Today In History: Pearl Harbor
December 7th: Today in 1941 a Japanese surprise attack on the US military bases on Oahu brings the US into the Second World War. Good article today in the Washington Post about the wreckage of the battleship Arizona decaying. I grew up near Pearl Harbor and visited the Arizona a number of times. An account of this year’s final reunion of the survivors of both sides can be read here.
I also used to raft around the remains of the other ship out in the harbor, the USS Utah. It is on the other side of Ford Island near some old piers, we used to camp near there in the Boy Scouts and would sometimes take a ferry over to the island to just walk around and play. One day we found an wooden raft over by the piers and took it out into the harbor. We got it out to near the wreck of the Utah then brought it back in and hid it. We took it out a couple of times after that but we realized that the harbor wasn’t a place to be playing around in too much so eventually we abandoned the raft. Apparently there is now a bridge over to Ford Island, we used to have to take the ferry over. A couple of times we got to go up to the bridge of the ferry and one time they let me run the engines as we docked it. I suspect that wouldn’t happen now as times have changed.
The Utah has a small memorial as well, but it lies mostly forgotten today. It was one of the first ships attacked, when I was a kid I was told it was because it had a flat deck and was mistaken as a carrier, but apparently it was known to be a target ship and the pilots that attacked it were disobeying orders. A good account of the attack on the Utah and some of the rescue efforts can be found here at the USS Utah Memorial Web page.
Edit: Here is a story on the Utah survivors service at Pearl Harbor today.
December 9th, 2006 at 9:31 pm
For me, December 7th always reminds me that my parents were on opposite sides of the war, so to speak, although I think if you asked them a bunch of detailed questions, they’d have a lot more in common in point of view. Plus, they were only teenagers at the time, so it’s not like anyone asked them for military or political advice. My dad saw Doolittle’s raid, and he and his friends became suddenly aware that the planes they were having trouble identifying were in fact bombing their homes. Dad also started a strike in a factory during the war, having the other kids bang on the floor and refuse to work because the factory was too cold (can’t waste precious resources on frivolities like heat) and it was really too cold for them to do the work they were assigned. My father doesn’t think that it is remarkable that he did something like this; he feels that as the class president, it was his job to protect his mates.