Dec.7th, 1941
Remember?
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He does.
I met this Sgt Maj He was in our Christmas Parade.
Being in his presence was an Honor for me.

 

i know what you mean Robert, it is an honor to meet the brave men who put there life on the line for our freedom, about 5 years ago i had the pleasure to meet a WWII fighter pilot. not just any pilot though! Lt Col. Luke Weathers one of the Tuskegee Airmen.
he passed away just a few months ago, not many WWII vets left nowadays

 

Good post Robert! My Dad was in the Army in WWII in the battles of Lehte gulf, Saipan, and Tinian... for a great many years he wouldn't talk about.. he would say " You don't want to know that horror! Finally a few years ago just before he passed away, I brought out all of his medals and honors, and he explained all of the battles, and all of the killing, and what the medals were for to myself and all of his grandkids.. I have framed a few pix of he and his brothers On Saipan, along with all of the medals, and it all hangs over my desk! It is hard to look at it without being proud, and missing him..

 

My late Grandfather served in the Pacific Theatre during World War II. In 2009 I has able to visit the Pearl Harbor site in Hawaii. Every person who calls America home should have to go there. Very somber experience but also gives a sense of pride. If you don't get that "freedom is never truly free" after visiting Pearl harbor, you never will. Thank you men and women of the armed forces. God bless.

 

Amen Jhooch!

 

I admire you guys for the respect and admiration shown to those who serve and have served for the good of all that follow in their footsteps.
It is something lacking down under, unfortunately.
Pearl Harbor and the Arizona Memorial are on my bucket list .
With the greatest respect to those vets, live long, live happy.

 

Aussie code breakers assisted the US/Great Britian in breaking the Japanese JN-25 Admirals code, which enabled the Allies to read every Japanese Naval message transmitted after circa June 1942.

The US had broken the Ambassadors code in early 1941 (decodes, decoder machine known as MAGIC), but Japanese military info was usually not transmitted using this code, except...

The Japanese had a spy at their embassy in Honolulu, he was a Japanese Naval Officer, pretending to be a clerk.

In early November 1941, he was instructed by Tokyo to make up a grid chart of Pearl Harbor...when decoded, this became known as the "Bomb Plot" message.

There was no MAGIC decoder in Hawaiian waters, as the two machines slated for PH had been given to the Brits in exchange for their ULTRA * info. So, all messages had to be relayed to Washington DC to be decoded.

But after the Bomb Plot message was decoded, the translation was NOT sent back to Hawaii, so US Army Commanding Officer General Short, and Admiral Kimmel (CINCPAC-Commander in Chief Pacific Fleet) were not aware, and...

Neither was aware of MAGIC!

* ULTRA: British name for their decodes of the messages transmitted by the German Enigma Machine. The Brits broke the three rotor code in 1940.

When the Germans changed the code by switching to the 4 rotor Enigma Machine in circa 1943, Alan Turing, a member of the Brits Bletchley Park decode team, invented the first computer to break it.

btw: There are two other threads on the Pearl Harbor attack: pearl habor (started by a dyslectic FTE member) & Dec 7th, 1941.

If y'all want to know about MAGIC, read AT DAWN WE SLEPT written by Gordon Prang, or watch the film TORA TORA TORA

 

Unfortunately patriotism is not a strong point until it suits, in this part of the world.
The loud mouths sprout Aussie spirit but they are all blow hard ********* who the next day will crap on the same flag that they hold ideal. Bloody idiots don't know when they are well off, unfortunately the loudest have come from some towel head country and still think they can crap on with the bull**** they were indoctrinated with from birth.
It would be great to put them all on a one way flight to nowhere.
My rant..

 

This was a great post Robert, so nice to see people thinking about the men who served and gave everything for their country that sad day in 1941.
Working in aviation, I've had the great fortune to meet and talk with many great old pilots who shared a story or two...for most of them, it was the
time of their lives, with all the good and the bad...they all seem like giants to me, people I really look up to and admire for their courage and gutsy
"get the job done" mentality. Many of the pilots went on and worked in Agricultural Aviation in the relatively early days of Crop Dusting here in the
U.S, flying old open cockpit bi-wing airplanes, usually Stearmans, and they shaped my industry to what it is today.

 

Amen to that!

 

My Father was at Schofield Barracks on that morning. Co A 65th Combat engineers. later landed on Guadalcanal and built the airfield there. Then some R&R in New Zealand, then to Luzon. Mustered out on August 5th 1945 after spending five years in the pacific. He was at home cuddling with my mother on VJ day!

Still miss him and her.

Garbz

 

Garbz they live on in your heart.. that is immortality! They are both heros!

 

wow, that would be an honor.............Were you able to talk with him about his war experiences at all????

 

Yes, I was able to talk at length with him about the experience.

I once asked why he did not send back any guns or a nice sword he said "Son while on Guadalcanal, i will tell you that the 30 caliber browning's never shut up one night. In the morning there were thousands of dead japs on the line where the marines had held. He and his buddy left the bunker and went out to look around. As i reached for a sword on an officer the Nip came up at me with a knife and about took my head off. My buddy shot him with his short garand with a full clip, and son that cured me of any souvenir hunting, we just bulldozed them after that and if they got up and ran or crawled we shot them". My dad had a one inch scar just below his left ear where the knife just grazed.

If you have ever watched the pacific on HBO That is the night where John Bastilone won the MOH on the canal. I watched that and had chills as it was as my father described to a then ten year old.

He only kept two things. One is a Japanese bayonet he had one of the guys in his company in make for him in to a campaign knife using parts from a downed zero. And a Leaflet dropped over Luzon telling him he would be starving and out of bullets as the Japanese cut the supply lines. It is a pretty neat deal with a Japanese sub, little dude in a divers suit and a drill bit under a US flagged navy collier.

I am pretty proud to be his son. There a other tales of the Japanese bombing 3 times a day like clockwork, His times in NZ with a girlfriend named Innis and his adventures on Luzon.

One thing i am sad for is he never was able to see the WWII memorial. He worked with the American legion for years trying to get it done and was a charter member of the memorial.

Garbz

 

That makes my heart skip a beat, and makes me so proud to be an American and the son of WWII vet (now deceased). My Dad was assigned to a PBY Squadron in the US Navy in WWII, young kid from the cotton fields of West Texas sent to defend the world against unbelieveable evil and he did it with a smile and a wonderful attitude all the rest of his life.I also have all his medals, silk flags, Jap cigarettes, Jap flag from a dead Jap soldier, many photos, dog tags etc.

He did talk some in the last part of his life about some of the bad things he saw and did but most of it was positive for him. He told me many times that he would do it all over again without a second thought.

Being a kid from the depression times and with a single mom for support along with 5 other brothers his life was tough at times, he once told me that he loved his time in the Military because it was the only time in his life that he got to sleep on clean sheets and got to eat all he wanted three times a day. Next time you take for granted what we all have in our lives, think about that statement!!!!!!!!

Gary
Miami Texas