Let’s spend a few moments today in silent reflection to honor those brave servicemen who died at Pearl Harbor, HI on December 7,1941…how soon we seem to have forgotten their sacrafice and also the lifelong lessons we should have learned as a result of that day. RIP
The Song of the Seabees:
We’re the Seabees of the Navy
We can build and we can fight
We’ll pave the way to victory
And guard it day and night
And we promise that we remember
The “Seventh of December”We’re the Seabees of the Navy
Bees of the Seven SeasThe Navy wanted men
That’s where we came in
Mister Brown and Mister Jones
The Owens, the Cohens and Flynn
The Navy wanted more
Of Uncle Sammy’s kin
So we all joined up
And brother we’re in to win
Bravo Zulu to both of you. Thanks
Point well made, JIm !
And the following should be taken to heart!
Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with the government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.
Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleagues delivered to the Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. While this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or armed attack.
It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time, the Japanese government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.
The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. Very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.
I watched the WW II in HD series on either History or the National Geographic channel that began to air in successive episodes in early October. Ghastly and beastly were those various battles in the Pacific, particularly against a culture where one’s honour seemed to trump what most of us would call human decency and a will to survive and live. It can’t hurt to pause now and then to wonder what our world would be like without the supreme sacrifices of so many hundreds of thousands of allied soldiers, men and women. Not just in the giving, but in the conscious hours in anxiety, dread, anticipation, preparation, privation, and everything else that makes war a living hell.
Crandell
H2 is currently doing ‘WW II in HD’ marathon today. Sobering! Liberating the German concentration camps - inhumanity to the max and then some; how can one member of a specsis treat other members in such a manner.
Here is the last radio broadcast from Corregidor in the Philippines before it fell to the Japanese in 1942:
You have seen this one before, but it fits.
The flag my middle daughter is holding is from her grandfather’s funeral.
A Chief Petty Officer, his ship was halfway between Pearl and San Francisco on its way for a retro fit the morning of December 7th.
They were turned around and sent back to provide escort and anti-submarine protection.
The photo was taken in response to the subway attacks in Britain, for the “We are not Afraid” website response to the terrorist.
As a first American born son of an immigrant, he understood well the promise of this country, as did his brothers Fritz and Edward, the latter joined the Army Air Corp, the middle brother Fritz joined the Navy along with my dad.
We so take for granted the freedoms, right and opportunities this country offered us that we failed to teach our kids one of the most important lessons any American should know by heart…
Freedom isn’t free, it is earned by men and women like those who lived through WWII, men who left their safe jobs and went to defend what they know is the greatest country there is, women who put away their dresses and donned overalls to work in factories, building the Arsenal of Democracy.
One of the reasons my grandfather, (these girls great grandfather) left Germany before WWI was because he had visited here, and saw the way Americans lived, so different from his country’s way of life.
He had seen the steel mills, I believe in Gary
Thanks to all of you for your enthusiastic agreement with me. My father, also a WWII Navy veteran, was really angry after 9/11. The evil forces in WWII “got theirs” in a conventional way in Europe and under a mushroom cloud in the Pacific and I don’t feel a bit of sorrow for any of them for they started the war and our veterans finished it, but good. I truly hope we never have anything like that again and that our currently deployed men and women of the military are able to come home to their familes and friends without very many more casualties. May God bless them all!!!
My dad said that he heard the news n the radio and mentioned to a neighbor about someplace called Pearl Harbor having been bombed, only to find out that the neighbor’s son was stationed there. My mom also recalled hearing the “Day of infamy” speech the next day.
Fortunately for my dad, he didn’t ship out till September 2nd, 1945, avoiding the horrors of combat in the Pacific Theater. My grandfather’s contribution to the war effort was spending a few months at Hanford, most likely working on the reprocessing plant.
During World War II Winston Churchill sent the last verse of this poem to Franklin D. Roosevelt. I offer the complete poem (from memory).
Say not the struggle naught availeth
The Labor and the wounds are vain
The enemy faints not nor faileth
And as things have been things remain.
If hopes be dupes fears may be liars
It may be in yon smoke filled field
Your comrades chase e’en now the flyers
And but for you possess the field.
For though the lone wave slowly breaking
Seems here no painful inch to gain
Outside in creeks and inlets making
Comes silent, flooding in, the rain.
And not by eastern windows only
When daylight comes comes in the light
Outside the sun climbs slow, so slowly
But westward look! The land is bright!
*–*Arthur Hugh Clough
I had the priveledge of knowing a Pearl Harbor survivor, a career Navy man who retired after 40 years as a Master Chief Petty officer. He was an 18 year old seaman on the USS Helena, docked at Pearl at the time of the attack.
The odd thing was, he couldn’t remember any of it. As he said it, “I remember when the attack started, I was on deck, I heard the first bombs go off and saw the planes. Then I remember the attack being over, I was standing on deck with a smoking hot 1903 Springfield in my hands and empty ammunition bandoliers all over me, so I know I was fighting. But everything in between is a blank!”
The Master Chief was on the Helena when it was sunk, and went on to serve another 40 years. How he loved the Navy!
I’ve known a number of Navy and Marine Pacific war vets, and let me tell you if the spirit they showed as men in their mature years was anything like the spirit they had when they were kids, the Japanese never had a chance. Not at all.
As a reminder, one of our current members is also an active duty Air Force Staff Sargent.
Big shout of thanks to Adrian Vargo for his continued service to our country.
Amen to that one…thanks Sgt. Vargo!!! [tup]
One of my uncles was a Lieutenant Commander aboard the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor. Eyewitnesses said he was blown about 25 feet into the air and landed on his back on the deck, but he survived and eventually retired.
Both of my Late Grandfathers on my Dads Side where in WW2 one in the Pacific and one in the ETO. The one in the Pacific was on a Navy Transport that Served in Every Major Amphib attack we did from the Canal to Okinawa and also helped bring Thousands of former Battan Vets home after the War. He Never would own anything made by a Japanese Company his entire life either.
The other one was a Belly Turret Gunner on a B-24 that survived his Tour of Duty and was Sent Home. He had a Diary I found and Gave to the USAF Museum so that his Words could be remembered by all in the Future. He wrote more than once that he was scared to Death of dying alone in his Turret but he made it home to his Family.
Heh heh, thanks buddy. Just woke up today lil bit ago from sleepin’ 10hrs straight. Just like the ebb and flow of life this week was one hell of a mess with more broke birds than I’ve seen in a month. Last nights fun was
Pilot: My left flap is broken.
Me: Sir, the flap can not physically fold back around.
Pilot: Look at the indicator!
Me: Look out the door.
7 hrs to change, rig, and beat the snot out of a left outboard rotary variable displacement transducer.
Adrianspeeder