Today is Dec 7th

[GunnyGene]

So thought y'all history buffs would enjoy some very detailed history of this "Day of Infamy".

My father left Pearl on the 5th, aboard CA-34 (USS Astoria) as part of the Pineapple Fleet. Here's the history of the ship with many pics of the ship, it's crew and battles, Pearl and subsequent payback up until the ship was sunk during the battle of Savo Island (Iron Bottom Sound) by the Japanese.

A lot of detailed history on the site, so plan on spending some considerable time exploring if it interest you. It's all presented in chronological order, beginning in 1930 and continuing thru early Aug, 1942.

https://ussastoria.org/Home.php

One of the 1.1" anti-aircraft mounts:

[Cofisher]

Thanks, Gene. You have a pretty large group of us interested in this kind of history.

[Travlin]

I worked on a woman's home and her husband had been in the army in Pearl Harbor. She had a spent slug form a Jap plane that had skidded to a stop rite at her front door. This was in the 1990's that I talked to her.

[Sir Henry]

My father-in-law’s neighbor was at the Pearl. He didn’t talk about it much except with my f-i-l who was also a Navy Vet. Finally when they were in their 90’s they would talk to me. They recognized me as a fellow combat vet and would talk to me even though they wouldn’t talk to their wives and children about it.

[rickhem]

Some Pearl Harbor thoughts.....

My first trip to Hawaii was in the early 1980s when I was in my very early 20s. My buddy and I spent the day at Pearl Harbor, and around Hickam Field, even did a ship tour of a sub tender that day. What I remembered is that there were a bunch of guys in tan colored shirts and those hats like American Legion guys wear. They seemed to be tour guides, and we listened to them a bit, but never really spent much time with them. They had a museum with lots of artifacts and personal belongings from guys on the various ships, and that was interesting. We got a ticket for the movie and ride out to the Arizona, but missed it because we were in the museum, so we went with a later tour. The site was run by the park service, but the trip to the Arizona and back were run by the US Navy. On that trip, we went mostly because it was something we felt was a must-see on a trip to Hawaii.

Next time was on my honeymoon in 1987. By then I realized that those guys in the tan shirts were Pearl Harbor Survivors. I wasn't going to miss that opportunity this time. We got into a group with a guy named Richard Fiske, who was later seen on a lot of the television shows about that day. If I remember correctly, he was on the West Virginia. That ship rolled over and capsized after getting hit that day. He talked about how for days and weeks, they would hear knocking and would cut through the hull in different places to free those trapped inside. One tale was of a few guys trapped and knocking, but in an area difficult to access. They heard knocking up until around Christmas and then it stopped. When they did eventually penetrate the hull there, they recovered the bodies of guys that survived an additional two weeks trapped, knocking back and forth, waiting rescue that didn't come in time. Seriously puts a different take on things when a guy that was there tells you about that. We tend to think of it as "that day", but for those there, it was much longer dealing with the aftermath. The layout of the site was pretty much the same as I remembered, and we spent the day there again, much of it with those tan shirts. There's nothing like having a guy point at Ford Island and tell you what was where, and where it went, and when this one rolled over and such. I'm truly glad that we spent that day there.

Went back on another trip to Hawaii in 2021, and the site is completely different. Those tan shirts are all now gone to their rewards, and they have a lot of waist-high storyboard signs along the water that tell the story of that day, and I appreciate that they made the effort to put them there, but they don't offer the connection that a survivor provided. It felt so much more like any other tourist attraction. Previously, there was a kind of a silent reverence that people had while there. Hard to explain, but very noticeable and in stark contrast to what I experienced on this last visit. They still show the movie before the boat ride to the Arizona, but it seems like the gift shop and the snack bar are now the main attractions. The little museum is still there, and it had a few things that I remember seeing, but the crowds were different and I honestly didn't enjoy that visit as much. We had my dad there, and he's an ex-Navy guy, wore a ball cap from his carrier, and more than a few people came over and shook his hand. He was at Pearl in the 1950s, but nothing looked like he remembered, which is understandable. I'd almost tell people not to bother going there now, but it is still an important historical site, and still worth the time to go there.

[Centaur]

My father in law was a young soldier out for his morning jog when he watched the attack and saw the Arizona blow up. Went on to retire as a Colonel.

[GunnyGene]

Some Pearl Harbor thoughts.....

My first trip to Hawaii was in the early 1980s when I was in my very early 20s. My buddy and I spent the day at Pearl Harbor, and around Hickam Field, even did a ship tour of a sub tender that day. What I remembered is that there were a bunch of guys in tan colored shirts and those hats like American Legion guys wear. They seemed to be tour guides, and we listened to them a bit, but never really spent much time with them. They had a museum with lots of artifacts and personal belongings from guys on the various ships, and that was interesting. We got a ticket for the movie and ride out to the Arizona, but missed it because we were in the museum, so we went with a later tour. The site was run by the park service, but the trip to the Arizona and back were run by the US Navy. On that trip, we went mostly because it was something we felt was a must-see on a trip to Hawaii.

Next time was on my honeymoon in 1987. By then I realized that those guys in the tan shirts were Pearl Harbor Survivors. I wasn't going to miss that opportunity this time. We got into a group with a guy named Richard Fiske, who was later seen on a lot of the television shows about that day. If I remember correctly, he was on the West Virginia. That ship rolled over and capsized after getting hit that day. He talked about how for days and weeks, they would hear knocking and would cut through the hull in different places to free those trapped inside. One tale was of a few guys trapped and knocking, but in an area difficult to access. They heard knocking up until around Christmas and then it stopped. When they did eventually penetrate the hull there, they recovered the bodies of guys that survived an additional two weeks trapped, knocking back and forth, waiting rescue that didn't come in time. Seriously puts a different take on things when a guy that was there tells you about that. We tend to think of it as "that day", but for those there, it was much longer dealing with the aftermath. The layout of the site was pretty much the same as I remembered, and we spent the day there again, much of it with those tan shirts. There's nothing like having a guy point at Ford Island and tell you what was where, and where it went, and when this one rolled over and such. I'm truly glad that we spent that day there.

Went back on another trip to Hawaii in 2021, and the site is completely different. Those tan shirts are all now gone to their rewards, and they have a lot of waist-high storyboard signs along the water that tell the story of that day, and I appreciate that they made the effort to put them there, but they don't offer the connection that a survivor provided. It felt so much more like any other tourist attraction. Previously, there was a kind of a silent reverence that people had while there. Hard to explain, but very noticeable and in stark contrast to what I experienced on this last visit. They still show the movie before the boat ride to the Arizona, but it seems like the gift shop and the snack bar are now the main attractions. The little museum is still there, and it had a few things that I remember seeing, but the crowds were different and I honestly didn't enjoy that visit as much. We had my dad there, and he's an ex-Navy guy, wore a ball cap from his carrier, and more than a few people came over and shook his hand. He was at Pearl in the 1950s, but nothing looked like he remembered, which is understandable. I'd almost tell people not to bother going there now, but it is still an important historical site, and still worth the time to go there.

I spent a few days at Pearl during a TransPac with VMA211 in 1979 (Wake Island Avengers), island hopping across the Pacific from El Toro to Hawaii, Midway, Wake, Guam, ending in Iwakuni Japan. The high point of the trip was Wake Island, which very few people have visited. Spent an entire week there. There's no museum, just a whole lot of things to see left over from the battle and Japanese occupation of the island. Myself and a couple other guys found a water cooled Browning M1917 mostly buried in the sand on one of the beaches. We dug it up, cleaned it up as best we could and presented it to our Squadron CO. As far as I know, the gun is still in possession of the Squadron. There's some mention of Wake and Midway in the Astoria link.

I should mention that the man who would be my future father didn't know it at the time, but the Astoria was supporting the Marines landing on Guadalcanal and one of the Marines in that assault would become his brother-in-law and my uncle.

[2ffat]

My Dad was in the Oregon National Guard that day. On Dec. 6th, 1941. he and buddy were trying to decide what to do with their lives. They had been miners, gold panners, professional hunters, lumber jacks, and even rode the rails as hobos. Their enlistment with the guard was up and since they didn't have anything better to do, they reenlisted. By Tuesday, they were on a transport to Australia. He served the first half of the war fighting in and around New Guinea and the second half as a guard of Nazi soldiers along the Mountain West of the US.