75 years ago today...

Tidewater

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Mar 15, 2003
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It is amazing to me that the Japanese leadership could not foresee how this sucker punch would enrage Americans.
And that they could not foresee the industrial might that would be unleashed on them.
The US manufactured 305,000 aircraft in that war and 8,803 warships, including 101 aircraft carriers of all types (CV, CVL, CVE).
 

dvldog

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Sep 20, 2005
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It is amazing to me that the Japanese leadership could not foresee how this sucker punch would enrage Americans.
And that they could not foresee the industrial might that would be unleashed on them.
The US manufactured 305,000 aircraft in that war and 8,803 warships, including 101 aircraft carriers of all types (CV, CVL, CVE).
and a hand full of nukes.
 

Tide1986

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Nov 22, 2008
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A short column excerpted from "All the Gallant Men: An American Sailor's Firsthand Account of Pearl Harbor":

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016...aw-aboard-uss-arizona-on-december-7-1941.html

What happened on December 7, 1941, if it didn’t kill us, changed us forever. President Roosevelt was right to call it “a date that will live in infamy.” But for my fellow survivors and me, it also is alive in memory, like shrapnel left embedded in our brains because the surgeon thought it too dangerous to operate. These memories lie within me, forever still and silent, like the men entombed in the Arizona.
 

Bazza

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Oct 1, 2011
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Thoughts and prayers to all impacted by that terrible day in history.

Posted this letter a year ago and hope you don't mind if I post it again this year. My dad was 21 at the time. He remained in the Navy until '59 and then went to work for the Virginia Employment Commission as an employment counselor where he helped an enormous number of people find a job - a career - and self respect. He passed away from a brain tumor in August 1968 but I will never forget what a great man he was.




 

tidegrandpa

All-American
And the following April, a bunch of volunteers flew medium bombers off an AIRCRAFT CARRIER (trained at Valparaiso) with knowing there was no fuel to return, to bomb Tokyo, just to show the Japs WE COULD, Brave guys. Most crash landed in China, some made it, some didn't.
B25's that had no business taking off from a carrier.

 
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Tidewater

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Mar 15, 2003
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Watching Tora, Tora, Tora on TV.
At a Pacific Fleet planning session, Kimmel asks Halsey to sortie the USS Lexington to put up air searches for possible Japanese ships. and then asks him if he wants battleships to go along. Halsey says, "Heck no. They're too slow. If we have to run, I don't want anything slowing us down."
That got me curious. How fast were the BBs and how fast were the CVs? Looked it up.
The USS Oklahoma (BB-37) top speed was 20.5 knots.
The USS Lexington (CV-2) top speed was 33 knots.

That surprised me. I would have thought the battleships could keep up with carriers.
Ok, history geek moment.
 
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Tidewater

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Thanks, TW....interesting factoid.

FYI - for those who get AHC on TV....couple 1 hour P.H. documentaries underway..
Now, here's the history geek follow up.
The top speed of the USS Missouri (BB-63) was 35 knots. I'd say Navy ship designers had made some improvements in the intervening years.
 
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TIDE-HSV

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Oct 13, 1999
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I was nine days short of two years old and struggling to understand what the adults were upset about. We started hearing about it at church and, when we got home, we gathered around the oversized Phillips console radio/record player, sat on the floor and listened to the news. It wasn't good and it wasn't good for a long time after that...
 

selmaborntidefan

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I was nine days short of two years old and struggling to understand what the adults were upset about. We started hearing about it at church and, when we got home, we gathered around the oversized Phillips console radio/record player, sat on the floor and listened to the news. It wasn't good and it wasn't good for a long time after that...
Your comments here reminded me of a headline summarizing the war in 1942 from the American perspective that I read in a long lost history book - it has stuck with me all these years:

"The News Was All Bad"
 

Tidewater

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Looking at this movie, it is amazing the number of historic airplanes of both sides they brought to Pearl for this movie. B-17s, P-40s, Zeros, Kates, Vals.
No CGI here.
 
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DzynKingRTR

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Dec 17, 2003
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My grandfather survived Pearl Harbor. He was the toughest man I ever knew. I interviewed him about it when I was a senior in high school, it was the only time I ever saw him cry.
 

TIDE-HSV

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Oct 13, 1999
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Your comments here reminded me of a headline summarizing the war in 1942 from the American perspective that I read in a long lost history book - it has stuck with me all these years:

"The News Was All Bad"
It was like pulling for a losing team as we lost island after island. Worse, my mother was addicted to Gabriel Heatter and listened to him every day. I came to hate that sob in his voice...
 

bama579

Hall of Fame
Jan 15, 2005
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The Chukker or Archibalds
Thoughts and prayers to all impacted by that terrible day in history.

Posted this letter a year ago and hope you don't mind if I post it again this year. My dad was 21 at the time. He remained in the Navy until '59 and then went to work for the Virginia Employment Commission as an employment counselor where he helped an enormous number of people find a job - a career - and self respect. He passed away from a brain tumor in August 1968 but I will never forget what a great man he was.




Thanks for the post, Baza. Great letter.

Clarify please. Did your father write the letter?
 

GrayTide

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Nov 15, 2005
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My father served in the Navy in the South Pacific during WWII. He told me once that December 7, 1941 was the only day he remembered every detail of; he had just turned 19. He was not in service at the time of Pearl Harbor.
 
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CaliforniaTide

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Aug 9, 2006
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I'll always be thankful for my grandmother's story of her experience on December 7, 1941. She was walking to Sunday School on Oahu when she saw the Japanese planes fly in. She thought that at first, it was normal since they came in the same way all other military planes were flying into Pearl Harbor at the time. After the bombings, she heard lots of rumors that the Japanese were island-hopping Hawaii to get to the West Coast.
 

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