen-captured.

[Jess from VA]

He failed to mention that France's insistence on crippling WWI Versailles Treaty terms (to Germany) were the single most important reason for Hitler's rise to power and the onset of WWII, that their reliance on the Maginot Line was ridiculously foolish, that they lost their country in a few weeks, that Vichy France collaborated with the Germans, and fired on our invasion fleets and men, and after the war their country was so infiltrated by communists that we had to take them out of the NATO intelligence loop, which pissed them off so bad they quit NATO (in any meaningful way).

And there was no mention of the thousands and thousands of US servicemen buried in France from WWI and WWII, who died fighting their country's enemies.

Just the Normandy Cemetery with 9,385 graves (there are many more).

  

[rocketray]

4 interesting things on Pearl Harbor I have come across 1) dig around on you tube and you will find the Head Commanding officer at the Pearl Harbor hearings in a rage said "Washington knew when and where we were going to be attacked and Washington never told us"....2)Roosevelts  own diary says something to the effect "We didn't think they were going to hit us that hard" 3) some 3 months or so after the Japanese surrendered a huge hurricane hit Japan and likely would have destroyed our massive fleet/armada.....the Japanese always talked about a divine wind would always save their country...My dad was an Optometrist and had a survivor of the Bataan Death March as a patient--he had his legs broken in several places and could hardly  get around--he always said we should have dropped a thousand Nukes on them

[scooperhsd]

4 interesting things on Pearl Harbor I have come across 1) dig around on you tube and you will find the Head Commanding officer at the Pearl Harbor hearings in a rage said "Washington knew when and where we were going to be attacked and Washington never told us"....2)Roosevelts  own diary says something to the effect "We didn't think they were going to hit us that hard" 3) some 3 months or so after the Japanese surrendered a huge hurricane hit Japan and likely would have destroyed our massive fleet/armada.....the Japanese always talked about a divine wind would always save their country...My dad was an Optometrist and had a survivor of the Bataan Death March as a patient--he had his legs broken in several places and could hardly  get around--he always said we should have dropped a thousand Nukes on them

One problem with the hurricane / "divine wind" theory - earlier in the war, a hurricane hit the 3rd / 5th Fleet  - there was more damage from this storm than what had happened in any major fleet action - but it was NOT enough to stop operations.

By Aug 1945 - the Japanese Navy was essentially impotent - cut off from the resources needed to conduct war, the few ships that had not been sunk were not their 1st class, and with fuel cutoff -they were unable to train or even get underway. There are great many number of kamikazes - mostly you just needed to train them to take off and to aim their planes at a target (usually a US Ship) .  US ships had gotten so good at anti air defense that even attacking kamaikaze style, most of the attacks failed due to the firepower.

[shortleg]

    Remember the story my Dad told me about sailing into  the harbor  a few weeks or month later.
 He said there was still ships sitting on the bottom , oil in the water and the smell.
    A  start of a long journey to New Zealand  before Guadalcanal.

[da prez]

  We were at Pearl Harbor earlier this year. It is a moving experience. When I was on the Arizona Memorial , I saluted my lost brothers and sisters. I shed tears. This is an experience that I think all should see. The ravages of an attack are usually cleaned up and swept away. The ship is still leaking oil. After all these years , how much fuel was aboard.  We also went to the Punch Bowl. It is a cemetery that has Japanese Americans along with Americans who served.

                                     PEACE TO ALL.
  ALL GAVE SOME, SOME GAVE ALL.

                                                   da prez   Army 1966-1969

[scooperhsd]

In 1994, one of my friends from NavDist Washington got orders to PCU Lake Erie - an Aegis cruiser. The commisioning ceremony was schedeuled to be held at their HomePort - Navsta Pearl Harbor.  the wife and me decided we were going to attend this, and while we were at it - have that once in a lifetime trip.

So our trip out there was in Business class - which at that time meant the upper deck of a 747 from Dulles to Honolulu.

We got to tour the ship, and Captain made his Captain's gig available for harbor tours  - which also included stops at the Arizona memorial (without having to take the cattle barge).  VERY moving. Everybody was quiet and subdued.

I'm glad I got to go the Arizona.