Visited Pearl Harbor this summer, fulfilling one of the items on my bucket list. Wish I had gone years earlier; strangely enough, I spent 21 years in the Air Force and never came close to the islands, not even for a TDY. One of my good friends was assigned to Hickam AFB twice; obviously, I made some enemies at the Air Force Personnel Center.
All Americans should make the trip to Pearl Harbor. Regardless of background, you come away with a new appreciation of just how fragile and fleeting our freedom would be without the men and women who wear the nation’s uniform. The world changed forever on that Sunday morning in December 75 years ago, and many of those who fought back that morning were only 19 or 20 years old, Naval reservists who had been called into service for only a short duration.
Most were unaware that their previous CINCPAC, Admiral Richardson, had lobbied vigorously for a return of the fleet to San Diego, feeling it was too exposed in Hawaii. For his efforts, Richardson was fired, and the inevitable march towards military disaster began. The armed forces were, of course, much smaller in 1941. To boost enlistments, the Navy allowed brothers to enlist and serve together. There were more than 30 sets of brothers on the Arizona alone; 23 died when the battleship blew up, in the opening moments of the battle.
During my travels around Oahu, I visited Bellows Air Force Station, which is now a military recreation area. Outside the Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) equipment rental facility, there is a small marble tablet honoring three Army Air Corps pilots who drove to Bellows on December 7, 1941, and tried to get airborne in their P-40s to challenge the Japanese. One was killed on the ground; another was shot down and had to swim back to shore; the third, Lt George Whiteman, was hit by a burst from a Zero just as he became airborne; he tried to make an emergency landing on the beach but crashed and burned to death in the cockpit.
His mother received word of his loss at the family home in Missouri later that evening. Amazingly, she agreed to meet with a local reporter and told him she understood why her son died and reminded him that many more families would have to make the same sacrifice to win the war.
It was a different time, and we were different people. The few remaining survivors, along with those who have passed on, are deserving of our eternal thanks and gratitude. They saved western civilization, and on many days, I believe we are unworthy of their sacrifice.
Visited Pearl Harbor this summer
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Is oil still bubbling up to the surface from the USS Arizona?
35 years ago an oil droplet would bubble up to the surface every 4-5 minutes,leaving a sheen on the water surface.
Wife and I spent a week in Hawaii about five years ago. The Missouri had just come out of dry dock with fresh paint and looked fantastic.
We took the Navy launch out to the Arizona Memorial, accompanied by a couple dozen Japanese tourists.
As we approached the memorial, I caught a whiff of N6 oil, bubbling up from the BB. Someone said she had gone down with a full bunker, about two million gallons.