View Full Version : "This is no joke: This is War" 7 December 1941
Never forget.
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5167
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Pearl Harbor memories live for survivor
http://www.fayobserver.com/news/local/pearl-harbor-memories-live-for-survivor/article_74df6a04-e2b2-5feb-975c-c5b46217eed2.html
"Edd Clay had grown up a North Carolina farm boy. And the 22-year-old sailor knew that the boiling black clouds he spotted over the railing of the USS Minneapolis as it rounded Diamond Head were not just from some pineapple farmer burning off his fields..."
Getting to be fewer of the survivors each year.
The Reaper
12-07-2014, 10:44
A day which will live in infamy.
I had an uncle who survived the Bataan Death March and came home from the war.
Truly the greatest generation.
TR
therunningwolf
12-07-2014, 16:09
I had the honor of visiting and paying my respects at the Arizona and Utah a few months back, anyone that has never been I highly recommend making the trip. Pearl Harbor is a strange place to visit, it will both infuriate and humble you all at the same time. My Cousin's office still has bullet holes in it from the battle, makes things sink in real deep.
Old Dog New Trick
12-06-2016, 21:01
Remembering those who gave all on this solemn day of remembrance.
Seventy Five years ago today we chose a path that would change the world forever. Let's not let them down. Forgive but never forget.
RIP to all who gave all for a better world.
Well said - they are remembered.
An event that truly brought our nation together and an event that required sacrifice from all our citizens. We should never forget.
1stindoor
12-07-2016, 00:59
An event that truly brought our nation together and an event that required sacrifice from all our citizens. We should never forget.
One would think that there was another similar event that would bring the entire nation together and demand a similar sense of sacrifice. But alas, there wasn't. Truly they were the greatest generation.
My first wife's grandfather was a glider pilot in WWII. Flew more than one mission and returned home at the end of the war. Amazing stories.
May you Warriors continue to rest in peace and know that you have not been forgotten!
mojaveman
12-07-2016, 04:11
One of the neighbors was at Hickam Field on December 7th, 1941 and died just a few years ago at 92 years of age. His stories were better than any of shows I've watched over the years.
One of my grandfather's was at Dunkirk. My other guarded German prisoners stateside as he was oldest son already with a child.
My wife's grandfather was a Japanese POW - I never met him but she said he never spoke of the war.
Great men all.
Honor and remember.
I heard a retired Navy guy say once that the military (Army I believe) delivered some sort of radar array to the island 4 days(?) before the attack but couldn't get permission to put it up due to some sort of conservation agreement. I've not seen or heard this from anyone else since. Is there any truth to this?
I heard a retired Navy guy say once that the military (Army I believe) delivered some sort of radar array to the island 4 days(?) before the attack but couldn't get permission to put it up due to some sort of conservation agreement. I've not seen or heard this from anyone else since. Is there any truth to this?
Yep.
http://worldwar2headquarters.com/HTML/PearlHarbor/PearlHarborAirFields/radar.html
Pat
doctom54
12-07-2016, 09:16
I heard a retired Navy guy say once that the military (Army I believe) delivered some sort of radar array to the island 4 days(?) before the attack but couldn't get permission to put it up due to some sort of conservation agreement. I've not seen or heard this from anyone else since. Is there any truth to this?
The US Army did have radar.
Here is a story from one of the men there that day.
http://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-pearl-harbor-radar-vets-reunited-20111203-story.html
atticus finch
12-07-2016, 09:36
Some former shipmates of mine were stationed there and worked in the hangers which still had bullet marks on them. They genuinely didn't have words to express how it felt to just stand in those hangers knowing what those marks on the buildings meant......
doctom54
12-07-2016, 09:57
My first assignment after finishing residency in 1988, was as the only physician on Wheeler AFB (this was when the USAF still owned it, now it is part of Schofield Barracks).
Wheeler AFB was built in the 1930s and was a beautiful base. When the family and I arrived the buildings were all painted BUT none of the bullet holes in the HQ building, Clinic or any of the other building were patched. The tradition had been since 1941 to paint but not patch so no one would forget.
I was the Chief of Flight Medicine at Hickam AFB on December 7th 1991, the 50th anniversary. It was an amazing time and I was privileged to meet and talk with several who were there that day. Truly the Greatest Generation, they were all humble and essentially said they were just doing their job for the duration of WW2.
sfshooter
12-07-2016, 18:02
God bless those men! They were our Greatest Generation.
A rancher I became friends with died just recently. He was 91 years old. I had always heard that he was a WWII vet but no one knew what he had done.
He would come into the bar from time to time and still drink it up. He smoked and told me he had since he was 13 yrs old (he had cancer for almost a year before he died).
I finally got up the courage a couple of years ago to ask him about WWII. He was a belly gunner in a B-25 or B-24 (I can't recall which) in the Pacific. He was a small guy and that is why they made him a belly gunner.
He said the hardest thing for him was they would fly out and bomb an island and then fly back to where they were based. They would wait around for all the planes to come back in and a lot of times planes would never show up. They wouldn't know if those guys got shot down around the island they were bombing or if they had to ditch in the ocean on the way back. No one ever new what their demise was. He said that bothered him because he had friends who never showed back up.
The communications were way different then and they couldn't always relay back to their station island.
Absolutely humbling! We have no idea of the hardships these men went through!
I had some drinks with Leo just a few months before he passed. That man never quit!