Praise and thanks to anyone who served at the time of the horrific Pearl Harbor attack. 80 years later not many left from the greatest generation and their sacrifices should never be forgotten. My Dad sailed in on a destroyer 2 days after the attack and what he saw changed his life forever. He was a very passive man up to that point - from there forward he firmly believed the only good Jap was a dead Jap. Guess he would be considered a racist by today’s standards. With the tiny bit of things he ever told me about the aftermath of Peal Harbor - he will always be just a hero IMHO - let the snowflakes walk a mile in those guys shoes and call em racist!!! Again respect to all those that served and those families that lost their loved ones.
80th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor
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Thanks for the reminder. It's all too easy to overlook history given the daily hustle of everyday life.
Mt father-in-law was in the Navy in the Pacific and had one boat blown out from under him and was rescued by another ship which then got torpedoed a couple days later! My dad was in North Africa before getting shifted to Italy and then Germany at the end of the war.
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Praise and thanks to anyone who served at the time of the horrific Pearl Harbor attack. 80 years later not many left from the greatest generation and their sacrifices should never be forgotten. My Dad sailed in on a destroyer 2 days after the attack and what he saw changed his life forever. He was a very passive man up to that point - from there forward he firmly believed the only good Jap was a dead Jap. Guess he would be considered a racist by today’s standards. With the tiny bit of things he ever told me about the aftermath of Peal Harbor - he will always be just a hero IMHO - let the snowflakes walk a mile in those guys shoes and call em racist!!! Again respect to all those that served and those families that lost their loved ones.
I just read your post Bill Martin . I have to get my wife to work this morning then deal with her dead battery, but I will pull out my father's diary later and post his entry for December 8th 1942.. He was 17 years old and, like so many young men, he and his 3 younger brothers were all inspired to join the service as soon as they were able to (2 Navy, 1 Army, 1 Airforce). My father was a Seabee and was decorated for his service in the Pacific Theater. He and his father both came out to Vancouver, WA from Greeley, CO to work in the Kaiser shipyards building Liberty ships. He died when I was still young and I never heard any stories from him about the war. Uncle Bill continued his career with the Air Force and retire a Full Bird Colonel after many years of being Commander of the Beale Air Force base hospital. I've told the story here before about him taking my brother and me out onto the tarmac to watch an SR71 Blackbird launch before the public even knew we had them. I call them the greatest generation because they were. Boys became men and the men had honor. I don't know how we can ever get that back.
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I just read your post Bill Martin . I have to get my wife to work this morning then deal with her dead battery, but I will pull out my father's diary later and post his entry for December 8th 1942.. He was 17 years old and, like so many young men, he and his 3 younger brothers were all inspired to join the service as soon as they were able to (2 Navy, 1 Army, 1 Airforce). My father was a Seabee and was decorated for his service in the Pacific Theater. He and his father both came out to Vancouver, WA from Greeley, CO to work in the Kaiser shipyards building Liberty ships. He died when I was still young and I never heard any stories from him about the war. Uncle Bill continued his career with the Air Force and retire a Full Bird Colonel after many years of being Commander of the Beale Air Force base hospital. I've told the story here before about him taking my brother and me out onto the tarmac to watch an SR71 Blackbird launch before the public even knew we had them. I call them the greatest generation because they were. Boys became men and the men had honor. I don't know how we can ever get that back.
The things that our fathers and grandfathers had to endure are almost unimaginable. My Dad couldn’t really ever talk about it because even 40 years later he would be overcome by emotion. He was selected to go down in sinking ships at Pearl Harbor to retrieve dead sailors. He said he went into a boiler room where after the kamikaze hit the ship and the steam killed everyone in the room. In a breaking voice he said “I went to pick up one of the fallen and all the flesh fell from the bone when I tried to lift him up - I can still smell that smell to this day”. On the lighter side he saw a pair of captains binoculars that were top of the line back then. He said the water was swirling around coming up and he said I thought about going for them - for a second - then my good sense came back. Hard to imagine going thru something like that at 19 years old !!!
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Well shoot! I thought I knew where my dad's diaries were and I couldn't locate them yesterday. If I find them I'll come back and post his December 8th, 1942 entry. It is very telling how our country's citizens felt and reacted at the time.
