QuoteHow Pearl Harbor Shaped the Modern World
Seventy-five years ago on Dec. 7, shortly before 8 a.m., hundreds of Japanese aircraft dove from the sky in a surprise bombing attack on a United States naval base in Hawaii, killing more than 2,400 Americans.
The attack on Pearl Harbor shocked and outraged the nation and led it into war at a time when Congress and the American people had been split on the response to an already embattled world.
News articles from Dec. 8 reflected a sudden shift in the national mood. According to New York Times articles from Dec. 9 and 10, 1941, thousands of men rushed to sign up to serve in the United States armed forces, pushing enlistment to new highs.
Congressional leaders debated whether to declare war, not only on Japan but also on the Axis powers including Germany and Italy.
Sam Rayburn, who became the longest-serving speaker in the history of the House, was asked that day whether Congress would support war. "I think that is one thing on which there would be unity," he was quoted as saying in The Times.
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President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared war on Japan on Dec. 8, and three days later, Germany declared war on the United States.
World War II would see the first and only wartime nuclear strikes, after President Harry S. Truman ordered attacks on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, killing more than 125,000 people. More than 50 million died in the war over all.
Decades after Pearl Harbor, nationalist parties are on the rise in the West and East alike. With the election of Donald J. Trump as president of the United States, the British vote to exit the European Union and the onset of nationalism in Hungary, France, Austria and Greece, among other nations, experts say the world is more fractious than it has been in a long time.
"Seven decades after Pearl Harbor, the guilt, reflection and self-questioning that followed the Second World War have been replaced by resurgent nationalism on both sides of the globe," Mark Leonard, the director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, said in a phone interview on Wednesday.
The passage of time has also buried old enmities. President Obama became the first sitting American president to visit a memorial of the bombing in Hiroshima. This month, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan announced that he would visit Pearl Harbor with Mr. Obama during a trip on Dec. 26 and 27. He will be the first sitting Japanese leader to travel to the site of the attack.
The United States' entry into World War II led to a postwar order in which the nation and Russia emerged as dual superpowers, with Europe left to rebuild.
Today, the spread of populist movements has disrupted politics on a global scale, and some experts see parallels between the world's mood before the Pearl Harbor attack and the current atmosphere.
Stephen M. Saideman, a professor of International Affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa and an author of the 2015 book, "For Kin or Country: Xenophobia, Nationalism and War," pointed to macroeconomic factors.
"Reactions to the Great Depression bred protectionism and authoritarianism," he said. "The advent of Trump and of far-right populist movements around the world makes us all feel déjà vu."
Mr. Trump has argued that the United States needs to protect its own interests first. He says he is willing to withdraw American forces from Asia, and to renegotiate the nation's alliances.
In June 1941, the summer before the Pearl Harbor attack, an unsigned analysis in The Times explained why many Americans were tending toward pacifism in the face of Hitler's rise. It said one reason was the "abiding memory" of World War I, during which many Americans died.
Today, historical memory and first-person recollections of the Second World War are fading. Only about 620,000 of the 16 million Americans who served in the war are alive, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
For Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, thousands paid tribute to the veterans who fought and died, flags across the nation flew at half-staff, and segments of the armed forces held a moment of silence.
75 long years ago. Not really sure how to mark an occasion like this.
Quote from: Valmy on December 07, 2016, 02:05:38 PM
75 long years ago. Not really sure how to mark an occasion like this.
Watch racist WWII Warner Brothers cartoons.
Roosevelt's speech:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK8gYGg0dkE
The president has the power to declare war? And didn't Japan declare war on the US December 7?
Quote from: The Brain on December 07, 2016, 02:10:15 PM
And didn't Japan declare war on the US December 7?
Roosevelt makes this point in his speech. Basically that a state of war already exists but go ahead and declare it.
By buying a book where in it Japan won?
http://angryrobotbooks.com/books/united-states-of-japan-by-peter-tieryas/
Quote from: Zanza on December 07, 2016, 02:07:40 PM
Roosevelt's speech:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK8gYGg0dkE
A great speech. FDR had a very hard time walking and had to brace his legs/knees straight and shift them forward in a stiff legged type walk. But on this occasion he insisted on walking to the podium for the speech. He leaned heavily on his son's arm as he made the walk to the podium, very fearful that he'd fall and how that would make him look weak in the eyes of the nation's enemies. But he made the walk with no problem and made a great speech, not glorifying the need for war to rev up public opinion, but rather to note the harsh realities of what had happened and that war existed in a strong willed and somewhat somber speech.
The day Martinus registered on Languish? :unsure:
Season 2 of The Man in the High Castle starts soon :hmm:
Really was a great speech.
It's sad that all the WWII vets I knew as a child are gone. :(
Aye, the last one in my family passed several years ago. An uncle-in-law (robbed the cradle marrying my dad's sister) who had lied about his age to join the USN prior to the war. Served on the USS Texas in the Atlantic.
Last time I saw/visited him, he was telling how they cooked moonshine from coconuts in the ship's HVAC system. :)
Scheming Japs, Ed never saw the sneak attack coming from that Jewish American Princess he dated back in '91.
His Fran Drescher phase.
Next time you're in Mobtown, come down to the harbor and see the USCGC Taney, last ship afloat that returned fire on the Japanese raid.
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It wasn't at Pearl Harbor, it was at Honolulu Harbor, but it still managed to get its guns up. Also managed to throw some rounds at the commies during the Vietnam War.
Quote
On Pearl Harbor Day, This Aircraft Risked It All to Find the Japanese Fleet
The Sikorsky JRS-1 flew right through the middle of it on December 7, 1941
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http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/pearl-harbor-day-aircraft-risked-it-all-to-find-japanese-180961331/ (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/pearl-harbor-day-aircraft-risked-it-all-to-find-japanese-180961331/)
It was the morning of December 7, 1941, and Navy ensign Wesley Hoyt Ruth was having breakfast in the bachelor's quarters on Ford Island in the middle of Pearl Harbor, when Japanese planes roared in and began dropping bombs.
"I knew right away what was happening, so I grabbed my coat and hat," Ruth told the Charlotte Observer in a 2011 interview. "I got into my convertible and drove up to the north end of the island, and at that point I was about a quarter mile from the USS Arizona, and I saw the Arizona bombed."
The first surprise Japanese attack happened at 7:55 a.m., and the next about an hour later. Scores of planes dropped torpedoes, destroying huge battleships, more than 300 planes and nearly 20 Naval vessels. More than 2,000 Americans died, and more than 1,000 were wounded. The attack forced America into World War II.
On Ford Island, Ruth was getting into the pilot seat of a Sikorsky JRS-1, a large amphibian plane with both landing gear and floaters.
"I had a co-pilot, a radio man and three sailors . . . and just before I left the line the senior officer brought out three Springfield rifles for us to use to shoot at the Japanese which was a hopeless cause," Ruth recalled, "because the enemy had cannons in their fighters and we didn't have a chance. But we were the first planes off of Pearl Harbor."
image: http://public.media.smithsonianmag.com//filer/9b/3a/9b3a268c-0c06-47aa-9838-6dcd6829ccf3/4437hweb.jpg
Sikorsky JRS-1
"When people see her," says the Smithsonian's Pat Robinson, "we remember what happened to the country and the people who lost their lives that day." (NASM)
The Sikorsky JRS-1 Ruth flew that day is now in the collections at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. It is currently on display at the Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar at the Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles International Airport.
Museum Specialist Pat Robinson says the 1938 plane is one of only about seven aircraft that were at Pearl Harbor on that day, and it is the only aircraft in the museum's collection that was stationed there during the December 7 attack. Robinson's very attached to the plane, and still a bit awed by what it achieved in the middle of chaos.
"She was right in the middle of it," Robinson says. "She went out along with other airplanes from the (Navy) Utility One Squadron searching for the Japanese fleet."
Amazingly, Ruth got the Sikorsky airborne in the middle of a barrage of American anti-aircraft fire, and nearly accomplished the mission.
"We know that it came within 30 to 40 miles of the Japanese fleet–it just about found them," Robinson says. "There was the tragedy of losing lots of airplanes coming in from the USS Enterprise were getting shot down by their own anti-aircraft fire. But (the Sikorsky) got airborne with no incident."
Five of the ten Sikorsky's on the island launched and went looking for the Japanese fleet. Ruth and the four other pilots, along with one Marine, later received the Navy Cross. (Ruth died at the age of 101, on May 23, 2015.) Robinson says they weren't armed defensively at the time. They could carry depth charges to attack a submarine but those were no good against an airplane. But there were crew members hanging out of the plane's back door with firearms, though they could do little against the Japanese aircraft.
"I flew along about a thousand feet just below the clouds because I wanted to duck into the clouds in case I did see anything [and] they wouldn't see me," Ruth recalled. "I went out to about 250 miles north and turned east and didn't see anything because they had turned northwest to recover their planes. They came in due south and turned northwest."
Robinson says the next challenge for the crew of the Sikorsky was to get back to base safely.
"They've gotta come back and how do we get back in without our own people shooting us down," Robinson says the crew must have been thinking. The ten Sikorsky's landed back on Ford Island after being gone for five hours with no incident.
The Sikorsky JRS-1 that Ruth flew was the 13th built by the company, and was delivered to the Navy on July 28, 1938. It was assigned to Utility Squadron One (VJ-1), the fleet's photographic unit, at the Naval Air Station in San Diego, California, on August 3 of that year.
It is the only surviving JRS-1 amphibian. The plane, Navy bureau number 1063, was flown to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in July of 1940, where it was assigned to Ford Island. The JRS-1 amphibians flew many missions searching for the Japanese fleet and looking for Japanese submarines. The Smithsonian's JRS stopped flying such missions on September 5, 1942, and was shipped to California for an overhaul. It was later assigned to the Commander Fleet Airship Wing 31 at Moffett Field in 1943 before being stricken from active service August 31, 1944 and put into storage.
But the JRS-1 wasn't done yet.
Robinson says it was taken out of storage in 1946 and flown to NACA Langley, a precursor of NASA in 1946, and used in a study. When it was returned to storage at Bush Field, Georgia, someone noticed the December 7 logbook entry and bought it to the attention of the Smithsonian, which asked that the JRS-1 be transferred to its collection. Officially accepted into the collections in 1960, the aircraft was moved to the Udvar-Hazy Center in March of 2011. Robinson says it means a lot to have it on display.
"It was there. . . . It represents the day. It's the airplane equivalent of the USS Arizona," Robinson says. "When people see her ... we remember the day and what happened to the country and the people who lost their lives that day."
The JRS-1 is the military version of a a 15-seat passenger plane called the S43. Fifty three were made, and the Navy bought 17 of them. Two were given to the Marine Corps., the U.S. Army got five, and two were built for private use by Harold Vanderbilt and tycoon Howard Hughes. Museum Specialist Robinson calls the Sikorsky a jack of all trades that got all of the non-Hollywood jobs in the Navy.
"She's an amphibian, and equally comfortable in the water or on land, which is one of the unique things about an aircraft that can do both," Robinson explains. "It's a utility aircraft. ... it's a pick-up truck, it's a van. It moves critical personnel around. It moves parts, it goes out and tows targets so the fighting outfits can shoot at the sleeves (a long streamer towed behind an aircraft used for target practice)."
But Robinson says the photographic unit Utility Squadron One played a major role after the Pearl Harbor attack.
"Anytime anyone needed photographs of ships at sea or of shore installations, Utility Squadron One was the one you could call," Robinson says. "The balance of the photographs that you and I see today of the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the ones taken from the air, were taken by Utility Squadron One. They were trying to assess what kind of damage do we have, what's still good. They were taking pictures of airfields and the harbor itself to get an idea of what happened."
Robinson calls the plane a time capsule. The blue paint on the JRS-1 was applied in the days right after the attack as personnel tried to tone down the bright colors the aircraft had been painted before the war. She had a silver fuselage and the wings were orange and yellow.
"The blue paint was applied very quickly and as it has faded you can see the handstrokes of where the individual was spraying the airplane, the movement of his hands," Robinson says. "We can see underneath the original pre-war, the very proud colors she wore, and the logo of Utility Squadron One is still there."
It is a pelican carrying the mail, with a photographer in its beak, and little puffs of smoke coming out behind him.
Robinson says preserving aircraft such as the Sikorsky is important to museum personnel doing restorations. The JRS-1 is not currently being restored but she is high on the list. With the Sikorsky, Robinson says the museum has the "book ends" on American involvement in World War II. The JRS-1 was there the day of the attack, the museum also has the B26 "Flack Bait" that flew two missions on D-Day, and the Enola Gay, which ended the conflict.
"We want to do the best job possible to make sure the artifacts are preserved for all eternity for generations and generations from now on they'll be there. People will understand the evolution of technology and the role they played in the history of this country and of aviation," he says.
But the Sikorsky has a special message for those who see it.
"It represents America being dragged into that conflict against its will and how we rallied to respond to it," Robinson says. "It's like Ground Zero in New York. It's a reminder. Don't forget remain vigiliant. It's like she's talking to you saying don't forget."
Quote from: jimmy olsen on December 07, 2016, 10:05:02 PM
It's sad that all the WWII vets I knew as a child are gone. :(
What is sad is that they fought so hard to keep America free for their future children and grandchildren, and now you have abandoned your country and are dating a russian. I'm relieved none of the WWII vets you knew are around to see it.
Speaking of dates that will live in infamy: the moment the woman shows you pics of her 17 y/o dancer/model daughter and you try to express appreciation without creeping her the fuck out. :blush:
Quote from: alfred russel on December 08, 2016, 02:16:52 PM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on December 07, 2016, 10:05:02 PM
It's sad that all the WWII vets I knew as a child are gone. :(
What is sad is that they fought so hard to keep America free for their future children and grandchildren, and now you have abandoned your country and are dating a russian. I'm relieved none of the WWII vets you knew are around to see it.
She's Korean and we'll be coming back to America one day.
They'd be sadder about the creeping fascism in the white house, but can't blame me for that.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on December 08, 2016, 06:09:48 PM
She's Korean
I thought you said she was born and raised in the USSR.
Quoteand we'll be coming back to America one day.
You will be coming back. She won't be.
QuoteThey'd be sadder about the creepingfascismin the whiye house, but can't blame me for that.
Most vets, men, old people, and white people voted for Trump. To the extent WWII vets are still alive, I bet a lot of them are excited.
The was a haunted Kinkos in town, with lots of creepy facsimiles.
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:lol:
RETWEETED LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER
Quote from: citizen k on December 08, 2016, 12:01:52 AM
Quote
On Pearl Harbor Day, This Aircraft Risked It All to Find the Japanese Fleet
The Sikorsky JRS-1 flew right through the middle of it on December 7, 1941
(snip)
What's especially impressive about that flight was that the JRS-1 was a transport plane, not a war plane.
Quote from: alfred russel on December 08, 2016, 06:44:00 PM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on December 08, 2016, 06:09:48 PM
She's Korean
I thought you said she was born and raised in the USSR.
You will be coming back. She won't be.
Most vets, men, old people, and white people voted for Trump. To the extent WWII vets are still alive, I bet a lot of them are excited.
She's ethnically Korean, from Uzbekistan. The only thing Russian about her is her language.
Yes she will.
WWII vets are Dems.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on December 08, 2016, 10:40:25 PM
She's ethnically Korean, from Uzbekistan.
Spellus just came in his pants. And then punched his own nutsack.
QuoteWWII vets are Dems.
Shut up.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on December 08, 2016, 10:40:25 PM
Quote from: alfred russel on December 08, 2016, 06:44:00 PM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on December 08, 2016, 06:09:48 PM
She's Korean
I thought you said she was born and raised in the USSR.
You will be coming back. She won't be.
Most vets, men, old people, and white people voted for Trump. To the extent WWII vets are still alive, I bet a lot of them are excited.
She's ethnically Korean, from Uzbekistan. The only thing Russian about her is her language.
Yes she will.
WWII vets are Dems.
His point was that she won't be "coming back" to America, 'cause she's not from her to start with.
And on the WWII vets thing, you're a total moron.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on December 08, 2016, 10:40:25 PM
She's ethnically Korean, from Uzbekistan. The only thing Russian about her is her language.
So she is Uzbek.
Quote from: dps on December 08, 2016, 11:08:31 PM
And on the WWII vets thing, you're a total moron.
They're the New Deal generation.
Lol Tim.