It's December 7th...............

[JimB.]

Pearl Harbor Day.

If you know a WW2 Veteran, remember to thank them today for what they have done for us all.................

 

[JennyMominRI]

Pearl Harbor Day.

If you know a WW2 Veteran, remember to thank them today for what they have done for us all.................

I always try to recognize Pearl Harbor Day.I don't know any survivors though

 

[SamRoc]

I was just going to post this, that today in 1941, 2403 Americans were killed in Pearl Harbor in the attack by the Japanese. My three Uncles are WW2 Veterans, and our family is very proud of them.

 

[Deb in IA]

And if any of you get a chance to go to Hawaii on vacation, take a 1/2 day and go to the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor.


It is a beautiful memorial, and a very moving experience. The names of all who died onboard that day are inscribed along one wall of the white structure that spans the ship. And the continuing rise of the oil droplets is so haunting . . .

 

[momsgoofy]

I totally agree!!! Thank a Vet!!!

I met my first Pearl Harbor survivor last week while I was waiting for my dad (also a vet, Korea, Vietnam) to come out of surgery. One elderly gentleman was alone as his wife had gone into ICU to see her sister and he started talking to me. I'm a natural chatty cathy so I spoke with him. In the midst of our conversation he nonchalantly said, he was on the USS Roosevelt when the bomb dropped on it. I know my mouth literally dropped as I listened to him tell me how he was in the galley talking with the cooks and kaboom! It threw him against the stoves. He told me he spent many months in the Great Lakes Navy Hospital where the docs told him he'd never walk again. Buddy, were they wrong!! He's still walking today...just a little slower he said. He told me about the plates in his foot and head and how the foot is connected with all these wires...told me he's one of the lucky ones, not like his buddies who are still at the bottom of the Pacific ocean.

Wow! Once I'd listened to his memories, which will stay with me forever, I looked at him and with the loudest voice I could muster, told him "thank you...thank you for serving your country to keep us safe. It is an honor to meet you sir." He just sat there...like he didn't know what to say to me...perhaps not many people say that to him...and they should!!!

The next day when Dad was recovered enough to listen I told him...he said,"Hon', you meet a real hero yesterday." And I know that Dad was right!!

So, thank a vet...today and anyday...let them know their efforts are appreciated!

 

[Tink33]

USS Arizona Memorial

Wall of Honor

They have a special service today at the Pearl Harbor memorial.

 

[nativetxn]

My father was a WWII vet but he wasn't at Pearl Harbor during the attack. I wish that Americans remembered this terrible day as well as they remember 9/11.

Bless our veterans.

Katholyn

 

[rockin_rep]

I agree!

Thank a vet, every chance you get!

God bless all our service people in the military!!!

God bless AMERICA!

 

[RoyalCanadian]

We were attacked too. Our troops were defending the British colony of Hong Kong in December 1941 when the Japanese attacked on Dec. 8th.

Although history books will show that it was on December 8th that the Japanese launched their attacks against British outposts such as Singapore and Hong Kong, some of these attacks actually happened before the Dec. 7th attacks on Pearl Harbour - the International Date Line can be a confusing player in world history, but not a factor in the series of coordinated attacks launched by the Japanese in December 1941.

On December 24, the Japanese overran a makeshift hospital in Hong Kong, assaulting and murdering nurses and bayoneting wounded Canadian soldiers in their beds. After the colony surrendered on December 25, the cruelty would continue. For more than three and a half years, the Canadian POWs were imprisoned in Hong Kong and Japan in the foulest of conditions and had to endure brutal treatment and near-starvation. In the filthy, primitive POW quarters in Northern Japan, they would often work 12 hours a day in mines or on the docks in the cold, subsisting on rations of 800 calories a day. Many did not survive. In all, more than 550 of the 1,975 Canadians who sailed from Vancouver in October 1941 never returned.

In a lovely bit of irony, the Japanese Marines who attacked the Canadians holding Hong Kong were forced to withdraw from their intended future battle plans after the mauling they received from a bunch of Canadians who had nothing to lose.

We will remember them.

 

[momsgoofy]

We were attacked too. Our troops were defending the British colony of Hong Kong in December 1941 when the Japanese attacked on Dec. 8th.

Although history books will show that it was on December 8th that the Japanese launched their attacks against British outposts such as Singapore and Hong Kong, some of these attacks actually happened before the Dec. 7th attacks on Pearl Harbour - the International Date Line can be a confusing player in world history, but not a factor in the series of coordinated attacks launched by the Japanese in December 1941.

On December 24, the Japanese overran a makeshift hospital in Hong Kong, assaulting and murdering nurses and bayoneting wounded Canadian soldiers in their beds. After the colony surrendered on December 25, the cruelty would continue. For more than three and a half years, the Canadian POWs were imprisoned in Hong Kong and Japan in the foulest of conditions and had to endure brutal treatment and near-starvation. In the filthy, primitive POW quarters in Northern Japan, they would often work 12 hours a day in mines or on the docks in the cold, subsisting on rations of 800 calories a day. Many did not survive. In all, more than 550 of the 1,975 Canadians who sailed from Vancouver in October 1941 never returned.

In a lovely bit of irony, the Japanese Marines who attacked the Canadians holding Hong Kong were forced to withdraw from their intended future battle plans after the mauling they received from a bunch of Canadians who had nothing to lose.

We will remember them.

WOW!!!

Thank you for the history lesson! I had no idea this part of the war happened...they just don't teach that in the classrooms here.

 

[Dan Murphy]

Thanks.

 

[RoyalCanadian]

WOW!!!

Thank you for the history lesson! I had no idea this part of the war happened...they just don't teach that in the classrooms here.

In one of my history books (now packed up -- we're moving on Dec. 15th) it shows a timetable of the coordinated Japanese attacks against Allied targets using Greenwich Mean Time as the time of reference. The Japanese knew what they were doing as the attacks came within hours of each other.

I'm not surprised that the Canadian defence of Hong Kong isn't taught much in the United States -- I don't think it gets much coverage in Canada either. Admittedly, we weren't the only ones there -- two Canadian battalions fought alongside Indian Regiments, Hong Kong volunteers, and British regiments. (please forgive my sins of omission as I cannot fully remember all the Regiments who were there.)

I had some hopes that the movie "Pearl Harbor" would actually reference these coordinated attacks -- my hopes turned out to be far too high. That movie was an unfortunate attempt at chronicling an important time in American and world history and it failed by trying to be far too much. The movie tried to be "An American Eagle in the RAF", "Tora, Tora, Tora" and "Thirty Seconds over Tokyo" all in one. In doing so Michael Bay made atrocious historical errors and oversights that any amateur historian with only a few choice books in their personal library and access to the Internet could catch.

I'm a Lutheran minister -- I've been to the site of Christ's birth in Bethlehem. I've laid my hands upon the stone in the tomb in Jerusalem. I've been to the home where Martin Luther was born and the home just around the corner where he died. Still, I have been in no place quite so holy as the memorials, cenotaphs, cemeteries, chapels and museums which pay tribute to the men and women who paid the ultimate sacrifice in defence of their country.

I simply must visit Pearl Harbor one day, and I will be glad to tell my daughter all about the brave men and women who were there on Dec. 7, 1941 as well as the men and women who found themselves in Hong Kong that day and could only wish they were back in Canada.