Pearl Harbor

[noharleyyet]

76 years ago...

 

[Nameless Range]

In infamy.

 

[Schaaf]

I didn’t show up on this earth until 50 years after Pearl Harbor but I’ll never forget cleaning my great grandmothers house out after she had passed and finding boxes of newspapers from that day that she had kept for 65 years. An attack on your homeland has a lasting effect on each person. I’m thankful it is a rare occurrence.

 

[MinnesotaHunter]

“Before we’re through with them, the Japanese language will be spoken only in Hell.” – Vice Admiral William F. “Bull” Halsey, spoken from his flagship Enterprise upon returning to Pearl Harbor and seeing the wreckage that included his scout aircraft.

“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” – attributed to Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

 

[Southern Elk]

I can't imagine what those young men went through. I'm forever grateful to the "Greatest Generation".

 

[u1299]

The greatest generation and maybe the most humble too.

 

[TimeOnTarget]

The greatest generation and maybe the most humble too.

very much agreed. My grandfather was about he most humble person I ever knew.

 

[fishing4sanity]

I've been to Hawaii one time and Pearl Harbor was the one 'must do' I had for that trip. A wide range of emotions for sure as you go through Pearl Harbor.

 

[VAspeedgoat]

I was helping clean up after a flood a while back and came across a stack of newspapers in the community library. There were several soaked and already molding. Read through what I could before they had to ve removed. I felt like I was throwing histort in the trash. I can't imagine the uncertainty of that time coming out of the depression and then that. It kinda makes todays political crap not look so bad.

 

[Big Fin]

Eternally grateful.

 

[elkduds]

I was @ the AZ Memorial this spring. Impossible to imagine the chaos and violence of the attack, impossible to forget the valor and sacrifices of that day.

 

[jryoung]

Very grateful. Do not forget the military and civilian personnel that were captured at Wake Island as well.

 

[DRAFTSTUD]

Very Grateful for all who gave their all this day in History. As a kid I remember the Great Granddaddies talking about WWI and all of them are gone. Too soon and we will be left without the WWII generation. Sad. John

 

[MinnesotaHunter]

Very grateful. Do not forget the military and civilian personnel that were captured at Wake Island as well.

For those interested in some of the less well known history of the beginning of the war. Check out the story of this COL Wendell Fertig.

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

 

[rtraverdavis]

The greatest generation and maybe the most humble too.

Both my granddads fought in that war, both wouldn't talk about it. They were good, quite guys both.

 

[elkduds]

For those interested in some of the less well known history of the beginning of the war. Check out the story of this COL Wendell Fertig.

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

This article is a great window into WWII and a homegrown CO warrior I never heard of before. Thanks for posting.

 

[LopeHunter]

From an article:

The rescue teams could not get to these trapped sailors in time. Months later, rescue and salvage men who raised the USS West Virginia found the bodies of three men who had found an airlock in a storeroom but had eventually run out of air.
They were Ronald Endicott, 18, Clifford Olds, 20, and Louis Costin, 21. Within the storeroom was a calendar and they had crossed off every day that they had been alive – 16 days had been crossed off using a red pencil. The men would have been below deck when the attack happened, so it is unlikely that they knew what was happening. The US Navy had never told their families how long the three men had survived for, instead telling them that they had been killed in the attack on the harbor. Their brothers and sisters eventually discovered the truth but were so saddened that they did not speak of it.

 

[T Bone]

My grandfather was nursing a hangover with coffee, toast and scrambled eggs in a café in Caldwell, Idaho when the cook came out and announced the attack had taken place. Two days later he and two friends walked into the Navy recruiters office.

My grandfather went to the European theater and spent most of his time in the Mediterranean escorting supply ships. While under attack his deck gunner was killed and he took the controls. He took to the task at hand and started dumping Messerschmitts. He told me the hardest part was spotting them, they'd come in low just feet off the water or dive straight down with the sun at their backs. He likened it to pass shooting teal.

His two buddies went to the Pacific and neither came back. More than half of the guys of his graduating class didn't make it back.

They just went, no questions asked and got it done.

Truly the greatest!

 

[TripleJ]

My grandfather, who is still alive, was on a sub in Pearl Harbor during the attack. Some of the stories he tells about life in a sub during WW2 are so crazy...it's hard to believe what they went through in our sheltered day and age. He was also in Tokyo harbor for the signing of the treaty to end the war.

 

[Phaseolus]

When you visit Pearl you should go on board the Missouri. Spend a few extra bucks and take one of the guided tours and get to visit shaft alley, the fire control center, and other places that the cheap ticket won’t get you. It was well worth it.