WAR Anybody here that remembers Dec 7, 1941, a day that shall live in infamy?
- Thread starter Troke
- Start date
Ragnarok
On and On, South of Heaven
Awesome!
Much respect and admiration to all who lived through that time!
Please... If so inclined, tell us who was there, where were they sitting, and what did your mother say???
Actually it was "date" not "day" 
(shouldn't misquote Frank the Cripple) and no, I wasn't around then. Both my parents were...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhtuMrMVJDk&feature=emb_logo
FDR DECLARES WAR (12/8/41) - Franklin Delano Roosevelt , WWII , Infamy Speech , 24400
955,465 views•Dec 12, 2012
RT 07:59
(shouldn't misquote Frank the Cripple) and no, I wasn't around then. Both my parents were...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhtuMrMVJDk&feature=emb_logo
FDR DECLARES WAR (12/8/41) - Franklin Delano Roosevelt , WWII , Infamy Speech , 24400
955,465 views•Dec 12, 2012
RT 07:59
Actually it was "date" not "day"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhtuMrMVJDk&feature=emb_logo
FDR DECLARES WAR (12/8/41) - Franklin Delano Roosevelt , WWII , Infamy Speech , 24400
955,465 views•Dec 12, 2012
RT 07:59
Oddly enough I have read both so I don't really know.......................
The Hammer
Has No Life - Lives on TB
My grandparents were, and both grandfathers went on to fight in the war, one in Europe and one in the Pacific.
I wrote many letters back and forth with one grandfather, but he never did say a lot about Pearl Harbor, or even the war.
I have to think that even without TV or internet, 12/7/41 had to have a similar feel to 11/22/63 and 9/11/01. Just out of the blue shock for everyone.
I wrote many letters back and forth with one grandfather, but he never did say a lot about Pearl Harbor, or even the war.
I have to think that even without TV or internet, 12/7/41 had to have a similar feel to 11/22/63 and 9/11/01. Just out of the blue shock for everyone.
Oh, it was much worse than that. America was so much more isolated and isolationist before WW2. Part of the reason for WW2 was to roll forward the internationalist agenda and sweep America into the maelstrom.
See http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?564613-Today&p=7489915#post7489915 on the previous Pearl Harbor thread ...
See http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?564613-Today&p=7489915#post7489915 on the previous Pearl Harbor thread ...
Awesome!
Much respect and admiration to all who lived through that time!
Please... If so inclined, tell us who was there, where were they sitting, and what did your mother say???
Our hired man was part of a family band that played at 3:00 on a local radio station, My grand father paid him a 'gratuity' to dedicate a tune to our family.
So we turned the Philco Radio on at 3:00. My mother was standing in the doorway to the living room. My grandparents and my unmarried aunt were sitting on the sofa in the SW corner of the room. I was next to the living room heater because it was warmest there. i don't know where my two younger brothers were, i have a vague recollection of their playing behind behind with some toys. .
And this announcer was yammering about an attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, apparently reading off the teletype.
And my mother said:"My God! I am getting goose pimples!"
I don't remember anybody else saying anything. I do remember it was a pretty somber group that drove back to my grandparent's farm. Both our family and theirs had lost people in WWI.
Oddly enough, except for the brother of an in-law so not directly related, no losses in WWII.
marsh
On TB every waking moment
My Dad was technically a Pearl Harbor survivor. He was attached to Pearl Harbor as a junior officer on one of the ships that sank. He had entered the war early and had escorted ships in the N. Atlantic prior. He had just left on the Lurline (a luxury liner) traveling to SF and his next assignment when they hit.
When I visited Hawaii as a teen, we went out on the monument. It was the only time I ever saw my Dad cry. He went through the listed names with comments like: "I played golf with him just the weekend before."
Dad went on to serve in the South Pacific theater in all the terrible Naval battles like the Truck Islands, Bouganville, Guadalcanal, Saipan. He was awarded the purple heart for a piece of shrapnel he caught in the left shoulder - just inches from his heart. He retired as a full Commander after the war and before Korea. He never talked to us about his experience.
This was his DE, the Acree
When I visited Hawaii as a teen, we went out on the monument. It was the only time I ever saw my Dad cry. He went through the listed names with comments like: "I played golf with him just the weekend before."
Dad went on to serve in the South Pacific theater in all the terrible Naval battles like the Truck Islands, Bouganville, Guadalcanal, Saipan. He was awarded the purple heart for a piece of shrapnel he caught in the left shoulder - just inches from his heart. He retired as a full Commander after the war and before Korea. He never talked to us about his experience.
This was his DE, the Acree
Attachments
Last edited:
Ragnarok
On and On, South of Heaven
Thanks for sharing! I never can get enough of the first-hand stories!
I had an uncle that was a medic that was stationed at the base during the attack. That is all I know about his story, though, as he refused to ever talk about it ( which means he saw some sh!t )... I wish he would have left some record of his account...
Thunderbird
Veteran Member
I was just 6 days old. Knew many WWII veterans, all dead now. Some really great people.
homecanner1
Veteran Member
My grandmother heard it over the radio out of Chicago doing dishes up. I don't think they found out till Monday or Tuesday that my great grandparents nephew, her first cousin, had perished on the Arizona. He had been a tall strawberry blond, the only fair son in a house of dark haired brothers. There was a series of phone calls to relay news north from downstate. He had been enjoying a pick up game of basketball on the upper deck in the glorious Hawaiian sunshine in the days prior per survivors reunions who recalled him. They had just gotten there from Tacoma not long before. I'm named for that luxury liner turned troop ship, she took my Great Uncle to the Pacific.
She had just left Honolulu about 2days out? for return passage with a ship full of tourists. They got word at sea Pearl was decimated. Captain ordered cut all lights, radio contact and ran dark full speed back to Long Beach port in a terror that they would meet the same fate. Lurline went under a battle grey paintjob in the yard and began transports not long after, also operated as a radio relay station at sea, intercepting code etc. Survived the war and went right back into passenger service for yrs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Lurline_(1932)
She had just left Honolulu about 2days out? for return passage with a ship full of tourists. They got word at sea Pearl was decimated. Captain ordered cut all lights, radio contact and ran dark full speed back to Long Beach port in a terror that they would meet the same fate. Lurline went under a battle grey paintjob in the yard and began transports not long after, also operated as a radio relay station at sea, intercepting code etc. Survived the war and went right back into passenger service for yrs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Lurline_(1932)
Last edited:
RB Martin
Veteran Member
My cousin was there...Admiral Robert Bentham Simons On December 7, 1941 Simons was the commanding officer of the cruiser "USS Raleigh" when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Though his ship was hit by a torpedo, a bomb and other fire, the "Raleigh" did not sink and her crew is credited with shooting down five enemy aircraft. He pulled his ship out of its berth and set sail directly into the Japanese onslaught. They maintained fire for two hours and did not lose a man.
In 1948 he was awarded the Legion of Merit and Combat "V" and his citation said that "his ship fought gallantly as the furious bombing continued for two hours and by his effective maintenance of material readiness and his resourcefulness in damage control measures, he succeeding in holding to a minimum the damage to the Raleigh".
He is buried in the Magnolia Cemetery in Charleston, SC along with many more of my family members.
In 1948 he was awarded the Legion of Merit and Combat "V" and his citation said that "his ship fought gallantly as the furious bombing continued for two hours and by his effective maintenance of material readiness and his resourcefulness in damage control measures, he succeeding in holding to a minimum the damage to the Raleigh".
He is buried in the Magnolia Cemetery in Charleston, SC along with many more of my family members.
"USS Raleigh"
An interwar (launched 1922) four stack 12 boiler steam powered Omaha class light cruiser- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Raleigh_(CL-7)
An interwar (launched 1922) four stack 12 boiler steam powered Omaha class light cruiser- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Raleigh_(CL-7)
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2019/12/saturday-snippet-uss-enterprise-and.html
Saturday, December 7, 2019
Saturday Snippet: The USS Enterprise and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
As we all know, the US aircraft carriers weren't at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked it on December 7th, 1941. However, they weren't far away. USS Enterprise was one of only three US carriers (along with USS Saratoga and USS Ranger) to serve throughout World War II from the first day to the last. As the Japanese attack went in, she was returning to Pearl Harbor after delivering fighter aircraft to Wake Island, soon to be occupied by Japan.
Cdr. Edward P. Stafford wrote a history of the ship, "The Big E". Published in 1962, it's become one of the classic accounts of naval warfare. I'm particularly pleased that the Enterprise car rental company, founded by a veteran who served aboard USS Enterprise during World War II and named his company for the ship, sponsored a brand-new pictorial edition of the book through the Naval Institute Press a few years ago, gathering together almost every photograph of her ever taken, to go with Cdr. Stafford's text.
It's a magnificent volume, albeit rather expensive in hardcover. I'm glad I invested in a copy - the pictures make it worth its price. Cheaper editions are also available, although without the copious illustrations. IMHO, it should be on every military and naval enthusiast's bookshelf.
From Cdr. Stafford's book, here's some of what USS Enterprise and her air group experienced on December 7th, 1941, and the following evening.
The first plane off the Enterprise the day the war began was the air group commander's. He and his wingman were airborne in two SBDs at 6:15 A.M., headed for Ford Island in the middle of Pearl Harbor.
Twelve minutes later the rest of Scouting Six was launched to search ahead of the ships and then follow in. Lucky aviators. They would be home in two hours with the ship still eight hours at sea.
In the rear seat of Commander Brigham Young's Dauntless was a lieutenant commander on Admiral Halsey's staff with a report of the Wake delivery too highly classified for radio transmission.
By 8:20, Young was close enough to notice planes circling the Marine Corps Air Station at Ewa. He assumed they were Army aircraft. Then he saw scattered black puffs of antiaircraft bursts over Pearl and was surprised to find what seemed to be target practice taking place on Sunday morning. While he was wondering how he was going to get into Ford Island through the flak, and thinking that, if this were target practice, every safety precaution he knew was being violated, one of the Army planes he had noticed broke away from the others and swept down on him.
Lieutenant Commander Bromfield B. Nichol in the rear seat saw what looked like a lot of burning cigarette butts flash past him. Where they struck the wing, pieces of aluminum shredded off. When the "Army" plane pulled up, Brig Young was at war. On wings and fuselage was the red disk of the Rising Sun.
Both SBDs dived violently for the Ford Island runway, with Young longing for the trained gunner who normally sat at his back, and Nichol tried to unlimber the .30-calibers. Both planes managed to shake off the Japanese and effect a landing despite the ships' gunners who now trusted no one and were firing at anything that flew. There was no chance in the desperate seconds between surprise attack and touch-down to warn the rest of the air group already approaching the island.
As Young rode the brakes and his Dauntless slowed, a sailor on the field leveled a machine gun at it. During the last shattering, bloody hour he had forgotten there could be any planes at Pearl Harbor not actively seeking his death. He was stopped from opening fire by a nearby pilot who advanced on him wielding a rock the size of his head.
It seemed to Brig Young that a week had passed since the dawn launch, but it was just 8:35 A.M.
Ten minutes later Lieutenant Commander Hallsted Hopping, the skipper of Scouting Six, brought his squadron in. Or most of it. No one is certain what happened to Ensign Manuel Gonzales. His last words were the first to alert the Enterprise. Out of the Sunday silence west of Oahu they came crackling from her speakers, pleading, urgent: "Please don't shoot! Don't shoot! This is an American plane." Then in a moment, evidently to his rear-seatman, "We're on fire. Bail out!" and the speakers were quiet again. He did not return and no trace was ever found. Ensign John H. L. Vogt, who had reported the fleet off Wake, never made it to Ford Island. The Marines at Ewa saw a Dauntless which was probably his, in a twisting, swirling, low altitude mix-up with two or three Zeros, fixed and free guns all firing at once. They watched it get on the tail of an enemy fighter and grimly stay there as though the pouring tracers were a towline, until the Japanese suddenly lost speed and pulled up so sharply that the Dauntless plowed into him. They didn't see anything after that because they were dodging the pieces of flaming metal that scattered for a square mile over the cane fields and the air station.
Lieutenant (j.g.) C. E. Dickinson and Ensign J. R. McCarthy came in together at 1,500 feet from their routine morning search. They too saw the smoke rising from Pearl Harbor while still far at sea and at first thought it was from the usual burning of the cane fields before harvest. But when they noticed the AA fire they guessed the truth, readied their guns and bored in after what looked to them like an enemy patrol plane. They lost it in the smoke of the burning battleships and a moment later half a dozen Japanese fighters found them.
It was not much of a fight. The Dauntless was designed to be a dive bomber. And it was an excellent one. But it was not a match for the Zeros that swarmed over Oahu that December morning. Nevertheless Dickinson's gunner, Roger Miller, shot one down before he died under the guns of the others. Both pilots had their planes riddled and were forced to bail out at low altitude.
McCarthy's leg was broken by the tail of the spinning SBD and he spent several months in the hospital. His gunner, unable to extricate himself in time, died in the crash of his plane. Dickinson landed unhurt near Ewa Field and made his way toward Ford Island. En route he watched Marines standing in the open road, professionally firing their rifles at the strafing Japs, saw the USS Nevada make its fighting sortie from Battleship Row, noted that the enemy dive bombers did not attack at the steep angle he had been trained to use, and finally was knocked flat on the concrete of Ford Island when a bomb detonated the magazine of the destroyer Shaw a few hundred yards away.
Ensign E. T. Deacon used up all his ammunition in another hopeless dogfight with the murderous Zeros and then, with a wounded leg and a shot-up aircraft, glided for Hickam Field. It was just a little too far, and he landed in the water just short of the runway, unpacked and inflated his rubber boat, lifted his wounded gunner aboard and paddled ashore. When he was certain his gunner was in good hands, he too somehow got through the burning madhouse of Pearl and across to Ford Island.
Thus did the lucky aviators of Scouting Six, who had hoped to have the precious extra hours on Oahu, come to their destination that incredible Sunday.
In the Enterprise, steaming steadily into the low morning sun for Pearl, awareness came slowly in small capsules of garbled phrases from her radios. It was as though the ship were a person to whom the bitter news could not be told in one dose.
In his flag quarters Admiral Halsey had showered and shaved and put on a clean uniform after watching the early SBDs out of sight. He breakfasted with his flag secretary, Lieutenant H. Douglas Moulton, and was on his second cup of coffee when Moulton answered the phone from Radio Central and reported an air raid on Pearl Harbor.
Halsey sprang to his feet in dismay. He was certain the Pearl gunners were firing at Lieutenant Commander Hallsted Hopping's Dauntlesses due to arrive at just that moment.
The ship's supply officer, Commander Charles Fox, was in charge of the watch in the code room. There he had just heard Gonzales' eloquent few words and seen the men on watch sit up straight "with what-the-hell expressions on their faces", and in the next few moments recognized the voice of Lieutenant Earl Gallaher, the executive officer of Scouting Six, an old hand and steady under pressure. His voice was natural and calm as he made his report:
"Pearl Harbor is under attack by Japanese aircraft."
He was too calm. The men in the code room were certain now this was all a drill. The thought of an actual Japanese attack on the Oahu they knew so well was simply unacceptable.
Routinely Gallaher's message was relayed to the bridge where it corroborated the message received by Halsey and resulted in the insistent, repeated clanging of the general alarm, the call to battle stations.
In the code room the radios kept talking. The voices were strained, the words fantastic, impossible.
"Two enemy carriers thirty miles bearing 085 from Barber's Point."
"Japanese paratroops and gliders landing at Kaneohe."
"Eight enemy transports rounding Barber's Point."
But the admiral knew it was no drill. He had a message in his hand by eight o'clock which told him so:
AIR RAID PEARL HARBOR THIS IS NO DRILL
At 8:23 he received another:
ALERT X JAPANESE PLANES ATTACKING PEARL AND AIRFIELDS ON OAHU
Halsey kept no secrets from the men of Enterprise that day. The word was passed over the public address system. Hardly anyone believed it. The habit of peace was hard to break.
But in the code room they intercepted a message ordering all medical officers in the Pearl area to rush all available anesthetics to the Naval Hospital. Realization began to come.
The admiral appeared on his bridge. His was not a drill face.
Snap hooks clicked in the hands of the signalmen and their multicolored flags soared to the yardarms. The message:
PREPARE FOR BATTLE
The flags stayed up much longer than usual. When at last they plumped like well-shot birds to the deck of the signal bridge, simultaneously from foremast and mainmast of each two-masted ship in the force, the stars and stripes broke clear and bright into the morning sun. The challenge was accepted. It seemed that the ships surged forward under the defiant battle colors.
. . .
The sun had just set [on the eighth of December] as the Big E nosed into the channel. No one could remember when a carrier had attempted that channel after sunset. From her bow, black oil from the tanks of broken ships turned back on itself and oozed away. Flight deck and catwalks, bridge, fo'c'sle and fantail were crowded with men, and every port and hatch was jammed with faces. On both sides the shore was lined with hastily erected, fully manned antiaircraft guns of all sizes and calibers. A soldier at Hickam yelled across the water.
"You'd better get the hell out of here or the Japs will nail you too."
They passed the battleship Nevada, heavily aground to port on Hospital Point, the only ship to get away from Battleship Row that awful morning. Coming around Ford Island, the carrier had to swing wide to avoid the old battleship Utah, ripped to pieces and lying on the mud of the harbor bottom. For years she had been used as a target ship. But she had been moored in the carrier Saratoga's usual berth and her heavily timbered topsides slightly resembled a flight deck from the air.
The place smelled bad. Instead of the lush, flowery smell of tropical forests which usually came down off the hills on the land breeze, there was the sick-sweet odor of fuel oil, seared flesh and the charred wood and fabric smell of a half-burned house after the fire. Black smoke was layered in the sky from the still-burning Arizona.
The feeling aboard Enterprise was anger and unease. The crew began to feel the treachery of the Sunday morning murders. Subconsciously they compared the harbor they had left on November 28, proud and shipshape, with the oil-soaked mess before them. On the bridge, the admiral was heard to mutter, "Before we're through with 'em, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell!"
The Enterprise refueled and loaded fresh supplies in about half the usual time that night, with every man in her crew working harder and faster than they'd ever done before. By three the following morning, she was on her way back out to sea, to start her long war with the Empire of Japan.
Peter
Saturday, December 7, 2019
Saturday Snippet: The USS Enterprise and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
As we all know, the US aircraft carriers weren't at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked it on December 7th, 1941. However, they weren't far away. USS Enterprise was one of only three US carriers (along with USS Saratoga and USS Ranger) to serve throughout World War II from the first day to the last. As the Japanese attack went in, she was returning to Pearl Harbor after delivering fighter aircraft to Wake Island, soon to be occupied by Japan.
Cdr. Edward P. Stafford wrote a history of the ship, "The Big E". Published in 1962, it's become one of the classic accounts of naval warfare. I'm particularly pleased that the Enterprise car rental company, founded by a veteran who served aboard USS Enterprise during World War II and named his company for the ship, sponsored a brand-new pictorial edition of the book through the Naval Institute Press a few years ago, gathering together almost every photograph of her ever taken, to go with Cdr. Stafford's text.
It's a magnificent volume, albeit rather expensive in hardcover. I'm glad I invested in a copy - the pictures make it worth its price. Cheaper editions are also available, although without the copious illustrations. IMHO, it should be on every military and naval enthusiast's bookshelf.
From Cdr. Stafford's book, here's some of what USS Enterprise and her air group experienced on December 7th, 1941, and the following evening.
The first plane off the Enterprise the day the war began was the air group commander's. He and his wingman were airborne in two SBDs at 6:15 A.M., headed for Ford Island in the middle of Pearl Harbor.
Twelve minutes later the rest of Scouting Six was launched to search ahead of the ships and then follow in. Lucky aviators. They would be home in two hours with the ship still eight hours at sea.
In the rear seat of Commander Brigham Young's Dauntless was a lieutenant commander on Admiral Halsey's staff with a report of the Wake delivery too highly classified for radio transmission.
By 8:20, Young was close enough to notice planes circling the Marine Corps Air Station at Ewa. He assumed they were Army aircraft. Then he saw scattered black puffs of antiaircraft bursts over Pearl and was surprised to find what seemed to be target practice taking place on Sunday morning. While he was wondering how he was going to get into Ford Island through the flak, and thinking that, if this were target practice, every safety precaution he knew was being violated, one of the Army planes he had noticed broke away from the others and swept down on him.
Lieutenant Commander Bromfield B. Nichol in the rear seat saw what looked like a lot of burning cigarette butts flash past him. Where they struck the wing, pieces of aluminum shredded off. When the "Army" plane pulled up, Brig Young was at war. On wings and fuselage was the red disk of the Rising Sun.
Both SBDs dived violently for the Ford Island runway, with Young longing for the trained gunner who normally sat at his back, and Nichol tried to unlimber the .30-calibers. Both planes managed to shake off the Japanese and effect a landing despite the ships' gunners who now trusted no one and were firing at anything that flew. There was no chance in the desperate seconds between surprise attack and touch-down to warn the rest of the air group already approaching the island.
As Young rode the brakes and his Dauntless slowed, a sailor on the field leveled a machine gun at it. During the last shattering, bloody hour he had forgotten there could be any planes at Pearl Harbor not actively seeking his death. He was stopped from opening fire by a nearby pilot who advanced on him wielding a rock the size of his head.
It seemed to Brig Young that a week had passed since the dawn launch, but it was just 8:35 A.M.
Ten minutes later Lieutenant Commander Hallsted Hopping, the skipper of Scouting Six, brought his squadron in. Or most of it. No one is certain what happened to Ensign Manuel Gonzales. His last words were the first to alert the Enterprise. Out of the Sunday silence west of Oahu they came crackling from her speakers, pleading, urgent: "Please don't shoot! Don't shoot! This is an American plane." Then in a moment, evidently to his rear-seatman, "We're on fire. Bail out!" and the speakers were quiet again. He did not return and no trace was ever found. Ensign John H. L. Vogt, who had reported the fleet off Wake, never made it to Ford Island. The Marines at Ewa saw a Dauntless which was probably his, in a twisting, swirling, low altitude mix-up with two or three Zeros, fixed and free guns all firing at once. They watched it get on the tail of an enemy fighter and grimly stay there as though the pouring tracers were a towline, until the Japanese suddenly lost speed and pulled up so sharply that the Dauntless plowed into him. They didn't see anything after that because they were dodging the pieces of flaming metal that scattered for a square mile over the cane fields and the air station.
Lieutenant (j.g.) C. E. Dickinson and Ensign J. R. McCarthy came in together at 1,500 feet from their routine morning search. They too saw the smoke rising from Pearl Harbor while still far at sea and at first thought it was from the usual burning of the cane fields before harvest. But when they noticed the AA fire they guessed the truth, readied their guns and bored in after what looked to them like an enemy patrol plane. They lost it in the smoke of the burning battleships and a moment later half a dozen Japanese fighters found them.
It was not much of a fight. The Dauntless was designed to be a dive bomber. And it was an excellent one. But it was not a match for the Zeros that swarmed over Oahu that December morning. Nevertheless Dickinson's gunner, Roger Miller, shot one down before he died under the guns of the others. Both pilots had their planes riddled and were forced to bail out at low altitude.
McCarthy's leg was broken by the tail of the spinning SBD and he spent several months in the hospital. His gunner, unable to extricate himself in time, died in the crash of his plane. Dickinson landed unhurt near Ewa Field and made his way toward Ford Island. En route he watched Marines standing in the open road, professionally firing their rifles at the strafing Japs, saw the USS Nevada make its fighting sortie from Battleship Row, noted that the enemy dive bombers did not attack at the steep angle he had been trained to use, and finally was knocked flat on the concrete of Ford Island when a bomb detonated the magazine of the destroyer Shaw a few hundred yards away.
Ensign E. T. Deacon used up all his ammunition in another hopeless dogfight with the murderous Zeros and then, with a wounded leg and a shot-up aircraft, glided for Hickam Field. It was just a little too far, and he landed in the water just short of the runway, unpacked and inflated his rubber boat, lifted his wounded gunner aboard and paddled ashore. When he was certain his gunner was in good hands, he too somehow got through the burning madhouse of Pearl and across to Ford Island.
Thus did the lucky aviators of Scouting Six, who had hoped to have the precious extra hours on Oahu, come to their destination that incredible Sunday.
In the Enterprise, steaming steadily into the low morning sun for Pearl, awareness came slowly in small capsules of garbled phrases from her radios. It was as though the ship were a person to whom the bitter news could not be told in one dose.
In his flag quarters Admiral Halsey had showered and shaved and put on a clean uniform after watching the early SBDs out of sight. He breakfasted with his flag secretary, Lieutenant H. Douglas Moulton, and was on his second cup of coffee when Moulton answered the phone from Radio Central and reported an air raid on Pearl Harbor.
Halsey sprang to his feet in dismay. He was certain the Pearl gunners were firing at Lieutenant Commander Hallsted Hopping's Dauntlesses due to arrive at just that moment.
The ship's supply officer, Commander Charles Fox, was in charge of the watch in the code room. There he had just heard Gonzales' eloquent few words and seen the men on watch sit up straight "with what-the-hell expressions on their faces", and in the next few moments recognized the voice of Lieutenant Earl Gallaher, the executive officer of Scouting Six, an old hand and steady under pressure. His voice was natural and calm as he made his report:
"Pearl Harbor is under attack by Japanese aircraft."
He was too calm. The men in the code room were certain now this was all a drill. The thought of an actual Japanese attack on the Oahu they knew so well was simply unacceptable.
Routinely Gallaher's message was relayed to the bridge where it corroborated the message received by Halsey and resulted in the insistent, repeated clanging of the general alarm, the call to battle stations.
In the code room the radios kept talking. The voices were strained, the words fantastic, impossible.
"Two enemy carriers thirty miles bearing 085 from Barber's Point."
"Japanese paratroops and gliders landing at Kaneohe."
"Eight enemy transports rounding Barber's Point."
But the admiral knew it was no drill. He had a message in his hand by eight o'clock which told him so:
AIR RAID PEARL HARBOR THIS IS NO DRILL
At 8:23 he received another:
ALERT X JAPANESE PLANES ATTACKING PEARL AND AIRFIELDS ON OAHU
Halsey kept no secrets from the men of Enterprise that day. The word was passed over the public address system. Hardly anyone believed it. The habit of peace was hard to break.
But in the code room they intercepted a message ordering all medical officers in the Pearl area to rush all available anesthetics to the Naval Hospital. Realization began to come.
The admiral appeared on his bridge. His was not a drill face.
Snap hooks clicked in the hands of the signalmen and their multicolored flags soared to the yardarms. The message:
PREPARE FOR BATTLE
The flags stayed up much longer than usual. When at last they plumped like well-shot birds to the deck of the signal bridge, simultaneously from foremast and mainmast of each two-masted ship in the force, the stars and stripes broke clear and bright into the morning sun. The challenge was accepted. It seemed that the ships surged forward under the defiant battle colors.
. . .
The sun had just set [on the eighth of December] as the Big E nosed into the channel. No one could remember when a carrier had attempted that channel after sunset. From her bow, black oil from the tanks of broken ships turned back on itself and oozed away. Flight deck and catwalks, bridge, fo'c'sle and fantail were crowded with men, and every port and hatch was jammed with faces. On both sides the shore was lined with hastily erected, fully manned antiaircraft guns of all sizes and calibers. A soldier at Hickam yelled across the water.
"You'd better get the hell out of here or the Japs will nail you too."
They passed the battleship Nevada, heavily aground to port on Hospital Point, the only ship to get away from Battleship Row that awful morning. Coming around Ford Island, the carrier had to swing wide to avoid the old battleship Utah, ripped to pieces and lying on the mud of the harbor bottom. For years she had been used as a target ship. But she had been moored in the carrier Saratoga's usual berth and her heavily timbered topsides slightly resembled a flight deck from the air.
The place smelled bad. Instead of the lush, flowery smell of tropical forests which usually came down off the hills on the land breeze, there was the sick-sweet odor of fuel oil, seared flesh and the charred wood and fabric smell of a half-burned house after the fire. Black smoke was layered in the sky from the still-burning Arizona.
The feeling aboard Enterprise was anger and unease. The crew began to feel the treachery of the Sunday morning murders. Subconsciously they compared the harbor they had left on November 28, proud and shipshape, with the oil-soaked mess before them. On the bridge, the admiral was heard to mutter, "Before we're through with 'em, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell!"
The Enterprise refueled and loaded fresh supplies in about half the usual time that night, with every man in her crew working harder and faster than they'd ever done before. By three the following morning, she was on her way back out to sea, to start her long war with the Empire of Japan.
Peter
Ragnarok
On and On, South of Heaven
Did you ever get your song played?
Ragnarok
On and On, South of Heaven
My parents have one of those in storage, somewhere...
Ragnarok
On and On, South of Heaven
Holy crap! I've heard stories about the cheers that went up as those under fire, and those wounded, saw that ship as it emerged through the smoke and flames to go meet the attack. It was a huge morale boost. Damn!
FaithfulSkeptic
Carrying the mantle of doubt
That's pretty impressive Troke. Count yourself as one of fortunate ones who gets to kept their marbles with age. I know I won't.
L.A.B.
Goodness before greatness.
I recall the recollection of my late uncles experience.
He was on The Arizona on 12/06/41 until about 22:00 hours. Earlier in the day he was training in boxing skills with the officers and some others. He was Asiatic fleet champ in his weight category; possible 165 lbs then.
When the attack came that morning, uncle was already at a gym in Pearl training.
By the time he got back to Battleship row, he was now involved in rescue efforts. Cutting torches were liberated from a padlocked closet via a fire extinguisher. Using the torches on the listing or capsized vessels proved useless on the steel hull’s. Instead, the group of rescuers he was with decided climbing aboard where smoke was billowing from below.
Many men were plucked from the water by the rescuers. Some men were to take one last breath of flaming oil upon the surface, only to disappear below again for good. Those were the faces left with him.
Perhaps this Christmas I will pry from my older cousin the entire accounting perfectly.
Uncle left us in 2005. He never forgot. How could he? Pearl Harbor was a generation before my time. I cannot forget the resolve and on guard spirit it left in the character of my uncle.
He was on The Arizona on 12/06/41 until about 22:00 hours. Earlier in the day he was training in boxing skills with the officers and some others. He was Asiatic fleet champ in his weight category; possible 165 lbs then.
When the attack came that morning, uncle was already at a gym in Pearl training.
By the time he got back to Battleship row, he was now involved in rescue efforts. Cutting torches were liberated from a padlocked closet via a fire extinguisher. Using the torches on the listing or capsized vessels proved useless on the steel hull’s. Instead, the group of rescuers he was with decided climbing aboard where smoke was billowing from below.
Many men were plucked from the water by the rescuers. Some men were to take one last breath of flaming oil upon the surface, only to disappear below again for good. Those were the faces left with him.
Perhaps this Christmas I will pry from my older cousin the entire accounting perfectly.
Uncle left us in 2005. He never forgot. How could he? Pearl Harbor was a generation before my time. I cannot forget the resolve and on guard spirit it left in the character of my uncle.
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von Koehler
Has No Life - Lives on TB
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHsDGaQA49I
3:10 minutes
My father was a seaman when the USS Franklin was attacked. He rarely talked about the war.
von Koehler
Doughboy42
Veteran Member
A very good friend of mine was a radio operator on the USS Oklahoma and was in the radio room when the attack started on Dec. 7, 1941. We met in 1970 when he was the doorman at the local VFW Club and I was a new member. We became very good friends and he was my link to the Pearl Harbor attack. He passed in 1988 and I think of him often to this day.
packyderms_wife
Neither here nor there.
I was born in 1966. My neighbor that recently died not only did he serve at Pearl Harbor but he was also a captive at the River Kwai .... I don’t remember the exact name so three strikes against me, but he was one of 5he last survivors. He died this past summer and the Navy showed up every year for the past five years over his house to salute him. And he was a liberal.... a yellow dog Democrat.
Good film on the Franklin. Remarkable footage of the US invasion fleet anchorage at Ulithi. Anyone who thinks there was not going to be a full on invasion of the Japanese home islands needs to look again, or see
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/hidden-ulithi-naval-base.html
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/hidden-ulithi-naval-base.html
My Dad , an Army engineer, was the troop Commander on the Lurline coming back from the Philippines in December of 1945.
They docked in San Francisco in early January 1946.
MinnesotaSmith
Membership Revoked
One of the most famous quotes about the Pearl Harbor attack and subsequent war with the Japanese...
When Admiral Halsey entered Pearl Harbor about 2 days after the attack, he briefly looked around, then made a prediction:
"When this war is over, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell".
When Admiral Halsey entered Pearl Harbor about 2 days after the attack, he briefly looked around, then made a prediction:
"When this war is over, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell".
That was a good trick to be at Pearl Harbor and Singapore too. The River Kwai bunch were mainly captives from Singapore. So to go from Pearl Harbor to Singapore was doable (Singapore did not surrender until some months after Pearl) but pretty counter intuitive.
I have no memory of music. But given what I was to remember, I probably would not even have noticed that.
LibertyMom
Senior Member
It is possible you may be able to find something of his experience from the National Archives or...another official means for more recent accounts. (Sorry, can’t think of it just at the moment) My mother was able to get a copy of her father’s report following a failed carrier launch. It was during peacetime, but nothing is without risk.
It is easiest if you know the unit information and are an immediate family member.
PghPanther
Has No Life - Lives on TB
About 30 years ago I used to do a lot of business flying.........I was often in airports talking to older folks and many times would ask them about historical events before I was born (1954).......a significant one was the attack on Pearl...............to a person not one of them told me their experiences without tears in their eyes......
One of the women I talked to said she was in highschool and her class had about 30 students in it..........about 20 of them were boys................she said when the attack happened during the weekend the next day when they showed up for class there were 10 girls in the class..........all the boys that morning left to go enlist................
One of the women I talked to said she was in highschool and her class had about 30 students in it..........about 20 of them were boys................she said when the attack happened during the weekend the next day when they showed up for class there were 10 girls in the class..........all the boys that morning left to go enlist................
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One of my father's cousins was there. I think his wife was there with him they had a house up in the mountains, they were getting ready to leave for church when it started.
I was born after the war and I wish I had asked more questions but I don't think it would have done any good, my father wouldn't say much about it. I do distinctly remember the disdain he had for any war vet referring to himself as a hero.
They were all heroes but they sure didn't want to be called one. About the most Dad would say about it was they all did their duty and tried to stay alive. They truly were the greatest generation.
I was born after the war and I wish I had asked more questions but I don't think it would have done any good, my father wouldn't say much about it. I do distinctly remember the disdain he had for any war vet referring to himself as a hero.
They were all heroes but they sure didn't want to be called one. About the most Dad would say about it was they all did their duty and tried to stay alive. They truly were the greatest generation.
Michiana MaJo
Deceased
I remember standing at the table listening to the radio announcing we were at war (I was close to 8 yrs. old) and wondering what it meant to be at war.
Both my father and his brother, my uncle, served, but only my father came back from the war.
My mom remarried when I was still quite young, and my stepfather had also been in the war.....I never heard of him speak about it.....now, I wish I had.....like Rag, I am very interested in learning more about that part of our history. I do know that a great many (most?) WW2 servicemen did not talk about their experiences.
We lived out in the boonies in N. Minn....no electricity for many years, although the neighboring town had it. Mom would walk our laundry needing washing either on a sled or in a wagon, depending on the weather, a few miles to town where Grandma lived, then back home to hang it on a line.....even in the winter! I don’t think that even city people had dryers, back then. Oh, we didn’t have a car, either,
during the war years. We either walked or rode a bike wherever we had to go. (Mom grew almost all our food.)
We had phones that were on the wall, and to make a call, you had to crank the handle of the phone to cause one or more long or short rings...I know that sounds weird....remember, not a lot of people lived out so far. If I recall, our special ring to answer was 2 short rings and one long one. We were aware that some women were nosey enough to listen in on other peoples’ calls.....if you were on the line with a call, you could hear a tell-tale click that someone had lifted their receiver. Mom would never do that and taught me that was not right!
There was a lady ”operator” in our tiny town, a few miles away, who used a crank to make a long distance call for anyone needing an outside call in a different area. Most of you have no idea how primitive things were a few years prior to your arrival....in fact, in the cities, things actually were a little more modern, tho not much, compared to now! They, at least had electricity. Now that I can compare our lives to that in the city (which was totally foreign to us...no TV to learn about them), they may as well have been foreign lands!
How I wish, now, that mom were alive to see how everyone has smart phones.... when I think of how those old crank style telephones have evolved into these miraculous smart phones, it would make her head spin! But, when I really think about it, maybe she would shake her head and wish herself back into the “good old days” when at least, she was used to how things were. ( To be honest, I do, too!, sometimes!)
I realize this thread is about the war.....just happened to recall some conditions DURING that era that some of you might also be interested in learning about. ‘Scuze me for digressing, so much!
Both my father and his brother, my uncle, served, but only my father came back from the war.
My mom remarried when I was still quite young, and my stepfather had also been in the war.....I never heard of him speak about it.....now, I wish I had.....like Rag, I am very interested in learning more about that part of our history. I do know that a great many (most?) WW2 servicemen did not talk about their experiences.
We lived out in the boonies in N. Minn....no electricity for many years, although the neighboring town had it. Mom would walk our laundry needing washing either on a sled or in a wagon, depending on the weather, a few miles to town where Grandma lived, then back home to hang it on a line.....even in the winter! I don’t think that even city people had dryers, back then. Oh, we didn’t have a car, either,
during the war years. We either walked or rode a bike wherever we had to go. (Mom grew almost all our food.)
We had phones that were on the wall, and to make a call, you had to crank the handle of the phone to cause one or more long or short rings...I know that sounds weird....remember, not a lot of people lived out so far. If I recall, our special ring to answer was 2 short rings and one long one. We were aware that some women were nosey enough to listen in on other peoples’ calls.....if you were on the line with a call, you could hear a tell-tale click that someone had lifted their receiver. Mom would never do that and taught me that was not right!
There was a lady ”operator” in our tiny town, a few miles away, who used a crank to make a long distance call for anyone needing an outside call in a different area. Most of you have no idea how primitive things were a few years prior to your arrival....in fact, in the cities, things actually were a little more modern, tho not much, compared to now! They, at least had electricity. Now that I can compare our lives to that in the city (which was totally foreign to us...no TV to learn about them), they may as well have been foreign lands!
How I wish, now, that mom were alive to see how everyone has smart phones.... when I think of how those old crank style telephones have evolved into these miraculous smart phones, it would make her head spin! But, when I really think about it, maybe she would shake her head and wish herself back into the “good old days” when at least, she was used to how things were. ( To be honest, I do, too!, sometimes!)
I realize this thread is about the war.....just happened to recall some conditions DURING that era that some of you might also be interested in learning about. ‘Scuze me for digressing, so much!
My dad fought in WWll. He joined after Pearl Harbor. He never talked about it much. Mom said he would sometimes have nightmares when they first married. He told me once that he spent 3 days going between 2 trees that he used for cover. He said all the bark was shot off the sides of those trees. His childhood friend died there. Dad lost most of his hearing in one ear due to an untreated ear infection during this time. Dad was a good man and a great dad. There were a lot like him from that generation.