At 0755 a bomb exploded on the seaplane ramp at Ford island, this signified the start of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. When it was done, the American Pacific fleet was crippled, amd 0ver 3000 Americans were dead. The sinking of the fleet at Pearl Harbor galvanized the Americans, and since it was a sneak attack it was considered "dishonorable and underhanded". This infuriated the Americans sense of fair play. The Japanese had planned on attacking right after the ultimatum was delivered, but the secrecy that the Japanese demanded forced the Ambassador himself to decode it slowing the response down so they delivered the message to Secretary Hull after the attack has started. The attack gave the Japanese several things...It was a tactical victory, it allowed them to move against the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies with the rubber and oil that the Japanese war machine needed to build the stuff that a modern nation needs to wage war. The Japanese Admiral Yamamoto who lead the attack on Pearl Harbor had studied the Americans at length while he was a naval attache and he told the General Staff who was pushing for the war "I will be able to give you 6 months, after that I cannot guarantee victory. And true to events, the Japanese raised hell for 6 months until the Americans smashed 4 of the Japanese fleet carriers at Midway, a blow that the Japanese Naval aviation never recovered from. The attack also forced the Americans to utilize the carriers to do any offensive work against the Japanese. Also the Japanese didn't launch the 3rd strike against Pearl Harbor, the drydocks and the fuel farms were still intact. The victory was a Pyrrhic victory because it ended on August 6 and August 9 of 1945 4 years later when the Japanese cities were the site of the Atom bomb and a small part of the logic of the bomb drop was to pay Japan back for the sneak attack.
The attack on Pearl harbor was a huge shock to the Americans, for the fleet and the Army air corp to be so woefully unprepared for battle left a mark on the American psyche. Never again would we be so defenseless. Also the end results was that out of all the ships sunk and damaged at Pearl Harbor, all but 3 were repaired and returned to service.
Now that the election is over, I will spend more time doing historical stuff and 2nd amendment stuff. I will still post political articles and muses and pithy thoughts but will spend more time doing historical stuff and things that I like :) I saw this article and decided do some digging and pull more information together. I figured this would be a fun article to write since I like history and Pearl Harbor I and many of my friends have talked about that attack and what it meant to the country. This article would have been cool for a DEC 7th post but I wasn't aware of it until now.
On the 75th anniversary of the Japanese attack Pearl
Harbor, there was a plane with a unique story to tell. It is one of the
few planes to have flown against the Japanese on that day. With its
silver and orange-yellow paint scheme with a bright green tail and red
trim, it wasn’t the most likely combat aircraft.
It was designed
to be a small airliner for transporting troops, mail, and photographers
around Hawaii. It had a boat hull for landing and take-off in the water
and big tires for landing and taking off on a runway. The plane was
piloted by Ensign Wesley Hoyt Ruth.
“The fact that Ruth got out and got back is . . . absolutely amazing,” says Smithsonian museum specialist Pat Robinson.
Robinson said that the plane would not have survived if it had found
the Japanese fleet. It was also fortunate not be shot down by the
Americans as they returned to Pearl Harbor.
It’s also amazing that
the plane was not sent to the junkyard for scrap. “Somewhere . . .
someone looking at the log books realized the significance of the
airplane, and where it had been,” and alerted the Smithsonian, which
retrieved it from military storage, Robinson said.
“It’s a huge
deal, to have this here,” he said. “It represents American involvement
in the Second World War. It was there when it started.”
The
Smithsonian wants to restore the plane, but there are a lot of planes in
line ahead of it. The plane was built for the Navy in 1938. It was
built at the Sikorsky plant in Stratford, Connecticut. It’s a big plane
with two huge propeller engines in the wings, a hatch in the nose for
photography, and porthole-type windows.
The museum curators found an old emergency water purification kit and the rusted keys to a lockbox in the radio compartment.
An
old drinking water kit was in the Sikorsky JRS-1 flying boat that sits
in the restoration hangar of the Smithsonian National Air and Space
Museum. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)
An
old drinking water kit was in the Sikorsky JRS-1 flying boat that sits
in the restoration hangar of the Smithsonian National Air and Space
Museum. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)
Lockbox
keys also were found on the plane, which had a boat-like hull to allow
it land on water and wheels to come in on a runway. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The
Washington Post)
The plane was part of a squadron based on Ford Island in the middle of Pearl Harbor.
Ruth
was having breakfast in his bachelor’s quarters at the time of the
attack. He thought that it might be a drill until he saw the bombs. Sikorsky JRS-1 (S-43) in 1945.His son, Thomas A. Ruth II, said that his father was an experienced aviator who could fly anything.
Ruth
survived the war, but his brother, Thomas, who was also a Navy pilot
was killed when he was shot down in the South Pacific in 1943.
Ruth
grabbed his coat and jumped into his convertible and drove as fast as
he could toward the airstrip to avoid being hit by enemy fire. As he
reached the runway, the USS Arizona exploded, showering the area with pencil-sized gunpowder pellets.
Once
the attack ended, the Americans wanted to find the fleet that had
attacked them. A senior officer told Ruth to take the first plane and
go find them.
Ruth piloted the plane, and Emery C. “Pappy” Geise,
35, was his co-pilot. Oscar W. Benefeil Jr. worked the radio and Amos
P. Gallupe was the plane captain. Two other sailors joined them on the
flight.
Before takeoff, the senior officer provided three
Springfield rifles. Ruth said, “we would have had to shoot through the
windows.”
They took off in the brightly colored plane and headed north.
They
flew for hours and covered 250 miles but didn’t see anything. The enemy
fleet was in the Pacific, north of Hawaii, but the crew made no
contact. The next task was to get back home without being shot down by
nervous soldiers from their own side. According to historians, numerous
US planes were shot down by anxious US anti-aircraft guns.
Luckily, they landed back at the airstrip safely.
After
that, the plane was sent to a base in California and then given to a
forerunner of NASA for testing. It was placed in storage after that and
then sent to the Smithsonian when the historical importance of the
plane was realized.
Ruth passed away at the age of 101 in Matthews, NC. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery in January, The Washington Post reported.
Because of his bravery at Pearl Harbor, Ruth earned the Navy Cross, their second-highest honor.
“Although
contact with the enemy meant almost certain destruction,” his citation
reads, Ruth’s courage, airmanship, and skill “were at all times
inspiring and in keeping with the highest traditions of the United
States Naval Service.”
Here are some details on this airplane, I cribbed the information from "Google" and "Wiki".
The S-43 first flew in 1935, and was a smaller version of the Sikorsky S-42 "Clipper". It accommodated between 18 and 25 passengers, with a separate two-crew forward cockpit.[1] The S-43 was known as the "Baby Clipper" in airline service.
On April 14, 1936, An S-43 with a 500 kilograms (1,100 lb) payload
and piloted by Boris Sergievsky set an altitude record for amphibious
aircraft when it reached an altitude of 27,950 feet above Stamford, Connecticut. Also aboard was designer Igor Sikorsky.
In total, approximately 53 S-43s were built, including examples of the twin-tailed S-43B.
Panair do Brasil
operated seven aircraft. 5 S-43 were used between 1937 and 1945 by the
French company Aéromaritime on a colonial airway between Dakar (Senegal) and Pointe-Noire (Congo).
Five aircraft were acquired by the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1937 under
the designation OA-8 and were used for transport of freight and
passengers.
17 aircraft were procured by the U.S. Navy between 1937 and 1939 as the
JRS-1, two of which served the U.S. Marine Corps. One JRS survived in
service at the end of 1941.
The Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum'sSteven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia is currently restoring a Sikorsky JRS-1 that was on duty at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941.
Two aircraft went to private owners: Harold Vanderbilt and Howard Hughes. Hughes' S-43 N440 remains the last example of this aircraft type flying . It is now owned by Kermit Weeks
and has been relocated from Texas to the restoration facility at the
Fantasy of Flight Museum in Polk City, Florida where it is awaiting
reassembly and restoration.
I will post my Monday Music stuff tomorrow....Somehow doing it today would be disrespectful.
At 0755 the first bomb hit the Seaplane ramp at Ford island...Before it was all over the war that was started by this sneak attack will have consumed millions.
Honor those that made the Ultimate sacrifice......
I will continue my rants and Monday Music tomorrow. And I will try to work through my Blogger issues.....*blech*
At 7:53 a.m. on Sunday, December 7, 1941, the first assault
wave of Japanese fighter planes attacked the U.S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor,
Hawaii, taking the Americans completely by surprise. The first wave targeted airfields and battleships.
The second wave targeted other ships and shipyard facilities. The air raid
lasted until 9:45 a.m. Eight battleships were damaged, with five sunk.
Three light cruisers, three destroyers and three smaller vessels were lost
along with 188 aircraft. The Japanese lost 27 planes and five midget submarines
which attempted to penetrate the inner harbor and launch torpedoes. Three prime targets; the U.S. Pacific Fleet aircraft
carriers, Lexington, Enterprise and Saratoga, were not in the
harbor and thus escaped damage. The casualty list at Pearl Harbor included 2,335 servicemen
and 68 civilians killed, and 1,178 wounded. Over a thousand crewmen aboard the
USS Arizona battleship were killed after a 1,760 pound aerial
bomb penetrated the forward magazine causing catastrophic explosions. See also: Pearl Harbor Slide Show - 20 photos News of the "sneak attack" was broadcast to
the American public via radio bulletins, with many popular Sunday afternoon
entertainment programs being interrupted. The news sent a shockwave across the
nation, resulting in a tremendous influx of young volunteers into the U.S. Armed
Forces. The attack also united the nation behind President Franklin D. Roosevelt
and effectively ended the American isolationist movement. On Monday, December 8th, President Roosevelt appeared
before Congress and made this speech asking for a declaration of war against
Japan, calling the previous day "...a date which will live in infamy..."
Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, members of the Senate and the House
of Representatives: Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy -
the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by
naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. The United States was at peace with that nation, and, at the solicitation
of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its Emperor
looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing
in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States
and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to
a recent American message. And, while this reply stated that it seemed
useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained
no threat or hint of war or of armed attack. It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes
it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks
ago. During the intervening time the Japanese Government has deliberately
sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions
of hope for continued peace. The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage
to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many
American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported
torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu. Yesterday the Japanese Government also launched an attack against
Malaya.
Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.
Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam.
Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.
Last night the Japanese attacked Wake Island.
And this morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island. Japan has therefore undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout
the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves.
The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and
well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.
As Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy I have directed that all
measures be taken for our defense, that always will our whole nation remember
the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion,
the American people, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute
victory. I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people
when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but
will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again
endanger us. Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people,
our territory and our interests are in grave danger. With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination
of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph. So help us God. I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly
attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed
between the United States and the Japanese Empire. President Franklin D. Roosevelt - December 8, 1941
The wreckage of the USS Arizona ablaze after the attack.
The Infamy Speech was brief, running to just a little over seven minutes. Secretary of State Cordell Hull had recommended that the president devote more time to a fuller exposition of Japanese-American relations
and the lengthy but unsuccessful effort to find a peaceful solution.
However, Roosevelt kept the speech short in the belief that it would
have a more dramatic effect.[7]
His revised statement was all the stronger for its emphatic
insistence that posterity would forever endorse the American view of the
attack. It was intended not merely as a personal response by the
president, but as a statement on behalf of the entire American people in
the face of a great collective trauma.
In proclaiming the indelibility of the attack and expressing outrage at
its "dastardly" nature, the speech worked to crystallize and channel
the response of the nation into a collective response and resolve.[8]
The first paragraph of the speech was carefully worded to reinforce
Roosevelt's portrayal of the United States as the innocent victim of
unprovoked Japanese aggression. The wording was deliberately passive.
Rather than taking the more usual active voice—i.e. "Japan attacked the
United States"—Roosevelt chose to put in the foreground the object being
acted upon, namely the United States, to emphasize America's status as a
victim.[9]
The theme of "innocence violated" was further reinforced by Roosevelt's
recounting of the ongoing diplomatic negotiations with Japan, which the
president characterized as having been pursued cynically and
dishonestly by the Japanese government while it was secretly preparing
for war against the United States.[10]
Roosevelt consciously sought to avoid making the sort of more abstract appeal that had been issued by President Woodrow Wilson in his own speech to Congress[11] in April 1917, when the United States entered World War I.
Wilson laid out the strategic threat posed by Germany and stressed the
idealistic goals behind America's participation in the war. During the
1930s, however, American public opinion turned strongly against such
themes and was wary of, if not actively hostile to, idealistic visions
of remaking the world through a "just war". Roosevelt therefore chose to
make an appeal aimed more at the gut level—in effect, an appeal to
patriotism rather than to idealism. Nonetheless, he took pains to draw a
symbolic link with the April 1917 declaration of war; when he went to
Congress on December 8, 1941 he was accompanied by Edith Bolling Wilson, President Wilson's widow.[12]
The "infamy framework" adopted by Roosevelt was given additional
resonance by the fact that it followed the pattern of earlier narratives
of great American defeats. The Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 and the sinking of the USS Maine
in 1898 had both been the source of intense national outrage and a
determination to take the fight to the enemy. Defeats and setbacks were
on each occasion portrayed as being merely a springboard towards an
eventual and inevitable victory. As Professor Sandra Silberstein
observes, Roosevelt's speech followed a well-established tradition of
how "through rhetorical conventions, presidents assume extraordinary
powers as the commander in chief, dissent is minimized, enemies are
vilified, and lives are lost in the defense of a nation once again
united under God."[13]
The overall tone of the speech was one of determined realism.
Roosevelt made no attempt to paper over the great damage that had been
caused to the American armed forces, noting (without giving figures, as
casualty reports were still being compiled) that "very many American
lives have been lost" in the attack. However, he emphasized his
confidence in the strength of the American people to face up to the
challenge posed by Japan, citing the "unbounded determination of our
people". He sought to reassure the public that steps were being taken to
ensure their safety, noting his own role as "Commander in Chief of the
Army and Navy" (the United States Air Force was at this time part of the US Army) and declaring that he had already "directed that all measures be taken for our defense".
Roosevelt also made a point of emphasizing that "our people, our
territory and our interests are in grave danger" and highlighted reports
of Japanese attacks in the Pacific between Hawaii and San Francisco. In so doing, he sought to silence the isolationist
movement which had campaigned so strongly against American involvement
in the war in Europe. If the territory and waters of the continental
United States—not just outlying possessions such as the Philippines—was
seen as being under direct threat, isolationism would become an
unsustainable course of action. Roosevelt's speech had the desired
effect, with only one Representative voting against the declaration of
war he sought; the wider isolationist movement collapsed almost
immediately.
The speech's "infamy" line is often misquoted as "a day that will live in infamy". However, Roosevelt quite deliberately chose to emphasize the date—December 7, 1941—rather than the day
of the attack, a Sunday, which he mentioned only in the last line when
he said, "...Sunday, December 7th, 1941,...". He sought to emphasize the
historic nature of the events at Pearl Harbor, implicitly urging the
American people never to forget the attack and memorialize its date.
Ironically, the misquoted term "day of infamy" has become widely used by
the media to refer to any moment of supreme disgrace or evil.[14]
Impact and legacy
Roosevelt's speech had an immediate and long-lasting impact on
American politics. Thirty-three minutes after he finished speaking,
Congress declared war on Japan, with only one Representative, Jeannette Rankin,
voting against the declaration. The speech was broadcast live by radio
and attracted the largest audience in US radio history, with over 81
percent of American homes tuning in to hear the President.[7] The response was overwhelmingly positive, both within and outside of Congress. Judge Samuel Irving Rosenman, who served as an adviser to Roosevelt, described the scene:
“
It was
a most dramatic spectacle there in the chamber of the House of
Representatives. On most of the President's personal appearances before
Congress, we found applause coming largely from one side—the Democratic
side. But this day was different. The applause, the spirit of
cooperation, came equally from both sides. ... The new feeling of unity
which suddenly welled up in the chamber on December 8, the common
purpose behind the leadership of the President, the joint determination
to see things through, were typical of what was taking place throughout
the country.[15]
”
The White House was inundated with telegrams praising the president's
stance ("On that Sunday we were dismayed and frightened, but your
unbounded courage pulled us together."[16]).
Recruiting stations were jammed with a surge of volunteers and had to
go on 24-hour duty to deal with the crowds seeking to sign up, in
numbers reported to be twice as high as after Woodrow Wilson's
declaration of war in 1917. The anti-war and isolationist movement
collapsed in the wake of the speech, with even the president's fiercest
critics falling into line. Charles Lindbergh, who had been a leading isolationist, declared:
“
Now
[war] has come and we must meet it as united Americans regardless of our
attitude in the past toward the policy our Government has followed. ...
Our country has been attacked by force of arms, and by force of arms we
must retaliate. We must now turn every effort to building the greatest
and most efficient Army, Navy and Air Force in the world.[17]
”
Roosevelt's framing of the Pearl Harbor attack became, in effect, the
standard American narrative of the events of December 7, 1941.
Hollywood enthusiastically adopted the narrative in a number of war
films. Wake Island, the Academy Award-winning Air Force and the films Man from Frisco (1944), and Betrayal from the East
(1945), all included actual radio reports of the pre-December 7
negotiations with the Japanese, reinforcing the message of enemy
duplicity. Across the Pacific (1942), Salute to the Marines (1943), and Spy Ship
(1942), used a similar device, relating the progress of US–Japanese
relations through newspaper headlines. The theme of American innocence
betrayed was also frequently depicted on screen, the melodramatic aspects of the narrative lending themselves naturally to the movies.[18]
The President's description of December 7 as "a date which will live
in infamy" was borne out; the date very quickly became shorthand for the
Pearl Harbor attack in much the same way that September 11 became
inextricably associated with the 2001 terrorist attacks.
The slogans "Remember December 7th" and "Avenge December 7" were
adopted as a rallying cry and were widely displayed on posters and lapel
pins.[19]Prelude to War (1942), the first of Frank Capra's Why We Fight film series (1942–1945), urged Americans to remember the date of the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, September 18, 1931, "as well as we remember December 7th 1941, for on that date in 1931 the war we are now fighting began."[20] The symbolism of the date was highlighted in a scene in the 1943 film Bombardier,
in which the leader of a group of airmen walks up to a calendar on the
wall, points to the date ("December 7, 1941") and tells his men:
"Gentlemen, there's a date we will always remember—and they'll never
forget!"[21]
Sixty years later, the continuing resonance of the Infamy Speech was demonstrated following the September 11, 2001 attacks, which many commentators compared with Pearl Harbor in terms of its impact and deadliness.[22] In the days following the attacks, author Richard Jackson notes in his book Writing the War on Terrorism: Language, Politics and Counter-terrorism that "there [was] a deliberate and sustained effort" on the part of the George W. Bush administration to "discursively link September 11, 2001 to the attack on Pearl Harbor itself",[23] both by directly invoking Roosevelt's Infamy Speech[24] and by re-using the themes employed by Roosevelt in his speech. In Bush's speech to the nation on September 11, 2001,
he contrasted the "evil, despicable acts of terror" with the "brightest
beacon for freedom and opportunity" that America represented in his
view.[25]University of Washington
Professor and author Sandra Silberstein draws direct parallels between
the language used by Roosevelt and Bush, highlighting a number of
similarities between the Infamy Speech and Bush's presidential address
of September 11.[13]
Similarly, Emily S. Rosenberg notes rhetorical efforts to link the
conflicts of 1941 and 2001 by re-utilizing Second World War terminology
of the sort used by Roosevelt, such as using the term "axis" to refer to
America's enemies (as in "Axis of Evil").[12]
Before takeoff, the senior officer provided three
Springfield rifles. Ruth said, “we would have had to shoot through the
windows.”
Here are some details on this airplane, I cribbed the information from "Google" and "Wiki". 
The S-43 was used primarily by Pan American World Airways for flights to Cuba and within Latin America. Two were also flown by Reeve Aleutian Airways in Alaska and three were used by Inter-Island Airways of Hawaii, the predecessor to modern-day Hawaiian Airlines, to ferry Pan-Am Clipper passengers and local residents from Honolulu to the other islands. One aircraft was purchased by Norwegian airline Det Norske Luftfartselskap.
Panair do Brasil
operated seven aircraft. 5 S-43 were used between 1937 and 1945 by the
French company Aéromaritime on a colonial airway between Dakar (Senegal) and Pointe-Noire (Congo).
The Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia is currently restoring a Sikorsky JRS-1 that was on duty at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941.
