No matter how many times I read reports of 12/7/1941 I feel the fear I had as an 8 year old little girl in Montreal. My Dad, said that's it, the US will have to enter the war now. We had been at war 2 years and 3 months by now. My Dad was sure that now the US had entered our side would finally win. But it opened up another front for us to defend. Up until now the Australians and New Zealand had been facing Japan alone.
Just one correction, the SBDs had Wright R-1820 engines, not 1830s. My mother was at Waimanalo Beach with friends that Sunday and watched the Japanese planes attacking Bellows Field, which was only a little more than a half a mile away from her home in Waimanalo town. My grandmother was hanging laundry to dry in the yard and saw some of the Zeros come in over the house. She heard the gunfire and explosions at Bellows Field, picked up my toddler uncle and ran into the house. My mother and her friends were told by a policeman to leave the beach and go home as there were air raids all over the island. By the time she got home, my grandfather had got sent home from his job at the sugar mill and my uncles also returned home with what news they got from the radio. By that afternoon, military police had cordoned off all the roads and martial law was declared…
The day that Japan shut down all the Nazi sympathizers in the USA, and united America like nothing else could have. We only speak with one voice when under attack, but we didn’t recognize the Trojan Horses who have put on patriotic garb to flim flam us without firing a shot. They are now inside the gates heading for the seat of ultimate power. Their attempt at insurrection would have been an alert for a country not immersed in Goebbels-style bullschittery.
The mass susceptibility to propaganda makes me wonder what, if anything, are students learning in school these days. The forced emphasis on STEM cirricula seems to have crowded out what we need to know as responsible citizens: history, civics, government, and economics. And learning how to connect gigantic dots is helpful too. In the end, the defeated nazis are collectively sighing that perhaps in the very long run they are actually winning.
I like the analogy to anthrax spores. The fascist Nazis were just southern planters of the 20th century. They committed crimes against humanity on a large scale like planters and others did with slavery. Evil is like a pathogen; it hides for a while, then comes roaring out again when resistance gets low.
I knew the nicest young man, and he and his family went to my church. My church has gone through a terrible conflict throughout the denomination, exacerbated by MAGA politics. I watched the young man, a doctor a couple of years older than my oldest son become angry, bitter, and resentful as he listened to an antagonist in our church who worked to spread MAGA lies. Watching a nice, educated person transform into someone angry and mean really did hurt.
You just described two of my bros. It's like I don't know them. But,, sadly typical of cult behavior. The division in this country is not just political differences. It's cult v. noncult. That's a whole different bag of worms. It took Ike in Germany
As you know my uncle, my father’s youngest brother, died in the USS Arizona. It forever impacted relationships in his family. It was said I looked like him although he died before I was born. He was merely a draftee, a cook we think.
I have been to the Memorial and we took my father. Incredibly beautiful and well done. Astounding to think of the young men entombed within. I like to think this cook played a huge role in what was to come. The It was thousands of sacrifices that built up to WW2 and the defeat of fascism. I haven’t a clue what they are teaching these days. A lot of my education of these times I got in my own home. Pity the generations that have no idea of sacrifice or common good and history.
Outstanding, as always TC. Dec. 7, like Nov. 22, May 4, and Jan. 6, will always be a warning day in American history if it's taught the way it ought to be.
Is there a decent biography of Admiral Halsey? Like many flag officers in times of crisis, there are a variety of reports on his qualities as a leader and I'd like to learn a bit more.
I go into a pretty long-winded discussion of the differences between Halsey and Spruanc as commanders (I'm a Spruance man) in my Pacifc War quadrilogy, among other things.
Halsey books are either panegyrics or indictments.
Thanks Tom. I'll be reading those next. Right now I have an interesting autobiographical study of life in Mozambique in the early 80s called The Mackerel Years by Kathleen Sheldon. It's definitely niche material, but Kathy, her husband and I went to school together long, long ago...
Thanks, TC. One very small point: I have read that it was only the correspondents who called Halsey Bull. Those who were close to him always called him Bill. I'm sure you know the terrific (but perhaps one-sided) biopic of him, The Gallant Hours, with Jimmy Cagney playing the Admiral. I have often thought I was born too late--I was a true child of the Atomic Age, being born a day after Hiroshima was bombed. I think I should have been born so that I could have flown with the RAF in the Battle of Britain, or with the dive bombers at Midway. (In such maunderings, I never pay attention to the marginal eyesight or general clumsiness that would have kept me from doing either thing.)
I frequently think that. Had my Civil War ancestors not waited till they were in their mid-30s to marry and have children, and had their children not done the same, there would be no "missing generation" in my line and I would have been born ca 1920, early enough to have been one of the guys in my books.
The Gallant Hours covers the period of Halsey's command time for which no one disputes he was The Right Man In The Right Place At The Right Time. When he took command of SoPac in mid-October 1942, there was strong doubt by everyone that Guadalcanal could be held. He led by sheer force of personality - like Patton with the 3rd Army after D-Day - and turned morale and belief they could win 180 degrees.
No matter how many times I read reports of 12/7/1941 I feel the fear I had as an 8 year old little girl in Montreal. My Dad, said that's it, the US will have to enter the war now. We had been at war 2 years and 3 months by now. My Dad was sure that now the US had entered our side would finally win. But it opened up another front for us to defend. Up until now the Australians and New Zealand had been facing Japan alone.
Just one correction, the SBDs had Wright R-1820 engines, not 1830s. My mother was at Waimanalo Beach with friends that Sunday and watched the Japanese planes attacking Bellows Field, which was only a little more than a half a mile away from her home in Waimanalo town. My grandmother was hanging laundry to dry in the yard and saw some of the Zeros come in over the house. She heard the gunfire and explosions at Bellows Field, picked up my toddler uncle and ran into the house. My mother and her friends were told by a policeman to leave the beach and go home as there were air raids all over the island. By the time she got home, my grandfather had got sent home from his job at the sugar mill and my uncles also returned home with what news they got from the radio. By that afternoon, military police had cordoned off all the roads and martial law was declared…
Thank you Dennis for that oral history from that most beautiful side of Oahu.
As Jim Hornfischer said when I reminded him that Hellcats used Pratt & Whitney engines, not Wrights (other than the first prototype) - "Damn!"
The day that Japan shut down all the Nazi sympathizers in the USA, and united America like nothing else could have. We only speak with one voice when under attack, but we didn’t recognize the Trojan Horses who have put on patriotic garb to flim flam us without firing a shot. They are now inside the gates heading for the seat of ultimate power. Their attempt at insurrection would have been an alert for a country not immersed in Goebbels-style bullschittery.
The mass susceptibility to propaganda makes me wonder what, if anything, are students learning in school these days. The forced emphasis on STEM cirricula seems to have crowded out what we need to know as responsible citizens: history, civics, government, and economics. And learning how to connect gigantic dots is helpful too. In the end, the defeated nazis are collectively sighing that perhaps in the very long run they are actually winning.
Indeed, you are right. Like anthrax spores, they lie in wait.
I like the analogy to anthrax spores. The fascist Nazis were just southern planters of the 20th century. They committed crimes against humanity on a large scale like planters and others did with slavery. Evil is like a pathogen; it hides for a while, then comes roaring out again when resistance gets low.
And one is caught off guard. People I have so respected turned into the most rabid magats.
I knew the nicest young man, and he and his family went to my church. My church has gone through a terrible conflict throughout the denomination, exacerbated by MAGA politics. I watched the young man, a doctor a couple of years older than my oldest son become angry, bitter, and resentful as he listened to an antagonist in our church who worked to spread MAGA lies. Watching a nice, educated person transform into someone angry and mean really did hurt.
You just described two of my bros. It's like I don't know them. But,, sadly typical of cult behavior. The division in this country is not just political differences. It's cult v. noncult. That's a whole different bag of worms. It took Ike in Germany
Great writing TC, spellbinding
Every year on this anniversary, it feels like a gut punch, and now we are surrounded by folks who would toss all that was sacrificed down the rathole.
As you know my uncle, my father’s youngest brother, died in the USS Arizona. It forever impacted relationships in his family. It was said I looked like him although he died before I was born. He was merely a draftee, a cook we think.
I have been to the Memorial and we took my father. Incredibly beautiful and well done. Astounding to think of the young men entombed within. I like to think this cook played a huge role in what was to come. The It was thousands of sacrifices that built up to WW2 and the defeat of fascism. I haven’t a clue what they are teaching these days. A lot of my education of these times I got in my own home. Pity the generations that have no idea of sacrifice or common good and history.
Outstanding, as always TC. Dec. 7, like Nov. 22, May 4, and Jan. 6, will always be a warning day in American history if it's taught the way it ought to be.
Is there a decent biography of Admiral Halsey? Like many flag officers in times of crisis, there are a variety of reports on his qualities as a leader and I'd like to learn a bit more.
I go into a pretty long-winded discussion of the differences between Halsey and Spruanc as commanders (I'm a Spruance man) in my Pacifc War quadrilogy, among other things.
Halsey books are either panegyrics or indictments.
Thanks Tom. I'll be reading those next. Right now I have an interesting autobiographical study of life in Mozambique in the early 80s called The Mackerel Years by Kathleen Sheldon. It's definitely niche material, but Kathy, her husband and I went to school together long, long ago...
Thanks, TC. One very small point: I have read that it was only the correspondents who called Halsey Bull. Those who were close to him always called him Bill. I'm sure you know the terrific (but perhaps one-sided) biopic of him, The Gallant Hours, with Jimmy Cagney playing the Admiral. I have often thought I was born too late--I was a true child of the Atomic Age, being born a day after Hiroshima was bombed. I think I should have been born so that I could have flown with the RAF in the Battle of Britain, or with the dive bombers at Midway. (In such maunderings, I never pay attention to the marginal eyesight or general clumsiness that would have kept me from doing either thing.)
I frequently think that. Had my Civil War ancestors not waited till they were in their mid-30s to marry and have children, and had their children not done the same, there would be no "missing generation" in my line and I would have been born ca 1920, early enough to have been one of the guys in my books.
The Gallant Hours covers the period of Halsey's command time for which no one disputes he was The Right Man In The Right Place At The Right Time. When he took command of SoPac in mid-October 1942, there was strong doubt by everyone that Guadalcanal could be held. He led by sheer force of personality - like Patton with the 3rd Army after D-Day - and turned morale and belief they could win 180 degrees.