Dec 7, 1941

[tinnitus]

Serving in the Navy for 20 years last century, I pulled into Hawaii a couple dozen times on various ships, "manning the rails" (100s of Sailors and Marines in dress uniforms, standing at attention on the weather decks as we glided slowly past the Naval Station Pearl Harbor US flag and submerged hulk of the USS Arizona).

As a DoD civilian working on ships sometimes for 5 additional years after that, I had the option to sleep in or work in my office, but I always went topside and never missed it.

Sobering and humbling.

[KenL]

We have a "Little Free Library" in my neighborhood, and I found this book in there. On 12/7, no less.

500+ pages, should keep me busy for a while.



20221208_053614.jpg

[Slothead56]

Originally Posted by roberts

I was reflecting on a response when I read your thoughtful comments. For those of us who grew up post-war, these images will never be distant history. My favorite toys were the things my father came home with from the Pacific and I still feel a certain reverence when I fish out his old scrapbooks or hear the theme from Victory At Sea. There was national optimism, yes, but also a kind of awful awareness of the enormity of the times- even for one so young - brought on by the images above, photos of radiation burns, civil defense commercials, unspoken confusion over why some kids didn't have fathers. I can only imagine what you feel when you read that letter from your father. Our generation was indelibly shaped by these things.

Thanks Roberts. Much appreciated.

The full story is that I have hundreds of letters that my Dad wrote home while serving. Most are to his girlfriend (ultimately my Mom) and his Father.

It’s a bit disconcerting to read letters written by a love struck teenager thousands of miles from home, especially in 40’s prose and pomp, and then recognizing it’s your Father and Mother. Borders on “ewwww”!

I haven’t been through all of them. Some are pretty personal and tough to read. But others, like the one mentioned in my post, are true snippets of history.

[Bob Womack]

Another good book is Air Raid, Pearl Harbor!: Recollections of a Day of Infamy by Paul Stillwell. It is a coffee table book that combines large prints of historical photos with personal recollections of participants in the events.

Bob

[Cypress Knee]

My grandfather was stationed at Biggs Army Airfield outside of El Paso in 1941. He was leaving the service and entering civilian life, and had sent his wife and daughters back to Denver.

He left the Army Air Corps on Saturday morning. It took him all of Saturday and most of Sunday to reach Denver. It was my mother's duty to sit on the front porch and keep watch. When he drove up the six-year old ran out to the car and said, "Dad, the Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor."

He came into the house, hugged everyone, and asked his wife to "fix me a plate, please." They sat around the dinner table in silence. When he finished his meal, he stood up and announced, "I need to go now." He drove out to Lowry Field outside of Denver and re-enlisted that evening.

[Bob Womack]

4" gun #3 from the USS Ward that fired the first U.S. shot in anger of WWII and sank another midget sub, HA-20 in the control area off the entrance to Pearl. Their gunners said they hit the sub at the bottom of the conning tower. Their accuracy while taking a snap shot from a maneuvering destroyer was disputed for years.


The conning tower of midget sub HA-20, discovered in 2002. The 4" hole was right where the Ward's gunners said it was.


This midget sub, I-22, was depth charged and eventually rammed by USS Monaghan in Middle Loch, west of Ford Island on Dec 7th. It was recovered and examined on December 21st, 1941. Note depth charge dimpling.


HA-19 at the Museum of the Pacific War in Texas. It encountered depth control problems and its directional gyro croaked. Eventually, chlorine gas from the batteries forced the crew to abandon ship. The commander set the self-destruct charge and said, "We are leaving. Explode gloriously!" It did not. The sub was recovered from the beach and Ensign Sakamaki was interred as U.S. POW #1. I saw this sub when it was on loan to a local museum. It was so small, I couldn't visualize the crew of two working in it.


Japanese midget sub HA-18 from the attack, found in 1960 off the Keʻehi Lagoon between Pearl and Honolulu.


Where she sits today at the Japanese Naval Academy at Etajima.

At this point, all of the midget subs are accounted for... or are they?


Some think the arrow points to HA-18, broaching after firing on the Oklahoma. Whatever, she was recovered in 1951. The scuttling charges appeared to have been fired and her torpedoes had been expended. She had been broken up into three pieces. She was examined and thrown into the deep water "Pearl Harbor junkyard." She was rediscovered in 1992 in the junkyard.



Bob

[imwjl]

Originally Posted by Bob from Brooklyn

Over 80 years ago. Only a handful of those folks left.

My mother and her cousin are the last ones with us in all our family and have the actual memories. Her cousin was bomber crew and his brother a bomber pilot.

In September they were together at a family event at hotel's banquet room. A bartender and wait staff were annoyed by the two nonagenarians moving slowly and with some challenges. I took a moment to ask them to look at cousin Bill as the brave bomber crew he once was.

[frankmcr]

Originally Posted by David Eastwood

Is this being taught in public high schools anywhere these days? Any parents out there care to comment?

That's for you to find out, isn't it?

What your local Board of Education approves funding for.

And it's not just a question for parents. What do we want the next generation of Americans - and all the following ones - to grow up learning?

The American public school curriculum used to include art. And music.

We don't waste tax dollars on stuff like that any more.

History . . . who needs it?

[TBman]

We can never forget them. That generation had the guts to do the right thing when it was needed.

[ewalling]

Originally Posted by frankmcr

That's for you to find out, isn't it?

What your local Board of Education approves funding for.

And it's not just a question for parents. What do we want the next generation of Americans - and all the following ones - to grow up learning?

The American public school curriculum used to include art. And music.

We don't waste tax dollars on stuff like that any more.

History . . . who needs it?

W;H Auden's poem 'Musee des Beaux Arts' (inspired by an art gallery visit) highlights the way that we 'sail calmly on' past stories of suffering and heroism from the past, just as the ship passengers in Breughel's painting did when Icarus fell to his death, and just how museum visitors do when they see the suffering depicted in the painting.

We may learn the history, but how do we respond to it? Do we, too, merely look and then 'sail calmly on'? Is that an inevitable reaction to acts of heroism and suffering?

[IMG][/IMG]

Musee des Beaux Arts
W. H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

[David Eastwood]

Originally Posted by frankmcr

That's for you to find out, isn't it?

I guess you’re right. However, my kids are grown. We homeschooled them, so they did learn about this. I know very few people with kids currently in government schools so thought lobbing a gentle question in here might produce an answer.

What your local Board of Education approves funding for.

And it's not just a question for parents. What do we want the next generation of Americans - and all the following ones - to grow up learning?

The American public school curriculum used to include art. And music.

We don't waste tax dollars on stuff like that any more.

History . . . who needs it?

Now there’s a discussion we could have, but I suspect it would be hard to keep within the rules.

[imwjl]

Originally Posted by David Eastwood

Knowing the demographics of the AGF, I suspect the majority of us here do know what this is all about. It’s up to us to help younger generations understand, and perpetuate the history.

Is this being taught in public high schools anywhere these days? Any parents out there care to comment?

It is history our 3 kids had, and it is history in the text books and curriculum my wife has teaching ESL in a neighboring public school district. Our twins graduated earlier this year for the sake of context and current info.

It seems to me like a whole lot of people not with current or any ties to the schools take a whole lot of info out of context or that is just wrong. When we are at our cabin, a year-round neighbor couple teaches in two northern rural districts. Our actual neighbors are a couple that teach split in an outside of and twin cities suburban district. They all teach good curriculums so the kids who work can be competitive all over.

The institution where I teach kids outdoor sports and skills or volunteer at shooting range has 600+ kids from several school districts. They impress me with what they are taught.

I'm absolutely in agreement if I understand you on our responsibilities as parents, but very often I shake my head where a whole lot of people don't really seem to know what goes on in the schools or take a few matters way out of context.

My close associates and family where we have kids in or close to school and see this are mostly in WI, MN, MI, IA, IL, CO, CA, OR and WA. I realize it is a subset of our states but that covers a lot of population and a mix of urban, rural and varying prosperity.

Edit: I'm going to check with some of these kids who are in college now because some of them tested into/past this course material. My daughter a senior is a dual major in a hard science and political science. She impresses me with what's taught for both, and our age differences mean she hasn't had WWII vet lecturers like some of us did.

[815C]

My dad grew up in a small house in the middle of redwood trees in the Balch Park area of California.

On Dec 7, 1941 he was 13 years old an carving his name, Jimmy, into a sawed off redwood tree. He only got the JIMI (the last letter was actually the first leg of a capital M) carved when someone ran by and told him the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. He quit carving his name and ran home. In 2015 he took us to that tree and showed us his partially carved name from that day.

His older brother enlisted in Marines and at age 17 was on the beach at Iwo Jima.