Dec. 7, 1941 - Few survive, but we must all remember

[Draggingtree]

Dec. 7, 1941 - Few survive, but we must all remember

Posted: Dec. 7, 2012 | 2:22 a.m

Ambivalence about our martial prowess has long been part of America's culture. We celebrate the sacrifices of our veterans, but seem a tad uncomfortable commemorating the actual victories that kept us free.

There's good and bad in this. It's a good thing we're not a bloodthirsty people, always eager for war. On the other hand, on those rare occasions when committing our troops is justified, surely they deserve our whole-hearted support. They're not trained to dispense infant formula out there on those foreign fields, after all.

Yet most Americans can name the date of only one great American military engagement, and that was a stunning defeat.

What event do we pause to remember each year on June 4? On Aug. 6? Oct. 17? Oct. 19? Dec. 26?

[Draggingtree]

Pearl Harbor dead remembered on 71st anniversary

Dec 7, 7:31 AM (ET) (AP) In this U.S. Navy file photo, a small boat rescues a USS West Virginia crew member from the...

Full Image

 

By AUDREY McAVOY

 

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii (AP) - More than 2,000 people are gathering at Pearl Harbor on Friday to mark the 71st anniversary of the Japanese attack that killed thousands of people and launched the United States into World War II.

 

Ceremonies get under way with a moment of silence at 7:55 a.m., the exact time the bombing began in 1941.

 

The crew of a Navy guided-missile destroyer will stand on deck while the ship passes the USS Arizona, a battleship that still lies in the harbor where it sank decades ago.

 

Hawaii Air National Guard aircraft will fly overhead in missing man formation.

 

The Navy and National Park Service are hosting the ceremonies, which are being held in remembrance of the 2,390 service members and 49 civilians killed in the attack. http://apnews.myway.com/article/20121207/DA30U39G0.html

[Draggingtree]

Pearl Harbor was in smoke, and Utah pilot was alone in the sky

 

 

(Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune) A photo of Emmett "Cyclone" Davis, from the 1960s. Davis, a native of Roosevelt, was a young pilot in the Army Air Corps, based at Wheeler Field in Hawaii, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. He was one of the few pilots able to get into the air in an attempt to defend Pearl Harbor. He is now 93 (94 this month) and lives in his own home with his wife, Majorie. His son, Tucker, is writing a biography of his father.

 

Roosevelt native saw the beginning and the end of war in Pacific.

By Kristen Moulton

| The Salt Lake Tribune

First Published Dec 06 2012 06:35 pm • Updated 7 hours ago

Highland » Emmett "Cyclone" Davis was all alone as he flew the P-40 fighter plane south over Oahu on Dec. 7, 1941. He scanned the sky and could see no more attacking Japanese planes. No other American pilot had made it into that piece of the Hawaiian sky.

To his left, Davis saw clouds of black smoke rising from Pearl Harbor and could only imagine the blow the U.S. naval fleet had suffered. "It looked like it was on fire," he recalled Thursday.

But that day, Davis kept his mind on his mission: to check out reports of a Japanese land invasion at Barber’s Point, west of Pearl Harbor.

The Roosevelt, Utah, native — one week shy of 23 and an Army Air Corps pilot for just more than a year — could be forgiven fear. If an invasion were underway, he would be vastly outnumbered.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/55418505-78/davis-harbor-pearl-pilot.html.csp

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The Arizona Revisited

 

 

December 7, 1941: Settled on the bottom of Pearl Harbor, the USS Arizona burns following the major explosion of its forwards. (USS Arizona Photograph Collection, National Park Service)

 

Divers explore the legacy of Pearl Harbor.

 

By Daniel J. Lenihan

 

A June day finds us once again diving around the battleship USS Arizona, whose sunken remains lie in Pearl Harbor. Larry Nordby surfaces beside me clasping his large plexiglass slate; a piece of mylar taped to it is covered with scribbled notations from his dive. “Navy’s here,” he announces. I look toward the boat ramp where a small landing craft full of “mudzoos” is tying up to the dock of the memorial building that straddles the wreck. Mudzoos are navy divers assigned to the Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit (MDSU) based at Pearl Harbor. We have a symbiotic relationship with these men, whose primary mission is as far from science and historic preservation as ours is from ship husbandry and underwater construction. Our allegiance instead is to the Submerged Cultural Resources Unit, whose bureaucratic title refers to a group of diving archeologists, artists, and rangers employed by the National Park Service to promote preservation of historic shipwrecks and other underwater archeological sites.

 

This unit was formed in 1980, when the agency leadership decided to establish a mobile team that could help park managers “maintain responsible stewardship” over such sites. Coincidentally

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Pearl Harbor survivor helps identify unknown dead

 

By AUDREY McAVOY

 

The Associated Press

 

Published: December 6, 2012

 

HONOLULU -- Ray Emory could not accept that more than one quarter of the 2,400 Americans who died at Pearl Harbor were buried, unidentified, in a volcanic crater.

 

And so he set out to restore names to the dead.

 

Emory, a survivor of the attack, doggedly scoured decades-old documents to piece together who was who. He pushed, and sometimes badgered, the government into relabeling more than 300 gravestones with the ship names of the deceased. And he lobbied for forensic scientists to exhume the skeletons of those who might be identified.

 

On Friday, the 71-year anniversary of the Japanese attack, the Navy and National Park Service will honor the 91-year-old former sailor for his determination to have Pearl Harbor remembered, and remembered accurately.

 

"Some of the time, we suffered criticism from Ray and sometimes it was personally directed at me. And I think it was all for the better," said National Park Service historian Daniel Martinez. "It made us rethink things. It wasn't viewed by me as personal, but a reminder of how you need to sharpen your pencil when you recall these events and the people and what's important."

 

 

Emory first learned of the unknown graves more than 20 years ago when

http://www.stripes.com/news/pearl-harbor-survivor-helps-identify-unknown-dead-1.199652