Seventy years after Pearl Harbor, USS Arizona still cries
On December 7, 1941, the USS Arizona was sunk by Japanese aircraft during the attack on Pearl Harbor
Seventy years after Pearl Harbor, you can see the oil still leaking from the wreck of the USS Arizona, the giant battleship sunk by Japanese aircraft, something that for many represents the tears of thousands of sailors who went down with the ship in that day of “infamy”.
On December 7, 1941, early in the morning, Japan awakened the “sleeping giant” American bombing the Pacific Fleet anchored in Hawaii. In two hours, about 20 ships were sunk or damaged and 164 planes destroyed. Denouncing “a date that will forever be marked in history as a day of infamy,” President Franklin Roosevelt declared war on Japan, changing the course of World War II at a time when many people expected the country to escape the conflict
2,400 of the Americans who died at Pearl Harbor, nearly half, exactly 1177, were killed in a matter of seconds aboard the USS Arizona when a bomb detonated the ship’s munitions depot, causing a conflagration that burned for three days . Today, the ruins are still visible, one of the towers rusted beyond the surface, with an American flag hoisted. Every day, hundreds of visitors came to watche a memorial in the form of a bridge over the wreckage.
a cruel accountant says:
Young people wasted in war. That sux
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8th December 2012 at 10:56 am
Muck About says:
As has always been the case….
MA
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8th December 2012 at 11:05 am
BUCKHED says:
Just think..if America had chosen a different path how things may have turned out.
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8th December 2012 at 11:08 am
Stucky says:
I am in the camp that believes that Roosevelt not only anticipated the Japanese attack, but specifically ordered that no steps be taken to prevent it.
Right or wrong, two questions we all no doubt have wondered about — without US involvement in WWII; 1) who would have won, 2) what would life in the USA be like today? It’s all conjecture of course, but here is mine.
1- The Big Elephant in the room; who would have gotten The Bomb first? I think in order it would have been; England, Germany, Russia. That alone might settle it.
2- American bombing destroyed German infrastructure. If it was left (relatively) intact Germans MAY have been able to build 6,000 Panthers a year, developed Jet engines faster, built bigger faster U-boats, figured out a way to evade British SONAR, gotten The Bomb and ICBMs (V2) to deliver them.
3)- Given the above, I still don’t think the Germans win. Or, lose. Germany can’t defeat the RAF … and Hitler actually didn’t want to capture England anyway. Germany and Russia, neither side can conquer or defeat each other. Stalemate. Not sure how the map of Europe looks, just that it is significantly different. (No “East” Germany, Iron Curtain, etc.)
4) Japan would have had mastery of the Pacific. Maybe even eventually conquers all of China.
5) Israel would not exist.
6) America would be only an Economic Superpower, not a military one.
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8th December 2012 at 12:04 pm
Yojimbo says:
Goddamn 12/7/41 Truthers – Get off this site.
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8th December 2012 at 12:28 pm
Josey Wales says:
I didn’t no there was a trade embargo against Japan at that time, guessed I missed it in History class.
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8th December 2012 at 12:45 pm
moto says:
I read Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World and could not believe the way the Japanese were treated there.
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8th December 2012 at 7:23 pm
Kill Bill says:
Stucky
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2012/12/06/pearl-harbor-roosevelt-knew/
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8th December 2012 at 7:36 pm
Novista says:
George Victor, an FDR hagiographer, assembles much evidence to support advance knowledge in “The Pearl Harbor Myth” and thinks FDR was right.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Pearl-Harbor-Myth-Controversies/dp/1597971618/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1355016775&sr=8-1&keywords=george+victor
This one’s old, out of print, one of the first I read on the subject, 1967, still got the pb
http://www.amazon.com/The-broken-seal-Operation-disaster/dp/0583114466/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1355017704&sr=8-3&keywords=broken+seal
I had this one, seems to have ‘vaporized’ at my neighbor’s house …
http://www.amazon.com/Day-Infamy-60th-Anniversary-Classic/dp/0805068031/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1355017920&sr=8-1&keywords=day+of+infamy
There was a book by one of the Australian codebreakers allegedly the first to crack both the Japanese diplomatic and naval codes, no idea what the title is, too long ago.
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8th December 2012 at 9:04 pm