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75th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor Today (Dec. 7)


DonLever

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from CBC:

 

It has been 75 years, but U.S. Navy veteran James Leavelle can still recall watching in horror as Japanese warplanes rained bombs down on his fellow sailors in the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into the Second World War.

Bullets bounced off the steel deck of his own ship, the USS Whitney, anchored just outside Honolulu harbour, but a worse fate befell those aboard the USS Arizona, USS Oklahoma, USS Utah and others that capsized in an attack that killed 2,400 people.

"The way the Japanese planes were coming in, when they dropped bombs, they'd drop them and then circle back," said Leavelle, a 21-year-old Navy Storekeeper Second Class at the time of the attack.

 

The bombing of Pearl Harbor took place at 7:55 a.m. Honolulu time on Dec. 7, 1941, famously dubbed "a date which will live in infamy" by U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt. Fewer than 200 survivors of the attacks there and on other military bases in Hawaii are still alive. 

 

Wednesday's commemoration at a pier overlooking the memorial to the sunken USS Arizona built in the harbour is set to begin with a moment of silence at precisely that time.

About 350 Second World War veterans and their families will be serenaded by the Navy's Pacific Fleet Band with a musical remembrance made bittersweet by the knowledge that every member of the USS Arizona band — one of the best in the U.S. navy — died that day.

Attendees will watch a parade, and two families will participate in a private ceremony in which the ashes of crew members who survived the attack and later died, will be interred in a turret of the Arizona. 

Across the United States on Wednesday, Americans will pause to remember those who died at Pearl Harbor, and the long world war that followed.

 

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Lucky for the Yanks their carriers were at sea otherwise the war in the Pacific would have played out totally different.  With their survival it allowed the US to provide air power to the naval battles which ensued in the years ahead.  Which eventually led to the destruction of the Jap navy.  And we all know how the island hopping campaign pushed back enemy forces towards the homeland which led to 2 days in August 1945 which closed the deal.  

 

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7 minutes ago, ReggieBush said:

From the Japanese perspective, I still don't get why they would want to wake the sleeping bear

 

Their strategy was to cripple the US Pacific Navy.  Claim all the colonies in Asia.  Then negotiate a peace treaty afterwards (while claiming most of the possessions).  

Might have been feasible if Britain fell... since it would have been the USA and USSR vs the Axis..... not sure how willing they would be signing up for that kind of scenario.

 

IIRC, Japan didn't stand a chance and they knew it.  I think even their top admiral pretty much declared that they have already lost the war the instant he found out the US carriers weren't in Pearl Harbor.  

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1 hour ago, ReggieBush said:

From the Japanese perspective, I still don't get why they would want to wake the sleeping bear

 

It was inevitable. Japan are islands of no resources, no raw materials, no oil. It should be noted that at the time the U.S. was a big oil exporter to Japan. After invading China and then Vietnam (french control at the time), the U.S. placed the oil embargo on Japan which would have severely crippled the country. So Japan planned to invade oil rich dutch controlled indonesia. But they also had to take care of the U.S. forces in the Philippines in their rear. Of course that meant full scale war so they decided to go after Pearl Harbour as well. 

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28 minutes ago, Standing_Tall#37 said:

Just out of curiosity, where were the BC internment camps? 

 

First, all Japanese were essentially interned on the grounds of the Pacific National Exhibition. Then they were moved out, some to sugar beet farms on the Prairies, the rest to:

 

Slocan, New Denver, Kaslo, Greenwood and Sandon.

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1 hour ago, Ley-Enfield said:

15400320_10154723638084933_7100551108798

 

Sure it does.  As I have explained multiple times to my wife who is from Japan (her father and now my father-in-law is a survivor from Hiroshima), Operation Downfall would have killed way more civilians than both nuclear attacks.  

It's just unfortunate that hundreds of thousands died.... but it saved potentially millions others.  

 

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8 minutes ago, Lancaster said:

 

Sure it does.  As I have explained multiple times to my wife who is from Japan (her father and now my father-in-law is a survivor from Hiroshima), Operation Downfall would have killed way more civilians than both nuclear attacks.  

It's just unfortunate that hundreds of thousands died.... but it saved potentially millions others.  

 

 

So, 

 

15350479_10210172664746457_4444166054327

 

Right?

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9 minutes ago, Ley-Enfield said:

 

So, 

 

15350479_10210172664746457_4444166054327

 

Right?

 

Because doing the intro scene in Saving Private Ryan times 10.... plus fighting against an entire civilian population that has been mobilized to fight to the death... that is much better?

Did you know that the firebombings of Tokyo killed even more people than either nuclear attacks?

 

200,000 dead or 2,000,000 dead, which is better in your books?

Rational people will choose the small number.

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