A little something extra for you all today: The flight deck of USS Enterprise (CV-6) echoed with the command over the loudspeaker from the bridge: “Pilots! Man your planes!” Thirty-one year old Lieutenant Richard H. “Dick” Best Jr., operations officer of Bombing-Six, watched from near the ship’s island as the crews of the twelve Douglas SBD-3 Dauntlesses of Scouting-Six and five SBD-2s of Bombing-Six climbed aboard their airplanes and wished he was one of the Bombing-Six crews who would be the first of the squadron to arrive home at NAS Ford Island, since he was eager to go on leave with his wife and four-year old daughter who were waiting for him in Honolulu.
I read, and thoroughly enjoyed, Cndr. Edward Stafford's book The Big E, so some of the American names you mentioned are familiar but your account expands on the Japanese side and rounds out the picture nicely. Thanks TC.
While my husband and I were stationed at Barbers Point, HA they filmed the movie "Tora Tora Tora" which was about the attack on Pearl Harbor. The fake zeros were housed on the base. I had a unsettling experience of seeing them fly over our housing area which made the past seem real. Thank you for this account of that day TC. It made it seem again, too real.
I can not even imagine the shock of the attack; the realization of what was happening.
I read, and thoroughly enjoyed, Cndr. Edward Stafford's book The Big E, so some of the American names you mentioned are familiar but your account expands on the Japanese side and rounds out the picture nicely. Thanks TC.
After the war, he remembered that he then turned to OOD Dorsett and said “We’re at war and I’ll never get out of the Navy alive.”
That's a memory lots of us share.
Indeed.
Riveting read! Thank you!
While my husband and I were stationed at Barbers Point, HA they filmed the movie "Tora Tora Tora" which was about the attack on Pearl Harbor. The fake zeros were housed on the base. I had a unsettling experience of seeing them fly over our housing area which made the past seem real. Thank you for this account of that day TC. It made it seem again, too real.