Posted on 12/06/2015 2:08:37 PM PST by WhiskeyX
In honor of the Pearl Harbor anniversary, we look at some interesting facts related to the “date which will live in infamyâ€. Hosted by Benari Poulten, a Master Sergeant in the U.S. Army Reserve and veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
3 of the 5 are only indirectly (very indirectly) related to PH.
I hate list, especially the X things you didn’t know about. More likely, the things the author didn’t know about, but everyone else, yea, we knew.
The author asked the viewers to post 5 more facts about Pearl Harbor. One fact was that the Japanese also attacked Hong Kong on that day. One of my parents’ friends joined the marines in 1936 and was stationed at the American embassy as a marine guard. He told me that their papers or id cards had not been signed by the proper embassy official.
He spent all of WWII in a Japanese POW camp. Many of his fellow marines did not.
Let me get this in pre-peremptorily: FDR did not know that Pearl Harbor was coming, though arguably he should have.
It's nice to know that someone else knows about this. Japan attacked Hong Kong 8 hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor. British commonwealth forces surrendered on Christmas day. US consulate staff was interned at a camp and many of them were later released. However, the US Consul was killed prior to this release because he fell down a flight of stairs. He is buried in Hong Kong.
Someone in Pearl suspected enough to want to send the whole fleet out to sea, and someone in Washington knew enough to order the Battleships kept in. This was from my Grandfather, who was stationed there at the time (on a destroyer, which was out at sea).
He and members of the Winnipeg Grenadiers and Royal Rifles of Canada, and members of various British, Indian and Canadian support units. For the few who survived almost six years in Jap prison camps, I cannot imagine the hell.
Tx fer the headsup! Dec. 7, 1941 was my father-in-law’s 18th birthday and he remembered it well; 3 years later he parachuted into Belgium w/ the 82nd Airborne. We’ll remember him in our prayers tonight.
Well, I managed four out of the five.
The one I didn’t know is that the USS Phoenix/Belgrano was one of the “few ships to survive” Pearl Harbor. I knew she was a survivor and that she was sunk during the Falklands, but I’m pretty familiar with the OOB of the USN at Pearl Harbor and am SHOCKED to learn from this that only a “few” ships “survived.”
:-)
Here’s one thing people may not know tho - the night of the Pearl Harbor attack FDR’s nerves were so bad that he got himself coked up.
Shouldn’t need to be mentioned, but if at all possible, remember to tell people to display the flag on the 7th.
I no longer believe that. Too many high level moves were made to set us up to take a kill shot. FDR's other policies have also convinced me he was a profound enemy of America. There's a reason Hillary reveres him.
My grandson’s history teacher didn’t know the USS Helena was at Pearl Harbor and he refused to believe my grandson or do his own research. This was one of the rare times when my son went to the school to talk to a teacher.
Love that tag line and that man!
There was really no other place to attack. Unless they went for An Diego or San Francisco. But Pearl was the heart of the Pacific fleet.
It would take an actively blind man NOT to see Pearl was at risk.
However, assume that the fleet had been moved out of Pearl Harbor before the attack and was in deep water off the Hawaiian Islands when attacked. Assuming the same sort of losses to the fleet at anchor occurred while at sea, the loss in life would have been staggering, much more than actually resulted. Additionally, those vessels that were salvaged and used later during the war would have been gone forever, unreachable.
In the end, I'm of the opinion that, regardless of whether the authorities knew of the attack or not, if the strike was going to happen, it was better that the fleet was anchored in Pearl Harbor.
I know that some will say that, with warning, the fleet could have fought off the attack, but these were WWI era battleships, not the anti-aircraft powerhouses that followed later in the war, with no fleet air cover, and the land-based planes were definitely inferior to the Japanese aircraft. Sure, we might have shot down a few more aircraft, but the fleet losses would have been much much worse.
One of my favorite little-known facts about Pearl Harbor involves CBS News legend Edward R Murrow. He had become a media sensation for his coverage of the London Blitz and had returned to the States a few weeks earlier. FDR invited him to the White House for dinner on the evening of December 7, 1941.
After learning of the attack, Murrow called the White House expecting the invitation to be cancelled. Instead, he was told to join FDR (and others) for drinks and a light supper. Murrow arrived at the appointed hour and was ushered into a meeting with the President, Wild Bill Donovan and others.
According to Murrow’s widow, Janet, the CBS legend returned his hotel suite late in the evening, extremely agitated. He spent the night pacing the floor and chain-smoking. He told his wife that FDR had provided information that he equated to the “story of the century.” But he didn’t know whether to report it or keep it to himself. Ultimately, Murrow (an FDR supporter) decided to keep it to himself and carried the secret to his grave.
His sinus attack made the cocaine necessary - interesting
ping
I was convinced of this 50 years ago. Greater illumination since then has only made it more obvious.
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