Today is the 82nd anniversary of Pearl Harbor.
For those who observe.
As I often have over this past few decades, I call out the fact that the first shots at Pearl Harbor were fired by a crew of Navy Reservists from Saint Paul, who’d been mobilized earlier in the year as part of Roosevelt’s build-up to the war everyone knew was coming.
The ship – which was built during World War 1, was thoroughly obsolte, and had been pressed back into service to fill the gaps until new ships could be built – was converted into a fast transport in 1942.
The men of that crew are all gone, now – Alan Sanford, the last survivor, died in 2015. And the Ward itself didn’t survive the war – it was lost in action off the Philippines, three years to the day after it fired the first shot of the war, on December 7 1944.. The Ward was hit by a Kamikaze and crippled.
In a bit of historical poetry almost too unbelievable to be in a Hollywood script, after the ship was abandoned, the ship was sunk by gunfire from another destroyer, the USS O’Brien, who’s commander, WIlliam Outerbridge, had been the Ward’s CO at Pearl Harbor. (And, just because I’m a geek for this kind of thing, I’ll note that O’Brien was built just down the waterfront from this ship, which I wrote about a while back).
But while Sanford, his shipmates and the Ward ˆitself are long gone, the gun they crewed lives on…
…on the State Capitol grounds, acquired from some naval armory decades ago.
Wonder what pretense the Walz administration will use for removing it?
Wonder what pretense the Walz administration will use for removing it?
I’m surprised it has lasted this long. I’m surprised there hasn’t been some leftist peace activist who wants to remove all remnants of honoring our military.
Aside from the ethic and strategic aspect of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, it is worthwhile to note there were worries on the Japanese side about the effectiveness of the enterprise.
At least until November 11th, 1940 when the British launched a similar operation against the Italian navy at Taranto.
Even though the British employed obsolete Swordfish bi-planes, they managed to put three Italian battleships out of action.
You have to think that the Japanese with four fleet carriers at their disposal and perhaps the most capable aircraft at the time, figured they could do a whole lot better.
Didn’t the Japanese attack because we were putting the Nisei into concentration camps? And we stole Hawaii from the indigenous Polynesians.
I was at the monument this summer, and spoke with a son of a member of the crew.
I hope there would be a demonstration against it’s removal. Would the veterans organizations speak out at the least?
There’s a number of other monuments in the same area, and are worth the time to look at.
Just to be clear – I’ve heard no actual plan toward removing it.
It’d just be depressingly in-character for someone to try.