December 7, 1941 PEARL HARBOR ATTACKED!! Remember and never forget!

[bcannon]

I looked for a thread for this and the last one was by TriggerTime and thought I'd rattle the cages. We lost a lot of good people and personal that day, brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, Grandfathers and Grandmothers, uncles and aunts, cousins and friends. Please take a moment and remember, pray for the fallen and thank God for the survivors, every red blooded American owes them that and more... 80 years to the day..

 

[rob63]

January?

 

[bcannon]

January?

Fixed, dumbass attack..

 

[rob63]

Fixed, dumbass attack..

It happens to all of us.

 

[KellyinAvon]

Remember Pearl Harbor

 

[jwamplerusa]

Truly the greatest generation! They saved the world from some of the most evil and corrupt governments to ever grace the Earth.

We and our children are not under the lash, and do not speak German and / or Japanese, because the men and women of this nation decided they WERE NOT going to see freedom extinguished from this planet.

How many other Nations can say that they not only fought for their freedom, but for the freedom of others? How many others have armed their allies, both dear and by circumstance, to overcome evil?

This is the history, and the history of Korea, that our most recent generations were simply not well educated on.

I sincerely hope their ignorance does not portend the past repeating itself in the near future.

 

[Bennettjh]

 

[HoughMade]

Just finished "Pearl Harbor: A Novel of December 8th" by Newt Gingerich and William Forstchen. It lays out, in lurid detail, just how devastating a 3rd wave could have been. It's a kind of "alternative history" story. Hint, it is posited that a different Japanese Admiral leading the attack would have ordered a 3rd wave and that would have been horrendous.

The book also helps explain the Japanese mindset. I think what the Japanese, and Hitler, for that matter, missed is 2 things. First, coming from totalitarian perspectives, they underestimated how much public opinion drives decisions. They both believed that a single destructive attack would get their enemies to "sue for peace". The Japanese believed this about Pearl Harbor. Hitler believed this about the Blitz, Operation Barbarosa and the battle of the Bulge. He just didn't learn. They both believed that if the blow was decisive enough, the political leadership would make some sort of calm and collected decision to get out while the getting was good. That midset fits dictatorships and monarchies as it doesn't really matter what attitude the people have. The second issue was that the Japanese underestimated the power of rage. America really didn't want to go to war..until attacked. The Japanese actually believed that the politicians would simply "be logical" and see no advantage in engaging. On the contrary, and it seems obvious now, all that did was enrage the entire populace, cause the war to be seen as a moral cause, not just foreign affairs, and cause America's full engagement in total war on multiple fronts.

 

[Leadeye]

There is a scene near the end of Band of Brothers where a soldier screams out at the huge columns of German prisoners marching by, "What were you thinking? You're still using horses."

Axis leadership grossly underestimated America, the land of an escort aircraft carrier every week from Kaiser shipyards, and a B-24 every hour out of Ford's Willow run plant. More aluminum than all the rest of the world combined, and still enough energy to create the most destructive weapons ever seen by man.

Horribly served by their dictatorial leadership, the people of Germany and Japan were lucky to be fighting a nation like America or they might have ended up like Carthage. A nation and people whose history we really only know from their conquerors.

 

[actaeon277]

This is a good documentary

 

[88E30M50]

It is amazing how the attack on Pearl Harbor instantly changed the mindset of most Americans. This country turned on a dime and suddenly companies that never produced a weapon were building them by the thousands. The M1 Carbine, Garand and 1911s were being built, and built well, by companies that were making business, farming and entertainment equipment months before.

All put in motion by one poorly thought through attack.

 

[actaeon277]

It is amazing how the attack on Pearl Harbor instantly changed the mindset of most Americans. This country turned on a dime and suddenly companies that never produced a weapon were building them by the thousands. The M1 Carbine, Garand and 1911s were being built, and built well, by companies that were making business, farming and entertainment equipment months before.

All put in motion by one poorly thought through attack.

I think it was a well thought out attack.
The problem is, they thought Americans would knuckle under.
That didn't happen.

 

[88E30M50]

I think it was a well thought out attack.
The problem is, they thought Americans would knuckle under.
That didn't happen.

That was the poorly thought through part. But, had they focused less on the old battleships and more on the port facilities, they would have delayed the American steamroller by a long while.

 

[actaeon277]

That was the poorly thought through part. But, had they focused less on the old battleships and more on the port facilities, they would have delayed the American steamroller by a long while.

It's hard to put yourself in someone else's head, from a different nation.

 

[xwing]

Just finished "Pearl Harbor: A Novel of December 8th" by Newt Gingerich and William Forstchen. It lays out, in lurid detail, just how devastating a 3rd wave could have been. It's a kind of "alternative history" story. Hint, it is posited that a different Japanese Admiral leading the attack would have ordered a 3rd wave and that would have been horrendous.

Forstchen and Gingerich have a few good collaborations. I can't believe they never wrote a sequel to "1945", since it ended on a cliffhanger.

 

[actaeon277]

The Pearl Harbor Memorial Is Littered with Errors. This Navy Vet Is Trying to Get Them Fixed.

Mistakes in captions and photos at the national park's visitor center mar the experience for visitors, historians and history buffs say.

www.military.com

 

[Bugzilla]

And the Roosevelt conspiracies of having the aircraft carriers out of port during the attack.

 

[Thor]

It's almost like we should have looked at the start of the Japanese Russian war and taken a note when the Japs sailed into Port Arthur showing Russian lights and attacked their fleet without warning and without a declaration of war...someone should have taken a note.

View attachment DSCF2058.JPG

 

[Dean C.]

The atom bombs were merciful

 

[oze]

The atom bombs were merciful

I can't make out your attachment, but agree with your words. I highly recommend the book "Hell to Pay: Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan, 1945-1947", by D. M. Giangreco

It's a rigorously-researched book with dozens of pages of cited sources, American, Russian and, significantly, Japanese.

American and Japanese casuality estimates differed, but both sides estimated American casualties would exceed 1,000,000. Good chance that my father, who turned 18 in 1945, would have been one of those bodies littering the Tokyo Plain.

American estimates of Japanese casualties were orders of magnitude higher, but the Japanese estimates of their own casualties were beyond my comprehension: 20,000,000. But, as the author states, what is just as chilling is the fact that the Japanese were willing to accept this as they planned their defense of the Home Islands.


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