Remembering Pearl Harbor - December 7, 1941

[mrsmackpaul]

Today, well actually tomorrow for you lot in the US as you are a day behind us, was the day Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japs. Don't know if the US does anything for this or not, but I will and already have taken a moment to think about all the men that died that day and how that day changed the world for ever.

I often wonder in today's fast paced world have we really missed what it is all truly about these young men will never know and I'm afraid people of today have forgotten how quick our lives can be turned upside down.

As a Boy Scout says "you should always be prepared". I think we are all slowly forgetting this. 

Paul

[kscarbel2]

The “Infamy Speech” (aka. Pearl Harbor Speech) delivered by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt to a Joint Session of Congress on December 8, 1941, one day after the Empire of Japan's attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and the Japanese declaration of war on the United States and the British Empire. Within an hour of the speech, Congress passed a formal declaration of war against Japan and officially brought the U.S. into World War II.

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.

Yesterday, the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya.

Last night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.

Last night, Japanese forces attacked Guam.

Last night, Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.

Last night, the Japanese attacked Wake Island.

This morning, the Japanese attacked Midway Island.

Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.

As commander in chief of the Army and Navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense.

Always will we remember the character of the onslaught against us.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

I believe I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces - with the unbounding determination of our people - we will gain the inevitable triumph - so help us God.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, Dec. 7, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt

December 8, 1941

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[kscarbel2]

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[kscarbel2]

Shinzo Abe to visit Pearl Harbor in symbol of reconciliation

The Financial Times  /  December 5, 2016

Prime minister’s visit is first by Japanese leader since attack 75 years ago

Shinzo Abe will make a historic visit to Pearl Harbor later this month where he will remember the dead of World War Two alongside outgoing US president Barack Obama.

The visit will make Mr Abe the first sitting Japanese prime minister to visit Pearl Harbor since his country’s surprise attack on the Hawaiian port began the Pacific war 75 years ago.

Following Mr Obama’s visit to the atomic bombing site of Hiroshima earlier this year, it will break down one of the last remaining taboos between the US and Japan, symbolising the reconciliation between former enemies who have become close allies.

The visit will also provide a powerful closing scene for Mr Obama’s foreign policy before the inauguration of Donald Trump, highlighting the value of patient diplomacy, and letting him take one last step in his “pivot to Asia”.

Mr Abe will visit Hawaii on December 26 and 27 and hold a summit with Mr Obama. “On this occasion, along with President Obama, I will visit Pearl Harbor,” Mr Abe told reporters at his official residence in Tokyo. “The purpose is to comfort the spirits of the dead.”

He said the visit would show their determination never to repeat the calamity of war. “It will be a chance to show the world the significance of our effort to look to the future and build an even stronger US-Japan alliance,” said Mr Abe. “This final summit is the culmination of all we have done.”

A statement from the White House echoed Mr Abe’s comments, saying: “The two leaders’ visit will showcase the power of reconciliation that has turned former adversaries into the closest of allies, united by common interests and shared values.”

The visit marks another step in Mr Abe’s effort to reconcile his own conservative nationalism — which has occasionally veered into historical revisionism — with his desire to strengthen the US-Japan alliance and settle the ghosts of Japan’s history.

Last year, he referred to Pearl Harbor in a well-received speech to the US Congress, and gave a statement on the 70th anniversary of the war’s end without offending Japan’s neighbours. Mr Abe has landed on a formula where he often talks of his grief and sadness at the events of the war without offering specific apologies.

Although Mr Abe declined to pledge a Pearl Harbor trip when Mr Obama went to Hiroshima in May, a reciprocal visit was widely anticipated and has been discussed with US diplomats in the past. The prime minister said Mr Obama’s words at Hiroshima had “entered the hearts of many Japanese people”.

Akie Abe, the prime minister’s wife, visited Pearl Harbor in August where she prayed at laid flowers at the USS Arizona memorial. That was widely regarded as a test run for a prime ministerial visit.

Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor using carrier-born aircraft sunk four US battleships and damaged four others. Coming without a declaration of war, it prompted US president Franklin D Roosevelt to declare December 7, 1941, “a date which will live in infamy”.

But America’s three aircraft carriers were out at sea during the attack and survived, so Japan gained little strategic advantage, leading to its ultimate defeat three-and-a-half years later.

[kscarbel2]

And Paul, we couldn't have done it without the help of Australia and New Zealand. Some of the best troops in the Pacific theater of war. Thank you.

[41chevy]

Only five of the 335 men who survived the unprovoked attack that sunk the USS Arizona on Dec. 7, 1941 remain alive. Donald Stratton, 94, is one of them. He has added to the historical knowledge of that day and the beginning of America's entry into World War II in a new book, "All the Gallant Men: The First Memoir By a USS Arizona Survivor."

Typical of so many men of that era, the book (written with Ken Gire) is less about Stratton, a 19-year-old kid from a tiny Nebraska town ravaged by the Great Depression, and more about the men with whom he served.

According to the book, total casualties at Pearl Harbor on that fateful day amounted to 2,403 dead and 1,176 wounded. Many of Stratton's shipmates lie interred in the bowels of the Arizona, which still secretes oil, a constant reminder to "never forget."

People too young to have known men of that era, or who never asked grandparents about their World War II experience, will find in Stratton's book a quality that has declined in modern times -- modesty. "We were not extraordinary men," he writes. "Truth be told, most of us had enlisted because there were precious few jobs to be found where we lived."

The isolationist spirit was strong in 1941. Here's Stratton on the patriotism that overwhelmed isolationism after the attack: "Love for country welled up inside seemingly every American, coming out in the songs we sang, in the movies produced, in the newspaper articles that were written. ... We were ordinary men. What was extraordinary was the country we loved."

Compare this sentiment to what we see in today's movies, newspaper articles and songs. Stratton writes, "We loved who (America) was, what she stood for. We loved her for what she meant to us, and for what she had given us, even in those meager times."

People of that generation were taught to be grateful for the little they had and not to be envious of others, who might have more. That's another contrast with the envy-greed-entitlement spirit of our age.

 

Besides the USS Arizona's 1777 killed in action, there is  the forgotten ships. 429 killed when the USS Oklahoma capsized, most recovered in late 1943 when she finally was salvaged. Most are buried in the Punch Bowl in mass graves as unknowns. There was lastly on the USS Utah capsized with 64 killed and never recovered and are still interned on the wreck.

BB-37 U.S.S. OKLAHOMA. My Uncle transferred to the Okie after surviving the Japanese attack on the USS Panay in 1937. He felt a Battleship would be safer.

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Edited December 7, 2016 by 41chevy

[mrsmackpaul]

1 hour ago, 41chevy said:

We were ordinary men. What was extraordinary was the country we loved."

 

This is saddest part of today in all the free world people dont seem to love their country as once they did and no longer do people as whole put their country first and them selves second 

I find in todays world I think people as whole have a lot more worries and as such I do a lot of reading and I tend to read a lot of books about the WW1 and WW2 and truly believe we have well and truly lost our way in the last 30 or 40 years 

I am reading a book for second or maybe third time about the coast watchers in the Pacific you know the blokes that saved JFK and countless other airmen sailors and soldiers 

And a bit more once Pearl Harbor was bombed Australia welcomed the US with open arms so much so that we all worked together with Macarthur running the show 

Australian families would take US troops home to their houses to give the troops some sort of formality when on leave complete strangers welcomed

I guess the questions we should ask our selves would any of us do all this today

Dont get me wrong Australian and US troops brawled from one of town to the other when on leave but also fought together died together and lived together

Men from a different time when we werent as selfish as we are today

To all the men from then and the years that followed thank you for not putting your selves first and put the good of a country or countries first

 

Paul 

[41chevy]

You Australians and Kiwi's fought right with us in Vietnam. Damn good to have you with us IMO.   Paul

[mrsmackpaul]

5 hours ago, 41chevy said:

You Australians and Kiwi's fought right with us in Vietnam. Damn good to have you with us IMO.   Paul

And Paul we Aussies were in both gulf wars Afghanistan Korea and just about any other scrap that has been going on around the world in the last 120 years

We must love a blue or maybe we like to try and stand up for those that cant stand up for them selves either way we always seem fairly keen to stick our hand up and try and help

 

Paul 

[mowerman]

hats off and lotsa prayers for all involved..... US of coarse...bob

[41chevy]

A great book if you ever get it to read.  WE were lucky.   Paul

Here is a small excerpt from it.

"Reflections on Pearl Harbor" by Admiral Chester Nimitz.

Sunday, December 7th, 1941--Admiral Chester Nimitz was attending a concert in Washington D.C. He was paged and told there was a phone call for him. When he answered the phone, it was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the phone. He told Admiral Nimitz that he (Nimitz) would now be the Commander of the Pacific Fleet. Admiral Nimitz flew to Hawaii to assume command of the Pacific Fleet. He landed at Pearl Harbor on Christmas Eve, 1941. There was such a spirit of despair, dejection and defeat--you would have thought the Japanese had already won the war.

On Christmas Day, 1941, Adm. Nimitz was given a boat tour of the destruction wrought on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. Big sunken battleships and navy vessels cluttered the waters every where you looked. As the tour boat returned to dock, the young helmsman of the boat asked, "Well Admiral, what do you think after seeing all this destruction?" Admiral Nimitz's reply shocked everyone within the sound of his voice. Admiral Nimitz said, "The Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could ever make or God was taking care of America. Which do you think it was?" Shocked and surprised, the young helmsman asked, "What do mean by saying the Japanese made the three biggest mistakes an attack force ever made?"
Nimitz explained.

Mistake number one: the Japanese attacked on Sunday morning. Nine out of every ten crewmen of those ships were ashore on leave. If those same ships had been lured to sea and been sunk--we would have lost 38,000 men instead of 3,800.

Mistake number two: when the Japanese saw all those battleships lined in a row, they got so carried away sinking those battleships, they never once bombed our dry docks opposite those ships. If they had destroyed our dry docks, we would have had to tow everyone of those ships to America to be repaired. As it is now, the ships are in shallow water and can be raised. One tug can pull them over to the dry docks, and we can have them repaired and at sea by the time we could have towed them to America. And I already have crews ashore anxious to man those ships.

Mistake number three: every drop of fuel in the Pacific theater of war is in top of the ground storage tanks five miles away over that hill. One attack plane could have strafed those tanks and destroyed our fuel supply. That's why I say the Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could make or God was taking care of America.

[1958 F.W.D.]

One of the main 16" guns of the USS Oklahoma are here in Bethlehem Pa at what is left of Bethlehem Steel- at the old deep drop forge building where the guns of most (if not all) of the BB's of the United States Navy were cast. A Navy Vet friend of mine went over there today and laid a bouquet on it. 

[41chevy]

4 minutes ago, 1958 F.W.D. said:

One of the main 16" guns of the USS Oklahoma are here in Bethlehem Pa at what is left of Bethlehem Steel- at the old deep drop forge building where the guns of most (if not all) of the BB's of the United States Navy were cast. A Navy Vet friend of mine went over there today and laid a bouquet on it. 

Thank him for me.   Paul

[kscarbel2]

Without Pearl Harbor, a different world?

By Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick  /  December 9, 2016

On the 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, we've been asked to reflect on what might have happened if Japan had not launched an attack on the US fleet on December 7, 1941.

The question is both interesting and relevant at a time when Japan experiences a military resurgence and America's provocative Asia "pivot" is being rethought by the incoming and often unpredictable Trump administration. Trump's rash statements about China, Japan, and South Korea have already roiled the waters throughout the region.

A pretext for US to enter WWII

The assault on Pearl Harbor was not only foolhardy, it was ultimately suicidal. Naval historian Samuel Eliot Morison dismissed it as "strategic imbecility."

Many in Japan -- including most of the nine former prime ministers whom Japanese Emperor Hirohito met with a week prior to the attack -- had opposed it. Yet Gen. Hideki Tojo's government authorized the attack with the objective of destroying the US Pacific Fleet, which potentially could have blocked Japan's access to the resources of Southeast Asia.

The Pearl Harbor attack, however, was only partly successful. Though Japanese forces caused significant damage to the US Fleet and killed 2,335 US troops and 68 civilians, their attack was not fatal. The Fleet's three aircraft carriers weren't in Pearl Harbor when the attack occurred and many of the damaged ships and planes were able to be repaired. This would come back to haunt Japan the next June, when US forces, including two of those carriers, took out four Japanese carriers at the Battle of Midway and turned the Pacific war in the US favor.

The Japanese attack had given President Roosevelt the pretext he sought to bring the US into the war. Americans may have overwhelmingly favored the Allies over the despised Nazis and sympathized with the plight of Chinese being brutalized by Japan, but few wanted to get drawn into another war. World War I had left a bitter taste in their mouths. Not only had it not been "the war to end all wars" or the war to make the world "safe for democracy," it had enriched the greedy bankers and arms manufacturers -- the "merchants of death" as they were then known -- and done nothing to end colonial exploitation.

By 1941, Roosevelt surreptitiously maneuvered the US into confrontations with both Germany, which had conquered much of Europe, and Japan, which had seized Manchuria and Indochina and was waging a vicious war against China. At Newfoundland in August 1941, Roosevelt told Churchill that he "would wage war, but not declare it" and do everything he could to "force an 'incident' that could lead to war." His overt support for Britain against Germany and decision to halt desperately needed exports of oil, metal, and other resources to Japan proved sufficient.

One day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt addressed Congress, which approved his war resolution with one dissenting vote. Three days later, Germany and Italy, Japan's allies, declared war against the United States.

The world would never be the same. But here's how it could've been different.

US and Japan on a collision course for years

The attack on Pearl Harbor has loomed large in the American imagination for several reasons.

Americans considered it a cowardly "sneak" attack because the Japanese had not declared war against the US. It occurred on American territory -- the US had forcibly annexed [stolen] Hawaii in 1898 -- and revealed a stunning failure of US intelligence, heightening fears of US vulnerability in a dangerous world. It also triggered ugly discrimination against Japanese-American citizens and Japanese immigrants alike inside the United States. Almost 120,000 Japanese and Japanese-Americans were rounded up and put into internment camps until the end of the war.

But had the Japanese not attacked Pearl Harbor, the Pacific War would largely have evolved along similar lines. The US and Japan had been on a collision course for months if not years. With or without the attack on Pearl Harbor, the two countries were heading for war.

What most Americans forget is that it was not only Pearl Harbor that Japan attacked on December 7, 1941. As Roosevelt told Congress on December 8, Japan had also attacked the British colonies of Hong Kong and Malaya, the US colony in the Philippines, and US holdings in Guam, Wake Island, and Midway Island. The attack on Malaya actually preceded the assault on Pearl Harbor by more than an hour. In addition, though not mentioned by Roosevelt, Japan invaded Thailand. It also attacked Singapore, which was then part of British Malaya.

US officials had broken Japanese diplomatic codes in August 1940, enabling them to monitor Japan's war planning. They knew an attack was coming. They just didn't think it was coming at Pearl Harbor. The most likely targets in their minds were the oil-rich Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), Malaya, and the Philippines.

Japan's attack on US bases in the Philippines, Guam, Wake Island, and Midway Island would have been more than sufficient provocation for a US president eager to get the US into the war. In the Philippines alone, the cost of the American defeat was staggering, resulting in the death or capture of 23,000 American and perhaps 100,000 Filipino military personnel.

Soviets deserve lion's share of the credit for victory in Europe

While US involvement was absolutely crucial to Allied victory in the Pacific War, it was less so in the defeat of the European Axis powers. In fact, had the US not entered the European war, the outcome would have been the same. By the time the US and Britain finally initiated their promised second front in France a year and a half after Roosevelt publicly announced it would begin, the Russians had already turned the tide and German forces were in full retreat across Europe.

Up to that point, the US and British had been confronting some 10 German divisions combined while the Soviets were confronting nearly 200 by themselves. Forcing Germany to fight on two fronts certainly expedited the end of the war, but it didn't change the outcome.

Contrary to American mythology, the Soviets deserve the lion's share of the credit for victory in Europe. And they suffered immensely in bringing this about. In quantitative terms, the 27 million Soviets who died at the hands of Germany is the equivalent of one 9/11 a day every day for 27 years. It is the equivalent of one Pearl Harbor a day every day for 30 years.

Despite Churchill's hatred of Bolshevism, the British owe a huge debt of gratitude to the Soviets, without whom they might be speaking German today. They also owe a huge debt to the Americans without whom they might be speaking Russian.

It is interesting to contemplate how the face of Europe would have been different if the US had remained the "arsenal" of the Allied powers without actually joining the war. It was fortuitous that Germany and Italy declared war against the US on December 11, 1941 without which Roosevelt would have had to find another justification for American entry.

Where would the line between the Soviets and the West have been drawn if the US had not entered the European war? How might the Soviet economy have developed if Soviet leaders had access to the greater potential wealth of West Germany and France? Might socialism have appeared a more viable option in the postwar world if the US was not in a position to help rebuild the depression- and war-shattered capitalist economies?

What if Roosevelt had kept Henry Wallace as vice president?

There are some other interesting counterfactuals that can be explored regarding the Second World War, some of which we do look at in our documentary film and book series The Untold History of the United States.

What would have happened if Roosevelt had retained his visionary and controversial vice president Henry Wallace on the ticket in 1944 instead of the much smaller minded Harry Truman?

Despite the opposition of the conservative Democratic Party bosses, Roosevelt had the moral authority and political muscle to insist upon Wallace remaining on the ticket as his wife and children and the majority of Americans desired.

The Gallup Poll -- a US public opinion survey -- released on July 20, 1944, the first day of the Democratic Party convention in Chicago, reported that 65 percent of potential Democratic voters wanted the enormously popular Wallace back on the ticket as vice president. Two percent wanted Truman. The internal machinations that resulted in Truman's selection are a sordid tale with which few Americans are familiar.

Had Wallace become president upon Roosevelt's death in April 1945 instead of Truman, there would have been no atomic bombings of Japan and possibly no Cold War.

Wallace envisioned friendship between the Americans and the Soviets and a healthy competition between the two systems in which each would strive to show that it was better suited to serve the needs of humanity. He would have delivered on the $10 billion credit that Roosevelt had dangled before the Soviets to help them rebuild from a war that had turned much of the country into a wasteland. The positive repercussions that might have had in Soviet-occupied Europe are incalculable.

It is also worth noting that Wallace was a fierce opponent of colonialism, who openly deplored the British and French empires, leading Churchill and the French to pressure Roosevelt to replace him on the ticket. Roosevelt largely shared Wallace's views regarding empire. He condemned British rule in Gambia, calling it "the most horrible thing I have ever seen in my life." He felt similarly about Dutch exploitation of the East Indies and French rule in Indochina, insisting he would not let the French back in after the war.

On some level, he understood that the Pacific War was rooted in imperial rivalries, commenting privately, "Don't think for a minute that Americans would be dying in the Pacific...if it hadn't been for the short-sighted greed of the French and the British and the Dutch." He promised "immediate" independence for the Philippines once Japanese troops were ousted shortly before his death.

Roosevelt often wavered on this issue, but Wallace never did. He was steadfast in his hatred of colonial exploitation and the racism that justified it. Think of the lives that could have been saved and the misery that could have been avoided if colonialism had been ended peacefully in the immediate aftermath of the war.

The world without the atomic bombings

A second counterfactual is what would have happened if World War II had ended without the atomic bombs being used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan?

American mythology holds that the two bombs ended the war and, by obviating the American invasion of Japan, humanely saved millions of American and Japanese lives. According to defenders of the atomic bombing, the cost, by 1950, of 200,000 dead in Hiroshima and 140,000 dead in Nagasaki was a small price to pay.

The evidence is overwhelming, as we show in Untold History, that it was the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, South Sakhalin, the Kurile Islands, and Korea, which began at midnight on August 8, 1945 that precipitated the Japanese surrender and not the atomic bombs.

US intelligence had been forecasting such an outcome for months and Truman acknowledged that the Soviet entry would be decisive. At Potsdam on July 17, he wrote in his diary, Stalin "will be in the Jap war on August 15. Fini Japs when that comes about." He characterized the intercepted July 18 cable as "the telegram from the Jap emperor asking for peace." He knew the end was near and the bombs weren't necessary.

If the bombs had not been used in the war, might the US and the USSR have avoided the nuclear arms race that the atomic bombings set in motion? Soviet leaders, knowing full well that the bombs weren't needed to defeat Japan, interpreted their use as a warning of the devastation that the US would wreak on the Soviets if they interfered with US postwar plans. We've lived with the threat of the extinction of life on this planet ever since.

Japan's fate was sealed when the Soviets invaded as the official US Navy Museum in Washington, DC acknowledges. The Japanese hurried to surrender to the Americans while they still had the chance, knowing that a Soviet takeover would spell the end of not only the emperor system but of the capitalism that supported it. At first, the US occupation was relatively benign and in some ways even enlightened. The US imposed Japan's peace constitution, which disavowed the sovereign right of war and disallowed the retention of offensive military forces. It is those forward-thinking principles that the Shinzo Abe administration is presently trying to eviscerate.

If the Soviets had had a greater hand in the occupation, Japan might have become a Cold War battleground as Korea did. Would the Russians have been torn between the conflicting pressures to rebuild Japan and to loot it that they faced in Germany? The animosity they felt toward the Japanese paled in comparison to their hatred and mistrust of the Germans, who had so much Soviet blood on their hands. As we know, the US quickly abandoned its progressive vision for postwar Japan and sought to rebuild it as the military and economic outpost of Western capitalist interests in the volatile Asia-Pacific region. Either way, Japanese cars, electronics, and sushi were fated to transport, connect, and feed the planet. The world would be better off, however, if the rise of Japanese militarism could have been thwarted or further delayed.

World War II with its vast bloodletting, incredible toll of human life, deployment of technology to maximize killing and destruction, and prominent display of the ugly side of human nature, replete with racism, xenophobia, and ethnic and religious bigotry, serves as a cautionary tale of what happens when we unleash the forces of fear, hatred, and nationalism.

Some of those same forces are rampant in the world today. Pearl Harbor should serve as a reminder. But we must be careful to draw the right lessons to avoid a repeat of the horrors that engulfed the planet more than 75 years ago.

[kscarbel2]

"Yesterday, December 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."

[HarryS]

Thanks for the reminder of an event "We Must Never Forget!".

[HeavyGunner]

I try to always pay extra attention when my 90 year old grandpa talks about his experiences in the war. He signed up in 1943 at 15 years old and served until 1954. Made the Olympic shooting team in 1952 and always tells me about seeing the world during the war. He also has quite a few pictures of him and his platoon while they were abroad. God bless ‘em all. 

[41chevy]

Uncle died on the Okie at his post Pharmacist.

 

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Edited December 8, 2018 by 41chevy

[Red Horse]

Well it seems to me, that there was little remembrance today on the newscasts.  Nothing but ongoing bullsh*t over Cohen. Comey, blah blah. Sad state of affairs.

[41chevy]

2 hours ago, Red Horse said:

Well it seems to me, that there was little remembrance today on the newscasts.  Nothing but ongoing bullsh*t over Cohen. Comey, blah blah. Sad state of affairs.

You need to remember how history is now taught in Public Schools. The War with Japan was not caused by the Japanese attack in the Pacific. It is now taught that the USN  destroyer Ward fired the opening shot at a Japanese sub. (who was on the way to attack the ships in Pearl)

WWII, Korea and Vietnam are taught now as the American War on the Pacific Rim. Our failed attempt to conquer the Pacific Rim for corporate America.  Europe forgets we bore the brunt with supplies, troops and ships to help them to win WWII and that America put the Continent back on it's feet with the Marshall Plan.

Hell most of the millennial's and younger don't even know who we fought in the Revolutionary War but they can tell you what color Taylor Swifts undies are.  They are taught our history is war like, homophobic and racist and we have nothing to be proud of or patriotic about.  Pretty sad. Four of my family died in WWII My uncle in Pearl Harbor, my aunt in the Philippians, an other uncles bomber went down in the the fires in Ploesti and another crossing the Elbe. 40% of the young men in my town died in WWII, 23 in Korea and 63 out of 105 in my graduating high School Class died in Vietnam.  I very touchy about our history and our Vets and KIA,sand promised my self I would not forget to honor them.

The vets housing is my last project  my wife and I embarked on before she passed, even more reason to finish it. My kids will be getting not much of an estate when I finish this project, should use most all of my money and assets .

Edited December 8, 2018 by 41chevy

[HeavyGunner]

That’s very admirable Paul. If only there were more like you. 

[41chevy]

Just the right thing to do plus nobody else will take care of us without holding it over our heads. I'm just fortunate enough to have done very well and damned if I give it to free loaders.

[Mack Technician]

God bless the man who pays his dues in life and who’s last check to the undertaker bounces. 

Pretty neat read about your uncle online and workers finding his military honor medal during the Okie recovery. 

[41chevy]

6 hours ago, Mack Technician said:

God bless the man who pays his dues in life and who’s last check to the undertaker bounces. 

Pretty neat read about your uncle online and workers finding his military honor medal during the Okie recovery. 

Chief Pharmacist's Mate Cheshire is remembered with honor on the Honolulu Memorial in Honolulu, Honolulu County, Hawaii and was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart, the American Defense Service Medal with Fleet, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with Bronze Star and the World War II Victory Medal.

This is a copy of the letter we recieved.

---

Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.  Fulfilling Our Nation's Promise

Service Member  CPHMP JAMES THOMAS CHESHIRE

• WORLD WAR II  UNITED STATES NAVY
• Accounted For  09/28/2018

On September 28, 2018, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified the remains of Chief Pharmacist's Mate James Thomas Cheshire, missing from World War II.

Chief Pharmacist's Mate Cheshire, who joined the U.S. Navy from California, was serving aboard the USS Oklahoma (BB-37) at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, when the ship came under attack from Japanese aircraft. He was killed in the attack, and while his remains were recovered from the ship following the incident, they could not be individually identified at the time. CPHM Cheshire was initially buried as an unknown at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. In 2015, advances in forensic techniques prompted the reexamination of remains associated with the Oklahoma, and CPHM Cheshire was eventually identified from among them.

Chief Pharmacist's Mate Cheshire is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

 

 

Edited December 9, 2018 by 41chevy

[41chevy]

On 12/6/2016 at 6:17 PM, kscarbel2 said:

 

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Interesting bit of info on the Arizona Memorial. Elvis Presley played a fair bit in it.

What does a rock 'n' roll legend have to do with a historical Pearl Harbor memorial?
Legendary rock star Elvis Presley helped make the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor a reality in the 1960s.
Presley performed at a benefit concertand gave 100% of the profits that totaled more than $54,000 for the memorial fund on March 25, 1961. He also made a separate donation of $25,000, the report said.
Plans to create the USS Arizona Memorial took shape in the 1950s, but by 1960, less than half of the $500,000 needed was raised, the publication reported.   Presley's actions drew considerable attention to the memorial fund helping it to reach its goal and ultimately build the iconic memorial.