Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The Attack on Pearl Harbor.

December 7 1941.

I know just the basics, the Japanese thought battle ships were all important. History shows airplanes, and the carrier ships turned out be of more importance.

Any thoughts on the day "That Lives in Infamy"?

When they attacked they screwed up bad.

They thought the carrier group would be there also. We were lucky they weren’t.

They thought we'd crumble from the attack, but they waked a sleeping giant, who left absolutely no doubt as to what the income would be. Mess with the eagle, and you'll get the talons.

I am very certain that was not the thinking of the Japanese. Yamamoto was well aware of all the capabilities of the aircraft carrier. And he very good intelligence that four flattops were anchored in Pearl Harbor. Fortunately for us, his intel was just a few days out of date.

Which brings us to the debate over how much did our Navy know about the coming strike on Pearl? Considering the battleship Admirals swore an airplane was no threat to a battleship. And the carrier Admirals swore the battleship was obsolete, as it could not withstand an attack from the air.

Was it just a coincidence that the carriers sailed safely out into the open sea just before the attack?

Wasn't it Yamamoto who said " I fear we have wakened a sleeping elephant." ?

Lol

Thank God it was a time when Men were Men.

My grandfather was there at the time, at the Schofield barracks. (And at Guadalcanal and the Philippines later.)
Its' the one time I always know exactly where my grandfather was 70 odd years ago to the hour. He was a tough character, from country Georgia. He drank a lot, was a violent man when drunk and he didn't like black people much. He hated the Japanese. He kept an army sheath knife on his beside table. He liked me though. He taught me how to throw a hand grenade into a bunker, and how to stop a tank with a bazooka. I was about nine years old at the time.

He got a Bronze Star on Guadalcanal but I never knew until after he died, so I never asked him what it was for. He had a scar on his forearm from a bullet entry. He worked in logging after the war and he always wanted to take me fishing. He was not a good man. Once when the Mormons knocked on the door and asked if he was saved, he told them" I've been doing the devils work for so long, I can't leave the poor bastard alone now." But he was my grandfather .

I always think of him on this day.

Admiral Yamamoto on Pearl Harbor.

Admiral "Bull" Halsey on Pearl Harbor.

It seems that both men knew what the future held in store.
As to wether the Navy knew ahead of time, I can't say.
FDR and his Chiefs of Staff figured an attack was coming, but no one ever thought it'd be Hawaii.
7mm

They knew it was comming...and they let it happen....fu*k the war monger FDR.......... Kermit Gosnell > why were u borrn to late to walk him to the bus stop....

No, the Japs thought the carriers would be at Pearl. They thought if they could sink the Pacific Fleet Carriers, that the US would have lottle choice but to sue for peace and negotiate to get the oil flowing back to Japan. Unbenownst to them, the carriers had been sent out on missions - The Lexington to Midway to delivery dive bombers, The Saratoga to San Diego and The Enterprise to Wake Island to deliver a Marine attack plane squadron. Enterprise was scheduled to return to Pearl on December 7th and received radio transmissions that Pearl was under attack. She berthed on December 8, and was refueled and rearmed in 7 hours before putting back out to sea to guard the Islands from further attacks from the West.

Yes, it was coincidence - pure luck. Enterprise was at Wake Island, but was scheduled to return on December 7th. The US only had three carriers in the Pacific because Germany was viewed as a bigger threat. Lexington and Saratoga had been sent to Midway and San Diego, respectively.

Saratoga steamed back at 110%+.......record still stands I think.

And by the end of the war we sank every single ship that took part in the attack.

PC be damned........

Good thing Hillary wasn't secretary of state ; the Japs would have been reading her e-mails.

Admiral Yamamoto had been in the US for some time in the '30s, and knew of the industrial capability. He knew that it must be a short war or Japan would lose.

The US Brass thought enough of him and his abilities to pay him a visit while he was on his way to Rabaul. He was not taken lightly.

I was born in 1950, 9 years after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Growing up, December 7 was a very big day as far a lot of folks were concerned. In the 50's and well into the 60's, there was still a lot of animosity towards the Japs. I knew people who refused to buy anything if it was Japanese made.......something that eventually became almost impossible to do. A high school classmate of my fathers was killed at Pearl Harbor.

I can remember the older folks still talking about where they were, and what they were doing when they got the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor. It was much like we talk about 9-11, only they seemed to place more importance on it than we do 9-11. Of course, WW2 was a much larger war and took many more lives than what we experienced following 9-11.

It must have been a horrible dose of reality to those who woke on that fateful day to hear about what happened at Pearl. To the best of my knowledge, our family didn't have any direct connections to anyone living there at the time. The only thing I remember hearing about was someone who ended up with some bullet holes in their front door on their house. Lest we ever forget.