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Pearl Harbor Fact

Pugman1943

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 15, 2009
Messages
7,582
For those who may be interested.

Pearl Harbor really interesting fact, and I never knew this little bit of history:

Tour boats ferry people out to the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii every thirty minutes. We just missed a ferry and had to wait thirty minutes. I went into a small
gift shop to kill time.
In the gift shop, I purchased a small book entitled,
"Reflections on Pearl Harbor "
by Admiral Chester Nimitz.

Sunday, December 7th, 1941--Admiral Chester Nimitz was attending a
concert in Washington D.C.
He was paged and told there was a phone call for him.
When he answered the phone,
it was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
on the phone. He told Admiral Nimitz that he
(Nimitz) would now be the Commander
of the Pacific Fleet.
Admiral Nimitz flew to Hawaii to assume command of the Pacific Fleet.
He landed at Pearl Harbor on Christmas Eve, 1941.
There was such a spirit of despair, dejection and defeat
--you would have thought the Japanese had already won the war.
On Christmas Day, 1941, Adm. Nimitz was given a boat tour of the
destruction wrought on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese.
Big sunken battleships and navy vessels cluttered the waters
every where you looked.

As the tour boat returned to dock,
the young helmsman of the boat asked,
"Well Admiral, what do you
think after seeing all this destruction?"
Admiral Nimitz's reply shocked
everyone within the sound of his voice.



Admiral Nimitz said, "The Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes
an attack force could ever make, or God was taking care of America.
Which do you think it was?"

Shocked and surprised, the young helmsman asked,
"What do mean by saying the Japanese made the three biggest
mistakes an attack
force ever made?" Nimitz explained:

Mistake number one:
the Japanese attacked on Sunday morning.
Nine out ofevery ten crewmen of those ships were ashore on leave.
If those same ships had been lured to sea
and been sunk--we would have lost
38,000 men instead of 3,800.

Mistake number two:
when the Japanese saw all those battleships lined in a row,
they got so carried away sinking those battleships,
they never once bombed our dry docks opposite those ships.
If they had destroyed our
dry docks, we would have had to tow every one of those
ships to America to be repaired.
As it is now, the ships are in shallow water and can be raised.
One tug can pull them over to the dry docks,
and we can have them repaired and at sea by the time
we could have towed them to America.
I already have crewsashore anxious to man those ships.

Mistake number three:
Every drop of fuel in the Pacific theater of war is in top of the
ground storage tanks five miles away over that hill.
One attack plane could have strafed those
tanks and destroyed our fuel supply.
That's why I say the Japanese made three of the biggest
mistakes an attack force could make
or, God was taking care of America.

I've never forgotten what I read in that little book.
It is still an inspiration as I reflect upon it.
In jest, I might suggest that
because Admiral Nimitz was a Texan, born and raised in
Fredricksburg, Texas --he was a born optimist.
But anyway you look at it--Admiral Nimitz was able to
see a silver lining in a situation and circumstance
where everyone else saw only despair and defeatism.

President Roosevelt had chosen the right man for the job.
We desperately needed a leader that could see silver linings
in the midst of the clouds of dejection, despair and defeat.

There is a reason that our national motto is:
"IN GOD WE TRUST"

Why have we forgotten?
 
I'd like to point out pug, that "In God We Trust" didn't become our country's motto until 1956 when we were scared to death of godless Communists. History has to be taken in context, pug.
 
Doc
 
The Museum of the Pacific in Fredericksburg is quite nice. Its location is due to Nimitz.
 
Gavin, we stayed a weekend at a B&B in Fredricksberg and I toured the museum. My heart was in my throat.
Devil Doc said:
I'd like to point out pug, that "In God We Trust" didn't become our country's motto until 1956 when we were scared to death of godless Communists. History has to be taken in context, pug.
 
Doc
Doc, I didn't say when it was added, I simply said it was our national motto.
 
I love history,  very interesting read.  Thanks for sharing...  
 
Have not actually read this book, read summaries and transcripts of talks Stinnett has made, and some other info.
 
Stinnett makes an excellent case and backs it up pretty well, that FDR knew of the coming attack on Pearl ahead of time. Basically, that is why Admiral Richardson was fired shortly before, because he did not want to leave the fleet as bait. Also, the "fleet" that was left in Pearly consisted of WW1 vessels, and all of the later generations of ships were sent out, .
 
http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=day+of+deceit+stinnett&tag=googhydr-20&index=stripbooks&hvadid=22383615885&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=5800777742583629176&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_21k4q8i6jp_b
 
Not something I have delved into in depth, but Stinnett was a former newspaper man, who resigned to write the book and is not known for being a conspiracy theorist sort.
 
Only happened across this several weeks ago. From what I have read of various Stinnett transcripts and quoted passages he likely is correct. Have been meaning to buy the book but not gotten around to it.
 
I guess you could say that is a "Pearl Harbor Disputed Fact!"
 
The US had broken a set of Japanese code with their 'Magic' program, so yes, it's very possible that the US had some forewarning. Not one aircraft carrier was at Pearl Harbor. Conspiracy theorists extrapolate from there.
 
We're going to Pearl Harbor to visit the Arizona Memorial and the Mo tomorrow.  
 
As for conspiracy theories, I do think that there was some idea beforehand, but how much of a big, flashing red light it was... I don't know.  There was a lot of intel to sort through back then, both credible and totally useless.  Maybe it was just overlooked, to a point.  I'm not convinced it was information withheld to intentionally draw us into a war, but I'm likewise not convinced that it wasn't preventable.  
 
well, I just ordered the linked book, "Day of Deceit"
 
Hopefully, it will come in before next week, so I can read it on the plane to Houston.
 
At whatever point that I read it, i will post my thoughts of the book to this thread.
 
I was stationed in and around Pearl Harbor for 6 years and never took that tour. 
 
Winds were too high yesterday, so they weren't running the boats out there.  Guess we'll try again when we have company next month...  :/
 
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