Posted on 12/04/2008 6:24:48 PM PST by Dubya
Overview and Special Image Selection
The 7 December 1941 Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor was one of the great defining moments in history. A single carefully-planned and well-executed stroke removed the United States Navy's battleship force as a possible threat to the Japanese Empire's southward expansion. America, unprepared and now considerably weakened, was abruptly brought into the Second World War as a full combatant.
(Excerpt) Read more at history.navy.mil ...
“When this war is over, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell.” - Admiral Bill Halsey (December 7, 1941)
“A single carefully-planned and well-executed stroke removed the United States Navy’s battleship force as a possible threat to the Japanese Empire’s southward expansion.”
Be that as it may the Jap failure to send over waves untill the harbor and its contents, ie; ships, repair bays and drydocks etc were destroyed, sealed their fate. And Midway wasn’t very far off in the future at that.
But, but ... what was the root cause for this desperate “plea for help”?
History.navy.mil is one of the slowest, maddening websites on Earth.
I own the CD collection “Band of Brothers”, and every year I take Dec. 7th off and watch the entire set. I know this has nothing to do with Pearl Harbor, just my personal observation of the day, devoted to WWII and the “Greatest Generation”.
I wish someone had put together a film project as strong and memorable as “Band of Brothers” devoted to the war in the Pacific.
Lost an uncle (never knew him, I was born in 1946) on Iwa Jima (Marines).
Later in the war, the ship was hit by a torpedo and the bow
was blown off between turrets one and two.
This great crew saved the ship by backing it onto an atoll.
They made a temporary bow out of scrap and palm tree logs.
This allowed the ship to go at half speed to Australia where a
new bow was fabricated.
Being an old hand he was transferred to a new DE, the USS Laws and served on it until the war was won.
Popeye vs. the Japanese 1942, you won’t see this on tv in these politically correct times.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymQoktCc-NM
Our destroyer fleet was largely supported by the antiquated four stackers built during WWI.
The Battleship vs. Aircraft Carrier argument ended on December 7, 1941 by the Imperial Empire of Japan. If any thing good come of the Washington Treaty the USN had to develop an Naval Avation program and devote a certain interest to submarine tactics and developnent.
With out Naval Air and submarines the good ol' US of A would have been in for a long haul.
In this aerial photo taken by the Japanese, you can see the oil pouring out of the battleships Oklahoma, West Virginia, Arizona, and Nevada and the repair ship Vestal, with the West Virginia and Oklahoma already showing signs of capsizing due to their torpedo hits. The crew of the West Virginia managed to counter-flood and sink the ship on an even keel, but the Oklahoma was so severely mauled that she capsized before any countermeasures could be put into place.
Minutes after this photo was taken, a horizontal bomber dropped a 1,760-pound bomb (actually a finned naval artillery shell) into the forward ammunition magazine of the Arizona, ripping her apart and sending her down with 1,177 of her crew.
I heard quite a while ago that they were doing working on such project, based in part on E.B. Sledge's "With the Old Breed", but hadn't heard of any progress on it. Apparently, it's coming out in 2009!
Yes, we should have sat down and tried to understand the root causes of the Japanese’ desperate needs and the economic reasons for their understandable reaction.And after Dec 7th , we should have dealt with their actions, not by violence, but by taking them to court with the due process and legal protections they deserved.
The Washington Naval Treaty actually was absolutely brilliant.
The post WWI American public had little appetite for expanding the Navy to compete with the Japanese and thanks to espionage we found out just how little of a fleet the Japanese would accept without walking out
The result was fighting the Pacific War in the 40's instead of the 20's with the huge advantage of swamping the Japanese with more capable aircraft.
also, time for me to read this one again:
Autumn 1942 — Guadalcanal
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a39f47141497d.htm
The destroyers had nothing more than their 5-inch guns and their torpedos. The carrier's air arm was either unarmed or carrying bombs specified for shore bombardment.
Midget ships against the biggest of the big. Little did the Japanese know that they were manned by giants.
Amen!
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