70 Years ago...

[Guest]

Salute to the guys that died that day. :patriot:

[Kevin Greene]

:patriot::patriot::patriot:

[hepcat]

NPR was like - "Dec 7 is the anniversary of Pearl Harbor...and Larry Bird's birthday"

Like those two are related.

[Guest]

fug NPR.

[charlotte49er]

"Gutless f'ing Japanese!" (Or so my Father called them.)

"I didn't fight in the Pacific so you could drive a pick-up made by Gutless f'ing Japanese!"

I bought my 1981 Toyota pick-up because is was a good pick-up, not to PO my Father.

But he was right. Japanese can be sneaky B******!

Now they own more of Hawaii than we do! Japan won't have to take it over. They will just buy it. (Except for the private island of course.)

Chinese will just foreclose on the other 48 states!

Maybe Canada will do us a favor and buy Alaska to put off foreclosure for a few years.

It's ironic that when I was there in 1993, there were more Japanese at the Arizona memorial than there were Americans. I wonder if they were there to admire their handiwork?

God Bless Elvis Presley! While filming "Blue Hawaii", he did 3 concerts and donated all the proceeds from the concerts to build the Arizona Memorial!

The Atomic Bomb: 'Made in America by lazy and illiterate workers and tested in Japan.'

As an Engineer, we are bred to say "What it".

Ponder this my friends.

1945, Russis had stayed out of the war in the Pacific because they had their hands full with the army run by the guy with the funny moustache!

The Japanese had secretly negotiated a surrender through Russians envoys with the Unitied States. To which the US had turned down their conditons of surrender.

I think it was at Pottsdam that Truman said that he would accept no less then the "Unconditional Surrender" of Japan. This was in respose to the Japanese conditions. Stalin said that he would enter the war against Japan once the rebuiilding of his contry was farther along.

Now here's the "What if". What if Truman hadn't OK'd the use of the Atomic Bombs against Japan and Russia entered the war in the pacific? Would Russia and the US become allies and split up Japan? (Russia had already taken over an Japanese island that it holds to this day.)

We would probably have no Hondas, no Toyotas, etc.

[Mvp2014]

NPR was like - "Dec 7 is the anniversary of Pearl Harbor...and Larry Bird's birthday"

Like those two are related.

LOL, who the fug listens to NPR??

[boo7382]

[Darth Biscuit]

Nice thread catfang... that was a hell of a day for those guys.

[GritsRgreat]

I think my uncle killed a few "****" during his time as a marine.

[charlotte49er]

[Jangler]

[Jangler]

[ladypanther]

A sad day. Which led to more sad days.

I do not understand war. WTF is wrong with people?

[GritsRgreat]

Close to home..

http://www.heraldonline.com/2011/12/07/3580235/local-grandson-battles-to-clear.html#storylink=omni_popular

Manning Kimmel believes his grandfather was one of the last two casualties of Pearl Harbor.

Husband Kimmel was commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet when the Japanese launched a surprise attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Dec. 7, 1941. Manning, who lives in Rock Hill, believes both his grandfather and the Army's Hawaiian commander have been unfairly blamed for the disaster.

The Kimmel family has battled for almost 70 years to clear Husband's name. Today, Manning and a Florida cousin, Thomas Kimmel, continue the fight.

Rock Hill Pearl Harbor survivor recalls 'helping the living and collecting the dead'

The Japanese air attack killed more than 2,400 U.S. servicemen, decimated the fleet and put most of the U.S. battleships, at least temporarily, out of action. It also sent shock waves through a nation.

In a speech to Congress the next day, President Franklin Roosevelt predicted Dec. 7 would be "a date which will live in infamy."

Manning Kimmel, managing partner of the company that owns Rock Hill radio station WRHI, and his cousin say Pearl Harbor happened because Army and Navy commanders in Washington did not forward critical intelligence to their grandfather and to Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short, the Army's Hawaiian commander.

As ceremonies today mark the 70th anniversary of the attack, the Kimmels continue a fight their grandfather started within six weeks after the attack. That's when the first of many investigations were launched into why Pearl Harbor happened.

They want Husband Kimmel's rank restored. As commander of the Pacific and U.S fleets, he was a four-star admiral. But he was relieved of command 10 days after the attack and retired in March 1942 as a two-star admiral, his name under a national cloud of suspicion.

His grandsons say Kimmel, who died in 1968, and Short, who died in 1949, are the last two casualties of Pearl Harbor. Many others agree with them, from those who served with Kimmel to historians who have studied the battle in great detail.

But others, while agreeing that several investigations determined many people bear responsibility for the attack, say Kimmel and Short were the commanders in charge. The two failed because they were unprepared, and they are accountable for their actions, or inactions.

Manning and Thomas Kimmel see it simply as a manner of honor - an injustice to one person in uniform is an injustice to all in uniform. For several years, they have pushed the Defense Department, Congress and several presidents to clear Husband's name.

"I asked my father once why this was so important," said Manning Kimmel, 63. "My dad looked at me, daggers coming out his eyes, and said, 'To a military man, honor is above life itself. What they did to your grandfather was worse than if he had been killed.'"

A family of soldiers

To his brothers and sisters he was "Hubby."

To his closest friends, he was "Kim."

But to Manning and Thomas, he was just grandfather, the loveable man in the cardigan sweaters and Tam o'Shanter hats. The man who filled trash can after trash can with errant golf balls from a golf course adjacent to his house.

Husband is a family name, traced to Herman Husband, a man of great conviction. Herman felt his fellow North Carolina farmers were being taken advantage of by the ruling British. He helped them form the "Regulators" who fought at the 1771 battle of Alamance County.

His father, Marius Manning, fought on both sides during the Civil War, briefly for the Yankees at Bull Run and then for the Confederacy.

Husband had hoped to follow in his father's footsteps and attend West Point. No appointments were open that year, so Husband went to the Naval Academy instead.

His demeanor was described as very direct, even brusque and undiplomatic in his approach to problems, according to a letter written by Gen. George Marshall, the Army's chief of staff from 1939 to 1945.

But his superiors and colleagues saw promise.

His intelligence officer, Lt. Commander Edward T. Layton, said Kimmel had "little tolerance for laziness or indecision. He had an infectious warm smile when pleased by somebody and a frosty demeanor if displeased."