| Re: Pearl Harbor Day 12-7-2016 |
Subject: Re: Pearl Harbor Day 12-7-2016 by bogus on 2016/12/7 16:17:27 I need to decorate the forum for the holidays! Gee... sneaking up on me. The cold is nearly gone... I am still a bit congested, but not nearly sick any more. It's been a week. And I don't want to relive it. The upside? Got lots of naps in!!  I was watching a Pearl Harbor doc over the weekend. They interviewed survivors. One was Al Rodriquez. I met him and he signed is book for me back in 2004!! It was nice to see him alive and well. He used to be a frequent docent at the Memorial. Lovely fellow. Watched another documentary claiming the "truth" about Pearl... The truth? Yea... we had the data, but because of how it was distributed and protected, no one had a full picture of what the data was telling them. Can you say we don't learn shit from our own mistakes? Another aspect, as sad as it was... If we had used Magic (the code breaking people) it would have revealed we knew their code and they simply would have changed it. There was this naive belief at the time that our carrier fleet would have taken the Japanese fleet out... sorry, but that wasn't going to happen. Our planes, our pilots, everything, was not prepared for the professionals that were manning the IJN in 1941. Their fleet was new, ours was a bunch of left over tin cans from WWI. WWII did what it had to do, and we were not in any position to do jack until late 1942, really. On 2 September 1945, six years and one day after the Third Reich invaded poor Poland, starting WWII, the Japanese surrendered to the Allies on the deck of the USS Missouri (I have stood on the spot, it is rather intense, really). After the signing was done, some 1500 US air craft did a flyover. The one final exclamation point... reminding the Japanese leaders that surrender was really a good idea. It also sent a message to the Soviets that we were in Japan and it was defended. That and the A-Bomb... One final thought... the dropping of the atomic bombs was necessary. If for no other reason than the events gave the world the empirical information required to make sure it never ever happened again. Simulations were one thing, 80k people dead in 3 seconds is another. I do feel bad for those that suffered, but their suffering is not without some thanks for they showed us what tests never would have. And for that reason, we have never seen another drop... by any military or paramilitary force. My only hope is that it stays that way. |
