Dec. 7 1941

[tsturm]

Any one but me remember?

R.I.P. Uncle Bob.

[Micahbigsur@msn.com]

Yes my dad was in college, after Pearl harbor he volunteered and became a 90 day wonder navy officer and was a watch officer on a DE in the middle of the Pacific 4 months later. I salute the greatest generation! (A long way from his birth place Kansas!)

[localboy]

Obviously, I was not around. But my mom and grandparents all were. They lived about 10 miles away from Pearl, in Kapahulu, outside Waikiki at the base of Diamond Head. Growing up, my mother told us how they remember hearing the explosions and seeing the dark, black smoke. Seeing the attack aircraft flying low over their house. She vividly described the large red dot under the wings.

She also told us all about the Marshall Law that followed. I still have her ID from that time; Territory of Hawai'i, Marshall Law ID. Cardboard, signed by her with her maiden name and it described how all were required to have it on their person, that any military or law enforcement could demand it at any time and other "rules" for Marshall Law. Can you imagine that NOW? People would bitch and whine.

She told us of how the army set up "barbed" concertina wire, sand bags with heavy guns on Waikiki beach. Remembered how a Japanese man, who lived down the street from their home, was arrested, ostensibly for being a spy...but who knows. To the day she died she would not eat SPAM; they had eaten so much of it during Marshal Law. She could no longer stomach it.

She was 20.

My father was younger than my mom and grew up on Kaua'i. In 1941 he was only 15. He never spoke about the attack. I think it's because he was younger and on a separate island 90 miles away, he was somewhat insulated. But he was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1945, when he was 19.

[Hunkydory]

On a personal level, my dad joined the Marines in Aug 1941, just three months after turning 17. He had just got out of boot camp & had been sent to the 8th Regiment of the 2nd Marine Division as a BAR rifleman at Camp Elliot, San Diego, Calif. by Dec 7 1941. Just under a month later his unit become the first American expeditionary force of WW 11, with the Convoy leaving to Samoa on Jan 6, 1942. Not long after that he was on Guadalcanal. Over the years starting when I was very young, he shared many of his war time experiences & I was fortunate to inherent the book “Follow Me”, the history of the 2nd Marine Division during WW 11 from him. So yes, I too along with diminishing others well know the significance of this day in 1941 & how that generation reacted to it.

[thataway]

Those of us in Pensacola remember--unfortunately yesterday was a very sad day, with an attack on our values by a Saudi national (2nd Lt in the Saudi Army), who was training for 2 years at NAS Pensacola. The memorial which is usually held at The National Naval Air Museum Pensacola was canceled. Until about 5 years ago, one of our group was a naval aviator stationed at Pearl Harbor on Dec 7, 1941. He grabbed the .30 cal machine gun out of his plane (SBD Dauntless, off the Lexington, which was at sea) and shot at the incoming Zero's . The plane was undergoing maintenance and not able to fly.

Each Dec 7, we would go to the memorial, and after hoist him up into one of the Dauntless which he had flow in during WWII. (It had been shot up, gone to NTC, Great Lakes, and crashed into the water there, and later recovered, and restored.) After our group would go to the officer's club for lunch. Jim died at the age 96 in 2014. But his memory lingers. I don't know if we still have any Pearl Harbor survivors left in Pensacola or not; I suspect they have all passed on.

My first wife's father was a West Point graduate, and stationed at Schofield Barracks, Honolulu (Commander Signal Corp detachment) on Dec 7, 1941. He left home, and didn't return for 3 days. His daughter remembers the planes flying near their home in Kahala. When I met him, he was a General, commander of the Hawaiian National Guard.

I was sitting on a window seat in a company house in Chino, Ca., (My father was the assistant chief operator at the Edison Co. Substation there.) watching a Basque sheep herder drive his herd past. One of my class mates at Pomona College was the nephew of that sheep herder, and was with him at that time...Our lives were immediately impacted.

[dotnmarty]

I remember listening to this on our big Zenith console with a glowing tube eye. I was 5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFzjRjd_pz0

[hardee]

My Father in law was a new Navy Pharmacists Mate and had recently left the West Coast heading for Hawaii on Dec 7. He wound up spending the next 4 years in the Pacific on a ship transporting wounded to New Zealand and recovered military back to the Pacific theater for continued service. He passed away in 2017, and was always my hero.

Harvey
SleepyC

[Marco Flamingo]

My neighbor showed me a telegram the other day that his mother received informing her that her husband (his dad) was killed during the attack on Pearl Harbor. He had a second telegram that she received a week later correcting the mistake. His father hadn't been on board at the time and was not injured.

Mark

[robhwa]

I am not a veteran (I was in the Peace Corps), but I happily witnessed a remarkable event at Baltimore airport recently. We were flying back to Seattle on Alaska, and a group of people in Revolutionary war dress arrived at our gate and told us that some American heroes would be coming to tour Baltimore and Washington, DC. We formed around the gate and greeted each of the 20 or so veterans that exited last, including 3 WWII veterans. It was quite moving, and the smiles of the veterans were contagious.

As a teenager, my own father was, in his own words, "dragged kicking and screaming" into the Pacific for WWII from the family farm in West Virginia. After he served, including in the Japan Occupation, he realized that there was a larger world out there they he might not have had the insight to see otherwise. He left the poverty of where he was born, and made a fantastic life for his family that included multiple, multi-month camping trips around the US and into Canada. He retired from Aberdeen Proving Ground and spent the rest of his life as a waterman on the Chesapeake Bay. We were never lacking for seafood. He died mending his crabbing lines and planning the next year's crabbing season.

In my 30+ years as a professor at the Univ. Washington, I have had the privilege of teaching many students in my classes. Some veterans identified themselves, some didn't, but it was often clear that those somewhat older, generally more serious, and typically better, students had an earlier challenge of military service, and it likely changed their lives for the better too. I have also had the opportunity to live in many countries where security is nonexistent, and life incredibly hard. Sometimes the police are the criminals. Makes me appreciate what I do have, and I really appreciate Veteran's service that makes our country so special.

[T.R. Bauer]

My Uncle Skip died in Germany as a pilot in WWII....I remember, but not the day he died as I wasn't around then. What I do remember is my dad still cries on the day the letter arrived home in South Dakota....And on December 7th. He just missed the cut for the war effort and he feels guilty about it...and he's over 90 if you're wondering. I'm not going to have him around too much longer as his health isn't so great...

[localboy]

Enjoy every minute. I miss my parents...