Sunday is an actual day anniversary for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. I havent seen the anniversary land on Sunday in quite awhile.

Rest in Peace to all our folks we lost then. Sherrill Park here in Corpus Christi--is named after a CC man who was in the Navy and killed at Pearl.

Tojo SHOULD have listened to Admiral Yammamoto who said something about them waking up a Bear......

Wanted to edit this post to include--not only waking that Bear,but opening can of worms, whooparse and the sleeping giant (Giant i had forgot about)

Thank you Ringo for the reminder !!!!
A day we shall never forget.

My dad was career Navy and I remember moving to Pearl Harbor in 1947, 2 years after the war. We moved into Magru Point, which started out as a Navy hospital, all Quonset huts, but after the war they started turning them into housing for the military. Interesting enuf, there were several Quonset huts still used for the wounded until they shipped out. I do remember them.

They had a dock there that we used to net for crabs and right across the harbor was the Arizona resting place. This was before they built the Memorial, just where the stacks were above the water line. As a kid, we occasionally would take a scenic boat and tour around the Arizona. Even for a 4 year old, it created a dramatic impression. There were several men that had served with my dad previously that went down on the Arizona and it made me aware about the military and how they place their lives on the line everyday.

Maybe that is why I served 22 years in the Army and am still such a staunch pro-military individual.

Done with my rant

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Slim, U.S. Army, Ret.

The Japanese made the mistake of underestimating their enemy. In doing so they awoke "the sleeping giant," with Terrible results. Let's hope we don't make a like mistake.

Shame the "remembering" is getting less and less every year, probably only rate a small mention on the news.

Maybe the whuppin the Japanese got is the reason why they didn't treat us well in Japan. Oh well.

I worked there for three years and was always treated couteously and respectfully. Just don't talk about the war as it is still a source of great shame.

They certainly opened a can of something that day.

Unfortunately, as Yamamoto tried to tell the leadership, we had a vastly bigger can to open once we got in gear.

I was only four when the raid occurred, but I never have to be reminded when the anniversary comes around. To most people today it happened when mastodons and saber-toothed cats roamed the earth.

I'd love to see the Arizona Memorial before I die, but that's wildly unlikely.

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Oh well, what the hell.

I was born in 1943 and my father was in the navy from 1926 to 1956. I have been to the Arizona Memorial and it is something else.

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RudyN
NRA Patron Life Member

I just hope we are not sleeping when today's enemies come calling.

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Hue 68 noli me tangere

it seems we live in a very scary world today

Today's enemy has come calling and many of us are sleeping.

France will be a Islamic state in 20 years.

America better wake up.

Doolittle Tokyo Raiders - Official Web Site of the Raiders

World War II's surviving Doolittle Raiders make final toast | Fox News

Thanks for sharing; you don't see anything in the papers/media about this much anymore.

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Cheers, Charles
SWCA #2442

I was 10 years old when my dad came in my room to tell me the Japs had attacked Pearl Harbor. I didn't even know where Pearl Harbor was. That was in El Sobrante, Ca. Outside Army planes were flying all over & my dad got out his 38-55 Win. Hi wall.

Yamamoto was an enemy that attacked us, therefore we were justified in eliminating him. He planned the raid, but the politicians were responsible for declaring war on us. If he had survived I wonder if he would have been charged with war crimes? Nonetheless, I respect him as a brilliant military leader, utterly capable, competent and sensible. And I'm damn glad we won that war. They might have kicked us off some islands, but that industrial might that Yamamoto had tried to avoid came back to haunt them in a very big way. It might have taken longer and cost many more lives, but even without the atomic bombs the home islands would have been RAZED to the ground. No hard feelings, that's just fact.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

In addition to US industry, part of the sleeping giant yammamota spoke of,
wasn't there something about one behind every blade of grass?

My brother & I "never"forget Dec.7....NEVER!My Dad was there.....every Dec.7 no matter where we were, we would get a call....son ,you know what today is!!
Jim

Presidential Proclamation -- National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, 2014 | The White House

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Have a blessed day ,
Bull

I've read a lot about WWII. One thing still puzzles me is their (apparent) thinking that after Pearl Harbor we would just roll over. Did any of them even look at a map of the USA?

Stars and Stripes had an interesting article about the Japanese view on Pearl Harbor.

To Japan, Pearl Harbor is just another battle in a decades-long war - Military history - Stripes

I thought about the sacrifices' our military and civilians suffered that day, I hope we acquitted ourselves well.

In my family, my Grandpa was already in the Army Air Corp prior to Pearl Harbor.

The big shock is on my wife's side, 8 young men (including her Dad) representing 3 different families, enlisted within a week of
Pearl Harbor AND SERVED IN THE MILITARY AND ALL CAME HOME. after WWII with minimal injuries.
The youngest of the 8 passed away two weeks ago.

From the conversations I had with them, they were all busy with school, farms and being typical teenagers.
A common theme is none had planned to enlist (some were too young even to register for the draft)
the attack on Pearl Harbor so outraged them, there was no doubt they were going to serve.

I do not know what would of been the outcome of WWII if the Japanese had not attacked?

Fast forward 73 years and it is my turn to get shot at!! Rocket attacks occur daily, we just had one as I am typing this.

December 7. It has always made me remember and this morning I remembered to put up THE flag.

My neighbors drive by, stare and generally ask me a few days later why I flew the colors. I just smile and tell them why. They generally get that blank look on their faces and say "Oh yeah, I forgot".

My Dad's favorite Pearl Harbor jokes:

1. You can always tell when it is Dec. 7 because there is a little
"Nip" in the air.
2. Did you hear about the Japanese pilot who went to a bar, got
drunk and bombed Peal Bailey?

I was lucky enogh to visit the Arizona Memorial when I was getting ready to retire. I was at a small joint USAF/Australian base in the desert, so they had to send me to the nearest USAF installation that could handle retirement physicals - Hickam! One week TDY. Also drove around Ford Island. You can still see the bullet holes in lots of the buildings on Hickam.
I also remember something an old friend told me. I had gotten to know George Madis, noted Winchester expert/writer, and he told me how the Japanese ruined his 10th birthday (He was born 7Dec31). He definitely never forgot that!

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Been up since before breakfast

A day never to forget. Rex Barber was credited for the kill of Isoroko Yamamoto in 2003. Previously the kill was shared by Tom Lanphier until bullet path evidence confirmed Barbers report. The kill was ordered by President Roosevelt.
Yamamoto argued against war with The United States. He was correct in all accounts that Japan could not win a war against The United States. But once ordered to attack, his duty was to obey.
April 18th 1943, Yamamoto`s Betty was shot down and he died.
Jim

As I have posted before- my Father in Law had already been called up and was in Mobile, AL watching Sgt. York when the movie was stopped and The Pearl Harbor attack was announced.
By the time of the Tokyo raid, he was stationed in Africa. He met Jimmy Doolittle there as Jimmy was taking the westward route home.

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

Flag out flying today in front of our home, and in front of many of our neighbor's homes. It's a good neighborhood, many of us former military.

Maybe you were there more recently and a civilian. The "Japanese only" signs on the restaurants near the bases at Iwakuni & Yokosuka, getting kicked out of restaurants far from base that didn't have a sign up, the protests telling us to GTFO... yeah, they weren't so nice to us.

It was a stupid war, started by the Japanese to prop up another stupid war.

The war (and the one before it in China) was allegedly fought to "defeat communism". If that were actually the case (instead of mere plunder), then for the Japanese it was an UTTER failure. Instead of defeating communism, they gave it a billion more victims, made China an actual threat to Japan for the first time in hundreds of years, stripped Japan of ALL of its overseas possessions, destroyed the existing power structure, and reduced the populace to literal starvation.

The Japanese fought the war for stupid reasons, and as time went on, in increasingly stupid ways.

Contrary to the delusions of ultra-leftists, neo-Nazis and Japanese ultra-rightwingers, we didn't start the war. But as used to be our custom, we finished it decisively through a combination of implacable resolution and technological innovation. And when it was all over, we didn't go on the sort of rampage of rape and murder to which many others would have thought themselves entitled as revenge.

And though he made mistakes and unwise gambles, he was the best they ever had, and none of his successors could hold a candle to him.

I sometimes wonder what might have happened, if during the Tokyo Army revolt, he'd done as he threatened and turned the guns of the fleet on the mutineers, then assumed power as "Shogun".

They couldn't have come out worse in the end than they actually did.

I noticed in Germany that the war is still very taboo but--when the Germans start trusting you--boy you will hear the stories flow. I spent two days with the survivors of U 181, and a day with a Knights Cross recipient--boy they had stories. The KCR--was Flemish and told me stuf not printed in his book. His favorite story was when he was stationed on the Eastern Front--was picked by his Company Sergeant to stand two duty watches. Instead--he went to a nearby village--took a weeks worth of suger ration--bought two bottles of Vodka,got stinking drunk--slpet through both duty watches--awoke only wwhen his Sergeant Major grabbed him by a boot--and pdragged him to his COs tent and tried to get him court-martialled. This wa pre KC days. He chose to stay--was placed in a Penal Battalion--did his time, and later earned the Knights Cross for KOing at least 17 Russian tanks and killing at least 100 infantry--single-handed--behind enemy lines for 3 days--and wounded 5 times. Not a plug for his book but--its called: The Last Knight of Flanders.....

Me either.I watched as much news on diff stations last night--and somme this morning---and not a "smidgeon of mention." No cable stationplpaying appropriate movies either. Here localy=--on special historical days(pre-cable) they always played an appropriate movie which were mainly showed on Channel 3 here. In late Feb-early March--they would always play: The Alamo. On June 6th--The Longest Day--etc. On PHDay--it woule be usualy: Midway, or something else more appropriate.

Well said and fully agree with every word.I respect a game enemy. To me Yammamoto is the Japanese equal to Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel. I believe that Yammamoto was "Americanized" enough to try to keep from committing war crimes if it were in his power to do so? however,ive been known to be wrong at east once.

I hope im not wrong but--didnt they use a squadron of P-38s to do the Yammamoto kill??

Same thing in Germany with Japanese tourists. Those people were so rude an I almost busted one in the mouth when I was touring Rothenberg o.d.T. Instead--I shoved him out of the way. I almost swiped at another who stole my map of Heidelberg when I was there too. From my experiances in Germany with Germans--well, to be nice--the Germans didnt care much for them but did like Amis for the most part. :-))

Remembering all those who lost their lives on December 7, 1941 and remembering all those whose lives were changed because of the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor and their sacrifices that followed.

Hey Angel,

When were you at Yokosuka? I was homeported there from 1969 till 1973. No signs during my time there. Every Japanese person I had dealings with was fine. Dean

"....the Japanese opened a can of worms''. Yeah, and Hitler compounded this stupidity by declaring war on us on Dec. 11th-big mistake, Adolf!

Speaking about the ETO I'd like to highly recommend a movie I saw on Netflix Sat. night: Fortress.

For those out there who endlessly admire the B-17 Flying Fortress, are WWII buffs, or just enjoy good war movies, you won't want to miss this one.

Most of this relatively low budget movie-only about $2 million to make-is made possible by really spectacular special effects;the air combat, scenes of scores of Fortresses taking off, flying, landing, aerial scenes of the N. African bomber base, the bomb run, and even one of a damaged Fort flying low over Rome's Colosseum!

And the storyline doesn't lag between the missions-it's basically about a green replacement co-pilot being rejected but gradually accepted by his crew mates interspersed with scenes of getting drunk, boredom, sitting around sweating in the desert's 105 degree heat.

Off and on 82, 83. I went over with a recon squadron and we would go to Yoko to catch a ride on the Midway sometimes. One time we got dumped off by the Midway at Sasebo. Greeted by a flotilla of small craft telling us to GTFO as we approached. Like I wanted to be there.

Some of the old timers on the Midway told us it wasn't always that way. But maybe as the Japanese economic strength picked up, so did their arrogance??? Not too much later the head of Sony was talking about "the hollowing of America". Yeah, they were feeling their oats, but how are they doing now? We have our ups and downs over here, but their economy has been weak leg for a loooong time. They just went into another recession. Be lucky if they don't end up in a depression on one of their recessions du jour.

I was in Yokuska naval hospital in 1952 and stationed at Atsugi NAS with the 1sr MAW in 1957,58 and 59. Don't remember any signs and never had a bad word said to me. Just my experience sorry you had bad experiences,.

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Semper Fi until I die

He had the real picture. He traveled the US in several capacities. Because the US didn't subscribe to Bushido, they assumed we were weak willed and cowardly and would give up easily. Had our aircraft carriers been at Pearl Harbor at the time of the attack, we would have been in dire straits but would have recovered in time. Maybe they would even have been attacked on our West coast, but it didn't happen that way.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

My neighbor and my music teacher were there. My neighbor was close to town which was a safer place to be but still terrifying and dangerous. My music teacher was at Wheeler Field. They ran out of the barracks that were being strafed and ducked down in a ditch. He said when a plane banked he could see the pilot plain as day.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

My hat is off to all who fought and died in WW2. In fact to all who have
fought for freedom in any war.

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Goose
I'm still standing.

PC incorrect as it may be, [piss on PC] "Slap the Jap right off the Map!". Nick

In order to understand that, you need to understand who was running the country when the decision was made to attack the United States.

While Japan (like Iran today) was superficially a "democracy", it was in fact run in large part by the military, the Army in particular. Because of a peculiarity of the Japanese constitution, the Army could either collapse any government, or cause it to never be formed, merely by refusing to nominate an Army minister, who had to be an active duty officer. Between that, repressive "peace preservation" laws and an endless series of assassinations and attempted assassinations, civilian rule was an illusion.

While the Navy was ultra-conservative, it was the Army which combined ultra-conservatism, obscurantism and general ignorance of the world. Most Army men never traveled farther than Manchuria. Their view of the world was informed almost entirely by obscurantist, ultra-rightwing, racialist propaganda. Many of them belonged to radical "patriotic" associations with excruciatingly obtuse "philosophies", eerily reminiscent of al Qaeda and ISIS.

Army men ran the country. They were pathetically ignorant of the outside world and overweeningly arrogant. Even though they should have known better, the Navy went along because after the Army decided it wasn't leaving China no matter what, that meant that with the oil embargo, the IJN would have ceased to function without the oil of the Dutch East Indies as a substitute.

Stupid leaders => stupid ideas => stupid policies => stupid war

"There is a gun (or rifle) behind every blade of grass". They knew the difficulty of invading our country. They did try to hit our west coast by taking some of the Aleutians and working down, that was a real threat but was stopped. Also the Japanese sent 'fire balloons' over the northwest and Canada that managed to kill some people, including a bunch of school children and a teacher on an outing. The damage they did was not reported during the war.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

The P-38s were the only plane for the job in that theater. For one thing, they had the range and Bouganville was with that range. Where his plane crashed is now a tourist attraction. It was in the deep jungle but they cut a road and it's about an hour long trip. He was hit in the shoulder and the jaw with .50 cal., the jaw wound probably being the fatal one. No matter because his plane was shot down. Somebody has the seat he sat in, too. As predicted this was a MAJOR blow to Japanese moral.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

In about 10 years time the Japanese created a cadre of fanatic officers, much like the Hitler youth grew into soldiers and leaders. in the late 20's/early thirties, the young Japanese were saying, "We are friends now, but one day, we fight!"

Yes we did 'force' Japan into attacking us by embargoing their oil. But everybody knew what they wanted that oil for, if fact they were already doing it.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

He knew the best way to win would be to draw the US fleet into a major ship on ship battle where the Japanese did have formidable power. Our naval leaders never took the bait. We don't hear about Nimitz, Spruance and Halsey as much as Patton, MacArthur and Bradley. And Arleigh Burke. He didn't have a class of Aegis missile destroyers named after him for no good reason.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

I was watching the news tonight. The channel I had it on did two stories, one of which being the BRONCOS GAME, before any coverage about Pearl Harbor. Man was I angry.

Without any effort, I could probably name five Japanese admirals, five Japanese aces, or five Japanese destroyers.

I'm not sure I could name a single current football player...

Thanks for mentioning this, my dad's father who I am named after was in the Navy, and fought in China before WWII. He saw some action and came back a changed man who eventually drank himself to death. He was never treated with the same respect the WWII veterans got. He was repeatedly laid off from jobs and passed over to make room for the returning hero's.

He did what he was told to do, Ed.

One of my favorite historical subjects it the era of the Chinese warlords and the "China sailors" and "China Marines".

I've read the book "The Sand Pebbles" and seen the movie. It's an interesting subject when everything and everyone there was in flux, the Chinese, the Japanese and the Western powers alike.