December, 7

[JoJo357]

*M.A.D*


https://youtu.be/6Yu1eRqFjmQ


PEARL-HARBOR-REMEMBRANCE-DAY.jpg

[PaulCDF]

Amen. May we never forget.

[chuckthebeatertruck]

For the last decade, Mrs Chuck and I have attended or supported the "Love of Country" gala held at the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum on Ford Island in one of the hangers still bearing scars and bullet holes from December 7, 1941. The 75th anniversary gala was spectacular and one of the last gatherings of the surviving Arizona crew members.

For the 75th Anniversary, my uncle and I flew a 1941 WACO Navy trainer over Pearl at high noon. If you were there that grey day, that was me in the yellow/blue WACO paying tribute.

never forget.

[exeric]

Baby boomers grew up with War veterans, war movies, and the memories of those who experienced that global nightmare. The war seemed abstract to the children of post war America, but the more I've learned, and aged, the deeper my reverence for the sacrifices that freedom loving people (world wide) made. My Father, his Brothers, and most all of our neighbors and friends from that time served in WW2.

[Rollo]

Amen Eric and the others who have commented. Most have no clue what it took and why it was important. Remember always!

Tom (Rollo) Hardy
AMCA #12766

[chuckthebeatertruck]

Amen Eric and the others who have commented. Most have no clue what it took and why it was important. Remember always!

Tom (Rollo) Hardy
AMCA #12766

The clueless is compounded by the SCALE of what happened and how fast. It's very hard for many people to really understand how the US went from backward to super power in 4 years.

Here's some scary stats:

In 1941, the US Navy had about 330-340,000 total personnel and roughly 300 total boats at its disposal (most of which were transport or oiler; not battle or escort) and roughly 1500 aircraft.

In 1945, the US Navy had about 3.3 MILLION total personnel. The Navy operated 6,700 boats, including an astounding 90 carriers, 230 submarines, 350 destroyers, and 75,000 aircraft. ALL of that was built by Americans using American ore, American machines, and American production techniques. Oh, and all in a four year period.

It's just as crazy on the Army Air Force side of the equation. In early 1939, the Air Corp consisted of 25,000 personnel and 1200 aircraft. By December 7, 1941, the Air Corps was up to 152,000 personnel and 6800 aircraft. By 1945 the Army Air Force had reached 2.4 MILLION personnel and 80,000 aircraft. Again, all built by Americans in less than 4 years.

To really bring this home - the US continues to have the most powerful and dominant Navy and Air Force in the world. Here's our current stats:

Navy -- 350,000 personnel, 480 total boats -- 290 fit for deployment (ie the same size as 1941!!!)
Air Force -- 330,000 personnel and 5,800 aircraft (about the same size as 1941, but more people and ICBMs too).


In other words, we often think the military is big now . . . and it was about 10 times larger in WW2.


We see bombing raids in movies and they last minutes -- in reality those raids lasted for HOURS. That's right, wave after wave of 1000 or more aircraft coming overhead for anywhere from 1 hour to 12 hours.

Even crazier -- watch the unrestored color footage that John Ford shot on Midway (not the theatrical release) or some of the outtakes from Clark Gable's color filming in B17s. What we've seen on TV over the years has been heavily scrubbed by reprinting. Everything is sort of "fuzzy" from the multiple reprints. The original and early prints are SHARP and suddenly the war is very, very real and happening on a massive scale.

There remains millions of feet of film footage and millions of negatives from the war which have never been seen by the public. This includes some footage which was sealed and classified in the late 1940s for century release (ie sealed for 100 years). Other stuff will be coming out of seal in the next decade and we'll get a chance to see things and read documents the government was convinced we shouldn't see back then. Everything from gun camera footage to invasion footage is yet to be seen and analyzed.

Pretty much the only thing we know for sure doesn't exist are photos/film of the initial DDay landings. The British, American and Canadian forces all lost their footage due to explosion or sinking. All the images you see with only a few exceptions are from 2nd or 3rd wave about 90 minutes to 3 hours after initial landing.

There's a lot we still don't truly know about WW2 . . .and many reasons why we simply cannot forget this mess.

By the way, if anyone is really, really bored, I'll send you academic papers on Soviet accounting in WW2. They literally had to invent new accounting rules to record captured assets belonging to the state. That's something none of us have ever thought of . . . because it has never happened to the UK or the US.

Sorry for droning on -- this is one of the few subjects that fascinates the hell out of me. I'm not interested in the battles -- I'm interested in how all this stuff was MADE so darn fast and worked so incredibly well. We seem to need years to make new shoelaces -- these folks invented whole new technologies and concepts in real time.

Ever want to really know the American spirit? Just look at the Manhattan Project. We knew a uranium or a plutonium based weapon would work -- and rather than develop just one and risk it taking forever -- we developed both at the SAME time. It cost a mint and stayed almost entirely secret despite the huge spending and sheer scale of the operation across the entire US from MIT to the refinement stations in the Pacific Northwest. Imagine the audacity of betting the equivalent of trillions of dollars on totally unproven theories for a totally new type of weapon nobody had ever dreamt possible. The US did it -- twice -- in 3.5 years -- almost 80 years ago.

Today, we can't even come up with viable solutions to a virus after two years.

[JoJo357]

[QUOTE=chuckthebeatertruck;n293519]
''Ever want to really know the American Spirit''?




Chuck, your above quote is one of the many reasons. It is truly Amazing that a Nation could rally around the Powerful Words & Speech of President FDR and his Fireside 'Radio' chats without the real advent of Television. At the beginning of WWII, all TV was banned, due to the vital components needed to make War products. Besides, television sets were extremely expensive, and only a very small percentage of Americans even owned one. Also noted, America was divided as to enter the War or Not, Pearl Harbor clinched that dilemma, and almost overnight, united this Country.
**Example of American Ingenuity-Determination & Spirit.----> https://youtu.be/ljKk_GdXzEg

Thank You all, for your concerns and comments here. We must not let them rewrite or delete our U.S. History!.

God Bless & Take extra care.



*M.A.D.*

[elmo]

May there sacrifice never be forgotten trivialize or made politically correct

[Arley]

My children's grandfather and all his four brothers joined the Navy right after Pearl Harbor