Pearl Harbor

[D_Mac 8,593]

One of the many things I seem to collect are old newspapers. I have a bunch of local papers going back to the 30's. Here is one I think a lot of you would find interesting. December 8th 1941. We didnt get the news as quickly then as we do now. Facts and figures were a little off here. U.S. Bases is Pearl Harbor.

[SylvanLakeWH 25,493]

Very cool!

Thanks for posting.

[953 nut 55,092]

@D_Mac, thank you for sharing this information. I will be pleasantly surprised if the "News Media" gives this more than a couple of seconds coverage.

Here is a piece of history directly related to the Pearl Harbor attack that I think will be interesting to everyone.

 

Excerpts from "Reflections on Pearl Harbor" by Admiral Chester Nimitz.

Sunday, December 7th, 1941--Admiral Chester Nimitz was attending a concert in Washington D.C. He was paged and told there was a phone call for him. When he answered the phone, it was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the phone. He told Admiral Nimitz that he (Nimitz) would now be the Commander of the Pacific Fleet.

Admiral Nimitz flew to Hawaii to assume command of the Pacific Fleet. He landed at Pearl Harbor on Christmas Eve, 1941. There was such a spirit of despair, dejection and defeat you would have thought the Japanese had already won the war.

On Christmas Day, 1941, Adm. Nimitz was given a boat tour of the destruction wrought on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. Big sunken battleships and navy vessels cluttered the waters everywhere you looked.

As the tour boat returned to dock, the young helmsman of the boat asked, "Well Admiral, what do you think after seeing all this destruction?" Admiral Nimitz's reply shocked everyone within the sound of his voice.

Admiral Nimitz said, "The Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could ever make, or God was taking care of America. Which do you think it was?"

Shocked and surprised, the young helmsman asked, "What do mean by saying the Japanese made the three biggest mistakes an attack force ever made?" Nimitz explained:

Mistake number one:
The Japanese attacked on Sunday morning. Nine out of every ten crewmen of those ships were ashore on leave.

If those same ships had been lured to sea and been sunk--we would have lost 38,000 men instead of 3,800.

Mistake number two:
When the Japanese saw all those battleships lined in a row, they got so carried away sinking those battleships, they never once bombed our dry docks opposite those ships. If they had destroyed our dry docks, we would have had to tow every one of those ships to America to be repaired.

As it is now, the ships are in shallow water and can be raised. One tug can pull them over to the dry docks, and we can have them repaired and at sea by the time we could have towed them to America. And I already have crews ashore anxious to man those ships.

Mistake number three;
Every drop of fuel in the Pacific theater of war is in top of the ground storage tanks five miles away over that hill. One attack plane could have strafed those tanks and destroyed our fuel supply. That's why I say the Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could make, God was taking care of America.

 

Any way you look at it--Admiral Nimitz was able to see a silver lining in a situation and circumstance where everyone else saw only despair and defeatism.

President Roosevelt had chosen the right man for the right job. We desperately needed a leader that could see silver linings in the midst of the clouds of dejection, despair and defeat.

 

Our national motto is, IN GOD WE TRUST, he watched over us in 1941 and continues to do so today.


CONTINUE TO PRAY FOR OUR COUNTRY!

[SylvanLakeWH 25,493]

Thank you @953 nut...

[pfrederi 17,672]

I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.^[

 

^{Appears he never said it but he had been in America on the the 30s and knew the industrial base of the US far exceeded Japan's capabilities'}

 

Yamamoto did believe that Japan could not win a protracted war with the United States. Moreover, he seemed later to have believed that the Pearl Harbor attack had been a blunder strategically, morally, and politically, even though he was the person who originated the idea of a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. It is recorded that while all his staff members were celebrating, "Yamamoto alone" spent the day after Pearl Harbor "sunk in apparent depression".^[3] Although almost 2,500 Americans lost their lives at Pearl Harbor and surrounding areas in Honolulu, he was only upset by the bungling of the Foreign Ministry which led to the attack happening while the countries were still at peace, thus, along with other factors, making the incident an unprovoked surprise attack that enraged American public opinion.^[

[steelman 251]

Thanks Richard, this is so very inspiring to read. I would love to see a piece like this on the major news networks, but I’m sure we won’t. Prayers for all those who lost their lives defending our country.

[Handy Don 12,163]

I consider myself fortunate to have as a close friend a WWII vet. He was part of my Dad's generation and has outlived all his friends from his own generation. We speak nearly every day and before the Covid situation, lunched together every week. He was part of the vanguard of US Navy use of radar as a very young technician installing and maintaining systems on US Navy ships from a ship based in the UK. He has shared a lot of thoughtful insights on the war and what it meant to the countries involved.

As a Viet Nam generation guy who never served (my draft # was 318 the year I became eligible) it helps me a lot to hear the stories he and other veterans share about the social situations, the sacrifices, as well as having their lives on the line, the forthrightness of the government reporting (where it didn't endanger the war effort), the frustration at the profiteers that flourished, and especially the interrelationships that developed among the sailors that helped them bear up and carry on.

Thank you @953 nut for the vignettes

 

[Lane Ranger 10,946]

 

 

For those that want to learn more about Pearl Harbor from people that were there (and indeed many other Veterans that served the United States)  and in their own words check out the Library of Congress Veterans History Project   at:  https://www.loc.gov/vets/about.html

 

I was fortunate to have interviewed many World War II, Korean and Vietnam Veterans and Veterans of the Middle Eastern Wars and preserve their stories of service in their own voices.

 

Remembering  the sacrifices of people who serve is still a very important civic responsibility.

 

 

 

 

 

[slim67 2,735]

 Was it Halsey, who after surveying the Pearl Harbor wreckage, said " when were done with them, Japanese will be a language only spoken in hell"

[953 nut 55,092]

[rmaynard 15,428]

A strong military with a watchful eye is the only thing standing between us and the enemy. We are strong now. I only hope we stay that way. 

[Pullstart 62,800]

As stated in the Haiku post this morning, we watched the 2019 film “Midway” a week or two ago.  We have watched Pearl Harbor movies, we have even visited Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.  The damage from shellings still evident in the glass and sidewalks are sobering to say the least.  I feel like watching that film was such an eye opener as to the continued loss our air and sea men were dealt.  Japan was not weak by any means, their fleet in the Pacific was surely a force to be reckoned with.  Seeing the dive Bomb maneuvers those Air Force pilots went through was amazing, with continued fire upon them throughout.  I don’t know any WWII vets any longer, my Grandfather was the last I recall, gone in ‘05.  He was an amazing figure to me, but I don’t believe he saw any major fighting like many, he was stationed in Australia and worked on base.  At the time, I was too young to know any better, to ask him stories of the past.  I sure miss that man.

[D_Mac 8,593]

Some of the other Newspapers I have from WWII. I have more maybe I can dig them out later. Here are just a few. I know I have the paper from the second atomic bomb dropping, the one on Nagasaki, and it was kind of like a side note on the paper. Wasnt even the headline if you can believe that. I will have to see if I still have it.