72d Pearl Harbor Day
Seventy-two years ago today we were “suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan” leading to our ultimate involvement in the war which the rest of the world had been fighting for more than two years. Wiki records our casualties on that day;
All eight U.S. Navy battleships were damaged, with four being sunk. All but one were later raised, and six of the eight battleships returned to service and fought in the war. The Japanese also sank or damaged three cruisers, three destroyers, an anti-aircraft training ship,[nb 5] and one minelayer. 188 U.S. aircraft were destroyed; 2,402 Americans were killed[16] and 1,282 wounded. Important base installations such as the power station, shipyard, maintenance, and fuel and torpedo storage facilities, as well as the submarine piers and headquarters building (also home of the intelligence section) were not attacked. Japanese losses were light: 29 aircraft and five midget submarines lost, and 65 servicemen killed or wounded. One Japanese sailor was captured.
Ex-PH2 sends a link to NBC which reports that we haven’t completely forgot, yet, about the event that led us to war and leadership in the world;
On Friday, Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie and Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell lead a day of remembrance at the USS Arizona Memorial center near the site of the initial attack.
The Freedom Bell in Washington, D.C. — cast in bronze with metal from the World Trade Center — rang in honor of those who served in the armed forces, NBC affiliate KHNL reports. Skydivers also unfurled American Flags over Pearl Harbor.
On Saturday, the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond, Va., will host Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day with speakers and a laying of a wreath in honor of the fallen members of the military as well as civilians killed.
In Little Rock, Ark., bad weather forced the cancellation of ceremonies scheduled there for Saturday.
Here is a link to President Roosevelt’s request to Congress for a declaration of war the following day.
Category: Historical
SGT. Louis Sachwald wasn’t at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. He was in the Phillipines and was taken prisoner when our Army there was surrendered. He was packed into a merchant vessel and shipped off to work a mine as a slave for the Japs until August 1945. He was a helluva guy. Lived to be over 90. It was my great honor to have known him.
http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=35400
Nothing much to add, except to repeat: Dziekuje, tata. Dziekuje, moich wujów.
It was always fascinating to talk with people who were there. A dear friend became a widow that day. Every time I see movies about the attack, I picture her up on that hill watching it unfold then later volunteering at the hospital.
An interview with three local men who were there when it happened.
http://newssun.suntimes.com/24213183-417/pearl-harbor-perspectives-from-lake-county-veterans.html
Between 1986 and 1989 I made 4 port of calls at Pearl. Each time I donned my whites and took the motor whale boat trip to the USS Arizona. I would stare ever so intently and long at the # 4 Bunker C fuel oil that is still leaking today drip by drip to the surface. I wondered what it would have been like onboard, in the fireroom as a Water Tender (Boiler Tecnician, my first rate) working for the likes of Chief Water Tender Peter Tomich recipient of the MoH …
Medal of Honor citation of Chief Watertender Peter Tomich (as printed in the official publication “Medal of Honor, 1861-1949, The Navy”, page 270):
“For distinguished conduct in the line of his profession, and extraordinary courage and disregard of his own safety, during the attack on the Fleet in Pearl Harbor by the Japanese forces on 7 December 1941. Although realizing that the ship was capsizing, as a result of enemy bombing and torpedoing, TOMICH remained at his post in the engineering plant of the U.S.S. Utah, until he saw that all boilers were secured and all fireroom personnel had left their stations, and by so doing lost his life.”
Master Chief–you don’t spend much time at Pearl without seeing a lot of reminders of that day, and not just the Arizona.
And as large as that base is, it’s incredible that at 0755 every December 7th I was there, it was just so incredibly, solemnly, eerily QUIET. You can almost visualize what was going on there all those years ago.