A date that will live in infamy

[RPM 26360]

80 years ago today

[South Austin 52629]

Fucking Germans.

[DaggerHorns 3102]

[OneOfTheOutOfFocusGuys 2098]

wtf is nukes?

[Shaggy3.0 1695]

The Greatest Generation did what had to be done.  The Japs fucked around and found out.

 

 

Oh, WW2 opened my eyes to Japanese women hotness.  They're very "wispy" if you know what I mean.

Edited December 7, 2021 by Shaggy3.0

[Fastbreak 3996]

In 2001, I was there on Dec 7. The boat to go to the monument was completely full of vets of the attack. It was very sobering to see all the emotions.

[MNLonghornFUKM 8822]

In 2001, I was there on Dec 7. The boat to go to the monument was completely full of vets of the attack. It was very sobering to see all the emotions.

2001 was just yesterday. Crazy to think any PH survivor would be at or near 100 years old. The boat today would be a fraction full of that 20 years ago

[NeverMarryAStripper 21943]

[Harrison Bergeron 1798]

For the first time in my life I worry that the current generation would not be able to respond to a similar call. I hope that I am wrong.

Bob Dole's passing was another great reminder of the sacrifices our forefathers made for our country.

[tbone_ 14181]

For the first time in my life I worry that the current generation would not be able to respond to a similar call. I hope that I am wrong.
Bob Dole's passing was another great reminder of the sacrifices our forefathers made for our country.

We don’t seem to come together well to address national challenges these days for sure.

[Incredulity 11683]

Went to the Memorial site in the mid-80's.  It was mind bottling in so many ways, but as a kid I was so shocked that the wreckage was still leaking oil some 40 years later(and to this day).

[Ag with kids 581]

3 hours ago, DaggerHorns said:

 

Ignore 1 and 2.  Only posting because I thought 3 was funny in this context...

[Genco 3041]

Not really

Edited December 7, 2021 by Genco

[TwiceHorn 31554]

15 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

Went to the Memorial site in the mid-80's.  It was mind bottling in so many ways, but as a kid I was so shocked that the wreckage was still leaking oil some 40 years later(and to this day).

This article states she carried 500,000 gallons of fuel oil.  https://www.history.com/news/5-facts-about-pearl-harbor-and-the-uss-arizona

But, her specifications say up to about 2000 tons of bunkerage, which is a bit more than 50,000 gallons.  Still plenty of oil to leak if the tanks aren't completely ruptured.

[NAVY 6747]

Saluting the Arizona while passing into Pearl were some of the most powerful ceremonial moments from my time on active duty 

Edited December 7, 2021 by NAVY

[Johnny Sack 8397]

Been listening to Dan Carlin's hardcore history podcast.  Just happened to be on Pearl Harbor.  What a stupid move for the Japanese.  They could have just gone after the Dutch East Indies.  But by attacking Pearl they made it where there was no way the USA would accept anything but vengeance and an unconditional surrender.

They had very. very low odds of winning once they awakened the beast.

[Guest Lobo]

80 years tomorrow morning at 0900-CST my grandfather left his chicken farm outside Des Plaines, IL on a train for the recruiting depot at Naval Station Great Lakes to enlist.   A few weeks later he reported back there to RTC, and a few months later was on the Pacific.  Said there were thousands of young men there that morning from all over the tri-state area.  Waiting for a draft didn’t even occur to them.  

god bless all the fallen sailors, airmen, and marines at Pearl.  And god bless the millions who volunteered to avenge their deaths so that our world would not be enslaved.  

Edited December 7, 2021 by Lobo

[BabaYaga 15328]

21 minutes ago, Johnny Sack said:

Been listening to Dan Carlin's hardcore history podcast.  Just happened to be on Pearl Harbor.  What a stupid move for the Japanese.  They could have just gone after the Dutch East Indies.  But by attacking Pearl they made it where there was no way the USA would accept anything but vengeance and an unconditional surrender.

They had very. very low odds of winning once they awakened the beast.

Carlin's podcast is insane.  All off the cusp.  No formal notes.  Just a general sequence and plan to lay it out, but nothing prepared apparently.  

[WillUSAF 226]

80 years ago today my great uncle was sitting at his duty station on Wheeler Field. He was 18 years old and it was his first duty assignment. He survived, would go onto England and help the fight in Europe.

Edited December 7, 2021 by WillUSAF

[OneOfTheOutOfFocusGuys 2098]

20 minutes ago, Johnny Sack said:

Been listening to Dan Carlin's hardcore history podcast.  Just happened to be on Pearl Harbor.  What a stupid move for the Japanese.  They could have just gone after the Dutch East Indies.  But by attacking Pearl they made it where there was no way the USA would accept anything but vengeance and an unconditional surrender.

They had very. very low odds of winning once they awakened the beast.

i don't think it was a decision to either have US in or not.  the thought was we were coming one way or another, and this gave them a good shot at starting out ahead.

 

here are some pre Pearl Harbor Dr. Seuss cartoons from Oct and Nov 1941 alone.  already a lot of heat and something was going to get us in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Dutch 4479]

2 hours ago, Harrison Bergeron said:

For the first time in my life I worry that the current generation would not be able to respond to a similar call. I hope that I am wrong.

Bob Dole's passing was another great reminder of the sacrifices our forefathers made for our country.

 

2 hours ago, tbone_ said:

We don’t seem to come together well to address national challenges these days for sure.

 

18 minutes ago, Lobo said:

80 years tomorrow morning at 0900-CST my grandfather left his chicken farm outside Des Plaines, IL on a train for the recruiting depot at Naval Station Great Lakes to enlist.   A few weeks later he reported back there to RTC, and a few months later was on the Pacific.  Said there were thousands of young men there that morning from all over the tri-state area.  Waiting for a draft didn’t even occur to them.  

god bless all the fallen sailors, airmen, and marines at Pearl.  And god bless the millions who volunteered to avenge their deaths so that our world would not be enslaved.  

I had similar thoughts earlier today.  I don't like the conclusions to which I arrived.

Greatest Generation, indeed. God bless and grant a blessed repose to every one of them.

[Harrison Bergeron 1798]

One of the great heroes of Pearl Harbor and Waco's own finally starting to get the respect he deserves: https://dorismillermemorial.org/doris-story/

 

 

[BabaYaga 15328]

14 minutes ago, OneOfTheOutOfFocusGuys said:

i don't think it was a decision to either have US in or not.  the thought was we were coming one way or another, and this gave them a good shot at starting out ahead.

 

here are some pre Pearl Harbor Dr. Seuss cartoons from Oct and Nov 1941 alone.  already a lot of heat and something was going to get us in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yep.  It was our Navy that they needed to neutralize in order to allow their expansion plans to work.  It was a calculated sucker-punch rife with countless missed opportunities (mainly our carriers and oil reserves) 

[BabaYaga 15328]

38 minutes ago, Lobo said:

80 years tomorrow morning at 0900-CST my grandfather left his chicken farm outside Des Plaines, IL on a train for the recruiting depot at Naval Station Great Lakes to enlist.   A few weeks later he reported back there to RTC, and a few months later was on the Pacific.  Said there were thousands of young men there that morning from all over the tri-state area.  Waiting for a draft didn’t even occur to them.  

god bless all the fallen sailors, airmen, and marines at Pearl.  And god bless the millions who volunteered to avenge their deaths so that our world would not be enslaved.  

We saw much of the same after 9/11 and no doubt would again if there was another overt attack.  

[OneOfTheOutOfFocusGuys 2098]

6 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

We saw much of the same after 9/11 and no doubt would again if there was another overt attack.  

agree.  all our memory there has been an external threat: start with WWII through end of cold war.  then nothing until 9/11.  now in the last few years, nothing again.  each of those periods of external threat showed significant protective/bellicose mentality.  in-fighting really is only the case when there isn't really an external threat -- see 1850 through Jim Crow; now.

[BabaYaga 15328]

1 minute ago, OneOfTheOutOfFocusGuys said:

in-fighting really is only the case when there isn't really an external threat -- see 1850 through Jim Crow; now.

Yep

• Hard times make hard men
• Hard men make good times
• Good times make weak men
• Weak men make hard times

Rinse.  Wash.  Repeat.

[Trey3216 15373]

51 minutes ago, Harrison Bergeron said:

One of the great heroes of Pearl Harbor and Waco's own finally starting to get the respect he deserves: https://dorismillermemorial.org/doris-story/

 

 

I'll drive down there in a bit and take a few new pics so I can post them.  

[Trey3216 15373]

41 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

Yep.  It was our Navy that they needed to neutralize in order to allow their expansion plans to work.  It was a calculated sucker-punch rife with countless missed opportunities (mainly our carriers and oil reserves) 

Yep, our carriers being out of port and their horrific failure at Midway shortened the war by years.  

[BabaYaga 15328]

1 minute ago, Trey3216 said:

their horrific failure at Midway shortened the war by years.  

We broke their codes, identifying it as a target and allowing us to get into position.

[Trey3216 15373]

4 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

We broke their codes, identifying it as a target and allowing us to get into position.

Correct.  Still a horrific failure on their part.  They looked at their codes like they looked at themselves in comparison to their counterparts, superior in every way.  No way could the simpleton Americans break their codes.  We damn near, and some argue we did, have their codes broken for Pearl Harbor and just didn't take the threat as credible.  It was a horrible miscalculation on their part, one of pompous pride. 

[HornPhD 1368]

A brother-in-law of mine was part of a crew that conducted dive operations the day after the 75th anniversary. 

[BabaYaga 15328]

4 minutes ago, Trey3216 said:

Correct.  Still a horrific failure on their part.  They looked at their codes like they looked at themselves in comparison to their counterparts, superior in every way.  No way could the simpleton Americans break their codes.  We damn near, and some argue we did, have their codes broken for Pearl Harbor and just didn't take the threat as credible.  It was a horrible miscalculation on their part, one of pompous pride. 

Yeah, they made a ton of stupid mistakes.  I always re-watch The Pacific just like BOB each year, and as horrific as the Pacific campaign was, it could have been much, much worse.  

The historian James Wood laid out essentially five big ones, and the one you mention is his first and primary reason.  

Edited December 7, 2021 by BabaYaga

[Trey3216 15373]

1 minute ago, BabaYaga said:

Yeah, they made a ton of stupid mistakes.  I always re-watch The Pacific just like BOB each year, and as horrific as the Pacific campaign was, it could have been much, much worse.  

Thank God for the Panama Canal. Ford/GM, the American Farmer, war bonds, and a commitment to absolute surrender.  

[BabaYaga 15328]

1 minute ago, Trey3216 said:

Thank God for the Panama Canal. Ford/GM, the American Farmer, war bonds, and a commitment to absolute surrender.  

His next item was pretty scary to think about - imagine fighting Iwo after Iwo after Iwo, but with Japanese aircraft in play to support.  JFC, what a mess.  

Build an effective National Defense Zone - if the Japanese had turned every island battle into Iwo Jima instead of wasting its forces on useless banzai charges America would have been hard pressed with its resources. As part of this National Defense Zone Japan should have built hundreds of airfields that would have provided interlocking defense zones that could support each other. Unsinkable Aircraft Carriers, aka Islands would have been a huge problem for American forces.

 

 

[atomheartbevo 89824]

2 hours ago, Johnny Sack said:

Been listening to Dan Carlin's hardcore history podcast.  Just happened to be on Pearl Harbor.  What a stupid move for the Japanese.  They could have just gone after the Dutch East Indies.  But by attacking Pearl they made it where there was no way the USA would accept anything but vengeance and an unconditional surrender.

They had very. very low odds of winning once they awakened the beast.

Everybody focuses on Pearl Harbor as the end-all, and everybody ignores the why of the matter.  The Dutch East Indies were useless as long as we owned the Philippines, because as long as we had the Philippines the Japanese were completely at our mercy with anything they brought out of the Dutch East Indies.  That was an untenable position for them.

Trying to take out the fleet at Pearl Harbor was all about buying some breathing room for them to then take out the Philippines so that they could then get all of those resources they were capturing back to Japan.

I'll repost a solid video that maps it out (it focuses on Pearl Harbor, but the intro mentions the proximity of the Philippines).

 

[atomheartbevo 89824]

Reposting this from another thread - if you have any kids who are into Pearl Harbor, or you just want to see it fully diagrammed out, this guy did an amazing map laying out everything and showing you just how small/shallow Pearl Harbor actually is.  You'll see why some Battleships were completely screwed, and why the Japanese were so-short sighted in their thinking and ignoring incredibly strategic targets in favor of tactical targets.

 

 

Lots of diagrams, maps, photos overlaid on said diagrams/maps to show the actual attack (there are some amazing photos taken during the attack), and explanations of why certain ships were attacked while others weren't.  Oklahoma and West Virginia were turbo-fucked - they were in the prime spot for the torpedo aircraft as they were at the end of the best run those aircraft had at launching their torpedos.

The video even explains in the first minute or so why the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and invaded the Philippines.  

Kids that age A) Want to know why they attacked us, and B) Want it explained like they are kids.  They don't need to understand why or how the Dutch/Brits/French/etc. were bogged down elsewhere, they just need to know that the US owned the Philippines and the Philippines created a bottleneck for Japanese oil shipments.  That's all they need to know.

That video basically explained every aircraft's path/torpedo run, etc. - the kinds of things that a lot of kids would be curious about if they knew nothing else.  Didn't get into 10 minutes of exposition with a repeat of the various film footage over and over.

 

[Trey3216 15373]

2 hours ago, Harrison Bergeron said:

One of the great heroes of Pearl Harbor and Waco's own finally starting to get the respect he deserves: https://dorismillermemorial.org/doris-story/

 

 

Stopped by Reed’s Flower shop (Harry was also a WWII vet who passed away a few years back at 95 yo, a fellow Shriner of mine and helluva good man) and dropped a single Yellow Rose.   Beautiful day today.   

[Trey3216 15373]

There were a lot of other flowers around the memorial, they had brought a bunch inside the little building next door for a luncheon so these were just what others had brought of their own volition.   

[TwiceHorn 31554]

While we are talking about Dorie Miller, let's also remember that in 1941, the only rating available to "Negros" was Cook, Third Class, i.e. mess steward, i.e. shipboard waiters.

They couldn't even be boiler tenders/stokers.

Even by the middle of the war, they were only made glorified stevedores, which is why the deaths/casualties at Port Chicago were mostly black.

[Trey3216 15373]

And there is still a big push to get him posthumously awarded the CMOH, but having the new Ford class carrier named after him is damn near as honoring.  Hopefully they’ll do the right thing and award him the CMOH when the ship is launched.  

Edited December 7, 2021 by Trey3216

[TwiceHorn 31554]

Super oddball factoid, six degrees of Dorie Miller.

Miller was killed in 1943 when the escort carrier Liscome Bay was sunk by torpedo in the Gilbert Islands.

Surviving the sinking was Lt. Robert Keeton, two-time Texas Longhorn, Harvard law professor, US District Judge and brother of Texas law Dean W. Page Keeton.

[Trey3216 15373]

2 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Super oddball factoid, six degrees of Dorie Miller.

Miller was killed in 1943 when the escort carrier Liscome Bay was sunk by torpedo in the Gilbert Islands.

Surviving the sinking was Lt. Robert Keeton, two-time Texas Longhorn, Harvard law professor, US District Judge and brother of Texas law Dean W. Page Keeton.

Miller also served on the Indianapolis.   Talk about some kinda luck 

[Trey3216 15373]

And if y’all are driving through and want to see it sometime, it’s about 1/2 mile off I-35.  Take the MLK exit and go west.   It’s on the left hand side just past the Washington/Elm stop light.   Really is a beautiful memorial 

[FartingMonk 3608]

Japan scored early with a qb sneak.  The US won with two late bombs 

[MissingInAction 25204]

If WW2 was a RTS game.

Chat logs

https://www.strategypage.com/humor/articles/military_jokes_20057151.asp

Edited December 8, 2021 by MissingInAction

[AUS-97HORN 11824]

5 hours ago, BabaYaga said:

His next item was pretty scary to think about - imagine fighting Iwo after Iwo after Iwo, but with Japanese aircraft in play to support.  JFC, what a mess.  

Build an effective National Defense Zone - if the Japanese had turned every island battle into Iwo Jima instead of wasting its forces on useless banzai charges America would have been hard pressed with its resources. As part of this National Defense Zone Japan should have built hundreds of airfields that would have provided interlocking defense zones that could support each other. Unsinkable Aircraft Carriers, aka Islands would have been a huge problem for American forces.

What a load of total rubbish.   

Even if that fantasy defense lineup came to being, it wouldnt have been able to do anything after 1943 anyway.  by that time the US submarines were finally loaded with revised Mark 14 torpedoes,  and they were sinking hundreds of tons of ships every month. 

Having an impenetrable air defense doesnt mean shit if you cant ship the Av Gas to the airfield to fly the planes. 

After Guadalcanal was finally secured, It took us another year (and the carnage on Tarawa) to finally realize that we didnt need to fucking attack every god damned island in the pacific.   We would have starved the "island defense strategy" that guy talks about in less than 2 years. 

 

[Guest Lobo]

I know a guy who was born around the time of Pearl Harbor.  He finally got a take a really intricate tour of the USS Arizona Memorial and some other noteworthy areas around the island a few years back.  He didn't really seem to understand the historical significance of the places he was seeing.  My first clue should have been when he said, "This is going to be very exciting for me."  

The memorial is specifically designed not to be too somber, maybe even a hint uplifting.  But I've never heard anybody approach the Arizona and say, "This is going to be very exciting for me."  Except my sister said that once.  But she has Down's Syndrome and doesn't share my affinity for Naval history.  

[FartingMonk 3608]

25 minutes ago, AUS-97HORN said:

What a load of total rubbish.   

Even if that fantasy defense lineup came to being, it wouldnt have been able to do anything after 1943 anyway.  by that time the US submarines were finally loaded with revised Mark 14 torpedoes,  and they were sinking hundreds of tons of ships every month. 

Having an impenetrable air defense doesnt mean shit if you cant ship the Av Gas to the airfield to fly the planes. 

After Guadalcanal was finally secured, It took us another year (and the carnage on Tarawa) to finally realize that we didnt need to fucking attack every god damned island in the pacific.   We would have starved the "island defense strategy" that guy talks about in less than 2 years. 

 

Totally agree.  Rabaul is a good example.  They had a massive airfield there but MacArthur basically said nope.  Don't need it.  Let's island hop and leave it alone.  They ended getting starved

[Deej 76946]

1 hour ago, FartingMonk said:

Japan scored early with a qb sneak.

 

[cactusflinthead 27606]

9 hours ago, Ag with kids said:

 

Ignore 1 and 2.  Only posting because I thought 3 was funny in this context...

Yeah, that's fucking hilarious