December 7th 1941

[capriceman]

I would like to honor those who died and served our great Country. God(s) Bless them all!!!! But if you dont know what Pearl Harbor was it was when Japan Bomb the Home of the Pacific Fleet in the Naval base of Pearl Harbor, HI. This event was thought to never be forgottened, but For some reason i heard nothing about it radio, news, but i didnt read the paper today. I did email a local Talk show radio 97.1. and they comented 1/2 hour later saying we forgot to say that to day was pearl harbor and ..........such. So did you hear anything about it?

[Sixty8panther]

Noting and I'm ashamed to say I forgot myself.

I did think of it about three days ago but neglected to really put two and two togeather today. :mellow:


Should have boycoted the Maxima today. - -


The USS Arizona, before





Durring the bombing





the aftermath




And today... the Memorial







It was an unprovoked attack and terrorism any way you look at it. That being said it was two generations ago but we still need to remember.

Edited December 8, 2005 by Sixty8panther

[Cory Wolfe]

I couldn't forgot even if I tried to since it's the same day as my B-day... :P 47 years apart! :D

[Flybrian]

A sad day indeed. Thank God our flattops were out at sea otherwise the war would've started very, very differently. As it were, the Imperial Navy merely managed to scuttle our aging warships for us.

I watched my DVD of Tora! Tora! Tora! today and must reiterate its one of the greatest war films made. Avoid the Affleck/Damon Pearl Harbor like expired ham; the effects are good, but the story is very Cliff Noted compared to Tora!, which portrayed the American and Japanese side very well.

[LosAngeles]

It was an unprovoked attack and terrorism any way you look at it.

[post="54963"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]

Nah, it wasn't terrorism....it was terrible, but it wasn't terrorism. It was an act of war.

One could say dropping those atom bombs was terrorism, but it was also an act of war.

[razoredge]

I dont forget, Dads Bday was the 8th. So that helps but I never forget, everyday I remember what went down there and Normandy and Gettysburg and the Potomic and Vietnam and hyjackings. I say never forget the struggles that got us to where we are today. Remember from where you came and embrace it.

[VenSeattle]

I've been to Pearl Harbor... I didn't think it would move me as much as it did... but WOW. Very emotional experience. I learned so much about the event there. It takes hours to thoroughly go through the museum.

As Fly said, Tora! Tora! Tora! is the most factually accurate movie ever made about Pearl Harbor. Even if you don't like war movies, see it.

[ocnblu]

Thank you to all the Allied vets who saved the world from darkness and tyranny.

[RichW5]

I've been to Pearl Harbor and it's an awesum experience. If anyone gets a chance to go there, they should also go to the "National Cemetary of the Pacific", which is also on Oahu, HI. As I understand it, any serviceman or woman who served in the Pacific may be burried there. It includes veterans from Korea and Vietnam. The reason you don't see much in the newspapers, is back about 20 - 30 years ago, when most of our products were produced in Japan (not China), the Japanese companies told the news media, they would withdraw their advertising if articles about Pearl Harbor appeared on December 7th. Team that with PC and you get the drift. FDR is turning over in his grave. The "Day of Infamy" has not lived on forever.

[Guest lance armstrong's Testicles]

I didnt like pearl harbour movie because of the stupid 2 timer story; what a silly story to staple to such an event. Tora sounds good tho.

[balthazar]

Nah, it wasn't terrorism....it was terrible, but it wasn't terrorism.  It was an act of war. One could say dropping those atom bombs was terrorism, but it was also an act of war.

'Acts of war' are events that happen after war is declared. 'Terrorism' is everything else in this vein outside or prior to that declaration.

I've been to Pearl Harbor... I didn't think it would move me as much as it did... but WOW. Very emotional experience. I learned so much about the event there. It takes hours to thoroughly go through the museum.

I've been and it was quite emotional and thought-provoking. Anyone that can make the trip owes it to themselves (like Hawaii being so damned beautiful isn't any sort of draw itself!)

[Sixty8panther]

LA: Nah, it wasn't terrorism....it was terrible, but it wasn't terrorism.  It was an act of war. One could say dropping those atom bombs was terrorism, but it was also an act of war.

Balhazar: 'Acts of war' are events that happen after war is declared. 'Terrorism' is everything else in this vein outside or prior to that declaration.

Exactly. We did not go to Tokyo a few days before Hiroshima and Nagasaki and exchange peace medals wiht the Japanese.

They were rotten cowards. Emphasis on the sneak attack.

For what it's worht those two Atom bombs saved American and Japanese lives. The level of fanaticism of the Japanese is reinforced by the fact that it took TWO A-boms to make them Surrender. WTF did they think we were still bluffing when a whole city was destroyed in 0.02 secaonds? Anyway you cut it the second bomb was a result of the extreeme rabid nationalism of the Japanese durring WWII.

Funny how they allied wiht HItler who had he won would have tried to kill them all anyway. Last time I checked Japanese are not excatly of German descent. It was to Hitler's advantage to have the Japanese and the USA fighthing so both were distracted while he took over mainland Europe.





I think Ocnblu said it best. God Bless the USA. It has it's problems but it doesn not suck nearly as much as the rest of the world.

[Enzora]

Funny how they allied wiht HItler who had he won would have tried to kill them all anyway. Last time I checked Japanese are not excatly of German descent. It was to Hitler's advantage to have the Japanese  and the USA fighthing so both were distracted while he took over mainland Europe.

[post="56008"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]

The same reason America allied with a mass-murderer like Joseph Stalin during WWII. Or gave weapons to the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. This week, anyway. Next week, who knows?

[Flybrian]

'Acts of war' are events that happen after war is declared. 'Terrorism' is everything else in this vein outside or prior to that declaration.

[post="55656"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]

By that definition, events like the invasion of Panama, Desert Storm, and the entire Vietnam War are 'acts of terrorism.' Terrorism as used now is a contemporary buzzword concocted to avoid using devisive labels like 'war,' 'combatant,' and 'battle.' Really, every battle in every war ever fought is terrorism because it someone inflicted terror upon somebody.

One could argue operations like the Blitz of London and the Doolittle Raids were akin to terrorism because they served little to no military purpose and only were intended to inflict psychological fear and 'terror' into the civilian population of a warring nation. Even, then today's usage of 'terrorism' has been so perverted by the government and media that its not really accurate to use it in revision to describe past events. So, its more appropo to describe the aforementioned events as punitive/psychological bombing and propaganda bombing respectively.

They were rotten cowards. Emphasis on the sneak attack.

Wouldn't be so quick to use the term 'cowards.' Yes, it was a dastardly attack, but from a purely objective and scholarly view, it was a brilliant operation that exposed the gross inteptitude of our military on an equipment and leadership level. The Signal Corps commanders really had no idea what the hell to do with the radar unit at Opana Point and when word first came of an en masse formation of aircraft, commanders ignored it as a flight of B-17s coming in from the wrong direction and didn't even bother confirming if this was the case. Over an hour and a half before the attack, the destroyer Ward sunk a Japanese midget sub outside of the harbor's entrance. Numerous American were shot down as the Japanese formations approached.

Keep in mind the Japanese were viewed as a quaint society at the time, so the thought that they could launch a fleet of warships with aircraft carrying advanced, modified torpedoes and inflict heavy casualties on the powerful (yet obsolete) American fleet was undreamt of.

For what it's worht those two Atom bombs saved American and Japanese lives. The level of fanaticism of the Japanese is reinforced by the fact that it took TWO A-boms to make them Surrender. WTF did they think we were still bluffing when a whole city was destroyed in 0.02 secaonds? Anyway you cut it the second bomb was a result of the extreeme rabid nationalism of the Japanese durring WWII.

In fact, many of the more rational members of the Japanese government and even the military wanted a surrender. It should be remembered that Adm Yamamoto - who planned the Pearl attack - never wanted war in the first place knowing the inevitable consequences and futility involved. The relationship between the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy and their combined and seperate relationship with the Imperial government makes a very interesting - albeit confusing - study. Needless to say, while factions fought each other, time for a surrender whittled away and so came the atom bombs.

There is validity to the thought that the atomic bombs were meant as much - or even moreso - to scare the Soviets than the Japanese. Indeed, fire raids with incindiary bombs did far more damage in casualties and war capacity than both atom bombs. But the message of them was clear. I'm not going to debate the correctness of using them - I personally believe it was a right decision, but I also know I would dread being the one put in that position and therefore won't begin to judge the man who did.

Funny how they allied wiht HItler who had he won would have tried to kill them all anyway. Last time I checked Japanese are not excatly of German descent. It was to Hitler's advantage to have the Japanese and the USA fighthing so both were distracted while he took over mainland Europe.

Moreso than a mere distraction agianst the US was the possibility for Japan to help tighten the stranglehold against Great Britain by cutting off their empire in India and Southeast Asia. The Japanese potentially could've greatly aided Germany in a two-front attack on the Middle East, securing unlimited petroleum resources for a would-be linked fighting machine. Plus, they exchanged technology which is clearly evident by Japanese version of late-war German advanced aircraft.

[ShadowDog]

I'm no flag waiver. I look at the loss of life without counting for whom scored the hit. The Japanese certainly weren't cowardly in that attack. A surprise attack in the fashion they performed goes far beyond simple war time tactics. It takes the bravest men in the world to aim for the deck of a ship with the nose of your plane; however, it's pointless to identify this as what is bravery to one is stupidity to another. War is such a useless measure for the strength of a society. In my mind, it's the biggest weakness.

[Sixty8panther]

Plus, they exchanged technology which is clearly evident by Japanese version of late-war German advanced aircraft.

[post="56019"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]

Yup... kind of a Japanese tradition to this day to borrow technology from Europe and then claim it as their own.

Paint up a 262 Swallow in green and Voila: Japanese Jet Fighter/Bomber. :rolleyes:

It's a damn good thing the Germans or Japanese did not have the Atom bomb their delivery systems (V2 for instance) beat the hell out of the Enola Gay.

[pow]

Yup... kind of a Japanese tradition to this day to borrow technology from Europe and then claim it as their own.

Paint up a 262 Swallow in green and Voila: Japanese Jet Fighter/Bomber. :rolleyes:

It's a damn good thing the Germans or Japanese did not have the Atom bomb their delivery systems (V2 for instance) beat the hell out of the Enola Gay.

[post="56117"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]

What about the 22 other sentences?

[Flybrian]

Yup... kind of a Japanese tradition to this day to borrow technology from Europe and then claim it as their own.

Paint up a 262 Swallow in green and Voila: Japanese Jet Fighter/Bomber. :rolleyes:

It's a damn good thing the Germans or Japanese did not have the Atom bomb their delivery systems (V2 for instance) beat the hell out of the Enola Gay.

[post="56117"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]

Actually, notsomuch.

I'll mock Japanese cars 'till the sun goes down because its fun and mostly accurate, but there was some serious innovation in these shared designs.

First, the Nakajima Kikka was certainly not a "262 Swallow in green." Its common to think this because the overall shape of the airframe is similar, but the same basic straight-wing, twin podded jet, high-empennage configuation is shared by the Gloster Meteor and Sukhoi Su-9, both of which were also not intentionally designed off the Me 262 Schwalbe.

Second, the Kikka was about 4/5 the size of the German jet and was lighter. And although the Japanese did have access to photographs and cutaways of the BMW 003 turbojet engine, they built and designed an equivalent from scratch with no prior experience aside from a crappy ducted fan design.

Third, keep in mind this jet was contracted, designed, manufactured, and flown in a period from 1944 to the end of the war, a little less than two years. Pretty remarkable, almost as much as the 80-some days it took for us to build the P-80.

As far as the atom bomb, the Germans came close...frighteningly close. But the lack of heavy water, a real long-range bomber, and all the political drama of Hitler thankfully prevented it from becoming reality. Their plan, by the way, was also to use long-range bombers like we did.

Anyway, in general, the reverse-engineering point is moot. Yes, the Japanese did it and did it in spades - the Douglas DC-5 was tested and designs used in their medium bombers; some say the design of the A6M Zero is derived from the Hughes H-1 Racer; the Soviets reengineered our crashed B-29s into their Tu-2s; we used captured German V-1s and redesignated them as Loon surface-to-surface missile and we used the pressure hull design of German Type XXI U-boats for our postwar subs.

Everyone did it, not just Japan.

[Sixty8panther]

Agreed. Saturn V and 90% of the space race we owe to the Germans. In some ways it was Germany versus Russia in the space race. This is why to this day in comedies, cartoons and popular culture we still have the stereotype of a Scientist, Enginer or other Genius level guy with a white lab coat as having a thick German accent. But gettign back to cars, Wankel/Rotary engines are one of the best examples of the Japanese perfecting & reinventing someone else's design. It's much easier to pick appart an invention, refine it, whittle away at the imperfections and call it your own than to actually INVENT something from scratch. For what it's worth I have an RX7 Brochure from when I was in High School (I think it's like 1994) that shows a cutaway of the Rotary and does give some credit to Felix Wankel for his ingenious design. I'd be interested to find out how many automotive technologies the Japanese have developed themselves. From absolute scratch. *crickets chirping* I'm not talking about reverse engineering a Austin MINI into the Honda 600 or making DOHC a household acronym in the late 80s when the technology was already there well before WWII. I mean something that THEY came up with and were the FIRST to attempt. Fly you're a smart guy... your knowledge in Avaiation and WWII by far surpases mine, I'm seriously asking I can't off the top of my head think of even one thing. Was the Miller Cycle developed wholy by Mazda? How about VVTi... didn;'t the Germans fiddle with that first or did BMW borrow the technology after Toyota invented & developed it?

[Croc]

Take a simple Japanese History class and you will soon see that the Japanese have been very innovative throughout history. Frankly, I think they are innovative in their uncanny sense of improving upon existing things. If their copying and improving is so looked down upon, then why wasn't the original made as well? Someone has to improve it, and if the Japanese are better at "We need to build a better ___ ." then they are still being innovative. It IS innovation that makes it a better "X" or whatever.

[Sixty8panther]

Necessity is the mother of Invention...

... but if you can't contribute something new I guess making existing things better is a close second. IF credit is given where it's due.

[Croc]

Why? If I make a better burger am I obligated to credit McDonald's for making the Big Mac? No.

[Flybrian]

The Japanese penchent for innovation and improvement goes both ways. I would also recall the Mitsubishi G4M 'Betty' medium bomber that had a habit of exploding, often without even having the need for a round hitting it. It was dubbed the Flying Cigarette Lighter by its own crewmen for that reason. Even the indomitable Zero lacked self-sealing fuel tanks, something the Japanese overlooked in many of their designs, so a couple of nice hits by an older F4F Wildcat or P-40 would sent the 'superior' Zero down in flames.

Most of the postwar technological developments by Japan don't impress me as much because its expected. For one, the war gave Japan the ability to start all over again with new factories, new infrastructure, (thanks to our guilt) the latest in Western technology, and very favorable economic policies. The prowess for development shown by the Japanese during and before the war are very outstanding given their isolationist nature and their large ignorance of advanced developments in other parts of the world. Yes, they sent advisors aborad between the wars, but that obviously didn't occur during.

[Guest lance armstrong's Testicles]

is perl harber a functioning base today or just monument?

[Flybrian]

Its both. Today, its home to CINCPAC, which pretty much overseas all the US Navy's Pacific Fleet operations (Submarine, Surface Group, Sealift Command, etc) and is also the home port of many cruisers, destroyers, frigates, and a large portion of our Pacific submarine force. Schofield Barracks is still in use by the US Army and is in fact the largest post in Hawaii. Hickam Field is now Hickam Air Force Base and is home to the Hawaii Air National Guard as well as being Pacific Air Forces Command while Wheeler Field is still in use by the Army.

[capriceman]

Fly they were called "Flying Zippo's" on our side. I would of never guessed that you Knew so much about World Wars. I would Chalenge you but Im not up to stuff in the Pacific theatre I no more about the Eurpoean Theatre. But I like that Acura Comerical or Lexus im not sure but they make it sound like they are the only ones in the world that use a differential. They say somthing like "In a Corner more power is given to the outside tire so it can rotate faster so it is smoother in corners"

[pow]

But I like that Acura Comerical or Lexus im not sure but they make it sound like they are the only ones in the world that use a differential. They say somthing like "In a Corner more power is given to the outside tire so it can rotate faster so it is smoother in corners"

[post="57090"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]

The RL's SH-AWD is the only system that does that, I believe. BMW's xDrive is similar, but can only shift power between front and rear axles, not independent wheels. Conventional limited slip diffs mechanically redistribute power whenever there is wheelspin; xDrive and SH-AWD do it to predict and prevent wheelspin by first inducing neutrality. Edited December 12, 2005 by empowah

[Sixty8panther]

The RL's SH-AWD is the only system that does that, I believe. BMW's xDrive is similar, but can only shift power between front and rear axles, not independent wheels. Conventional limited slip diffs mechanically redistribute power whenever there is wheelspin; xDrive and SH-AWD do it to predict and prevent wheelspin by first inducing neutrality.

[post="57108"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]

There's more examples of that... Evo8 for instance... I forget if it's all the models or just the MR that have the 3 diffs.

Whatever this is another silly advantage where they split hairs... the differance can MAYBE be noticable to Mario Andareti at Laguna Seca.

[Sixty8panther]

Why?  If I make a better burger am I obligated to credit McDonald's for making the Big Mac?  No.

[post="56405"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]

Did McDdonalds INVENT and patent the Burger? That's a pretty silly question then no?