I remember my mother telling me she heard as everyone was leaving church that morning - it was such a shock.
These men of that generation...it brings to mind one of my favorite quotes, yet bittersweet and sad from Tales of The South Pacific by James Michener:
"They will live a long time, these men of the South Pacific. They had an American quality. They, like their victories, will be remembered as long as our generation lives. After that, like the men of the Confederacy, they will become strangers. Longer and longer shadows will obscure them, until their Guadalcanal sounds distant on the ear like Shiloh and Valley Forge."
Yet, here we are.
Only 23 years out from 9/11, and already it is sounding more distant on our ear.
You would think we had learned something from Pearl Harbor.
December 7, 1941. My mother’s 21st birthday. She never forgave the “Japs” for the attack.
Thank you for this post. I have been looking for an article on Pearl Harbor today on any of the MSM websites. Finally found one near the bottom of Fox News.
Hardly anyone thinks of this anymore and it’s such a pity. I never knew anyone that experienced PH but I had a 21 year old uncle that was killed on the USS Boise during the naval battles around Guadalcanal in 1942. He was a Gunners Mate 2nd class, I’m told. God bless them all.
Pearl Harbor Minute By Minute
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Joh2BXPsrXs&list=PLsIk0qF0R1j6ydMvoUBKj_WrnP4PtBlfk
Less killed at Pearl Harbor than on 9-11. Yet the cube in Mecca is still standing. It should have been radioactive rubble for the next thousand years.
I’ve been to pearl Harbor in 1969. USAF.
Lots of war movies on today. One of my favorites is TASK FORCE with Gary Cooper, about the beginning of the aircraft carriers.
Filmed in Black and White it reverts to color the last thirty minutes when you see the actual horrors of the Kamakazi attack on the USS Franklin.
And now everybody’s driving Toyotas and Hondas.
Good morning, FRiends, I’m here at Pearl Harbor and will be reporting live from the national observance later this morning. Unfortunately my friend Lou Conter, last survivor of the USS Arizona, aged 102, was unable to make the trip as he hoped, but more than two dozen of his family and friends are here and will be at the solemn and somber ceremonies this a.m.
My Grandfather was in Panama.