Two battleships were permanently destroyed on Dec 7, - Arizona and Oklahoma. Arizona sank with over a thousand men lost. It is now a permanent memorial. Oklahoma capsized. Many crew members, who had been trapped, were rescued by people cutting through the hull. How many sailors were lost on this ship? What happened to the wreck? Why is this part of the story almost forgotten?

Why is this part of the story almost forgotten?Because Americans are a people with a compulsive desire to forget and ignore history. People who were alive on 12/7/1941 are at least sixty-two -- older even than me. Anybody who has actual memories of living during WWII is in their seventies at the youngest.

There are tens of millions of Americans who don't know what "Brown vs. Board of Education" was or why we were celebrating it for a week. There are even quite a few who don't really know anything about the Vietnam war except that it was a war in some place called Vietnam -- a place they can't find on a globe. They've literally never heard of the Korean War. Ask them about Napoleon or Copernicus or Socrates and they'll wonder what language you're speaking.

It's part of the American character to lose track of history. We have to do that in order to live with ourselves.

Consider: What if we really were familiar enough with history to have a right to an opinion in the Israel-Palestine conflict? If we say that it's the ancient homeland of the Jews and justice demands that it be given back to them, the nearest Palestinian refugee will say fine, then you guys had better give Arizona back to the Navajos. If we say that the Palestinians have lived there for centuries and they have the right of possession, the nearest Israeli will say fine, then you guys had better give Arizona back to Mexico.

Much of what we have "accomplished" in building America was done by committing terrible injustices that could only be perpetrated by a people with no respect for history. The fact that our grandchildren (not that I have any) don't know anything about the war that our fathers fought in (mine spent his whole tour of duty on Treasure Island teaching classes in electronics) is simply an instance of the next generation of Americans being quintessentially American.

Or my own personal pet peeve: The numbskulls who create PC software refuse to study the lessons we old mainframe jockeys learned by trial and error. Therefore our PCs are plagued with problems that we solved thirty years ago. Not only are Bill Gates and his cronies not punished mercilessly for continually tossing this crap at us -- people pay them for it because they don't know that these problems have already been solved either!

Those who refuse to study history are indeed doomed to repeat it.

Or, in the jargon of the numbskulls: What goes around really does come around.

The USS Oklahoma was not permanently destroyed. She was raised, but like the USS Utah (which still lays on the bottom and has a memorial similar to the USS Arizona) was considered too obsolete to bother with repairs, so she was decommissioned and scrapped. This link shows pictures of the process of the hull being rolled upright.
http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/37b.htm

How many crew members were lost and how many were rescued from the capsized hull?

Fraggle Rocker:
It's part of the American character to lose track of history

You are so right. We are still a young, vibrant nation, too busy making history to consider the past. Many of our own historical sites are places where someone slept on the run, or gave a speech from the back of a train!

And history only repeats itself in principle, as seen after the fact. I would be hard put to figure out who's history (as in 'his story') we are repeating just now.

The numbskulls who create PC software refuse to study the lessons we old mainframe jockeys learned by trial and error. Therefore our PCs are plagued with problems
I'm doing their debugging for them for free, so why should they do it? :rolleyes:

History is usually biased interpretation. http://www.independent.org/archive/pearlharbor.html

What about pearl harbour? The day of infamy? Any history buffs here? I suggest that the suprise attack on pearl that became the excuse for our 'involvment' in the war, was in fact a justified attack on U.S. that was already at war with Japan. Has anyone heard of the flying tigers?

Claire Chenault's Flying Tigers can't be used to say the US was already at war with Japan prior to Pearl Harbor. They were 'private citizens under contract' to a foreign government. Mercenaries. There are always mercenaries in wars. American citizens, mainly communists, fought in the Spanish Civil War, despite the US' neutrality. American citizens fought with the British and French in WW1 from 1914-1917 before the US finally entered the war. US citizens contracting out to fight for foreign governments doesn't translate to the US being at war with another nation. I can't see the Flying Tigers being justification for Pearl Harbor.

Hello Spyke,

Congratulations! :D and Thank you.
This is the most on-topic,clear-minded,concise,factual and civil response I've had on Sf, :) but enough sunshine.

The great majority of Flying Tigers were released from active duty by U.S. to join this squadron. The P-40's were U.S. made ,they engaged pre-infamy, and with a few months into the war had joined other elements forming the 8th? air force.

It seems to me that a Japanese informant might not very well understand nor care about the nuance between mercenary American air strike/sorties and Official American air strike/sorties.

Just because our western tradition views a loophole that accepts a subversion of congresses (then) sole right to declare war, does not mean that an eastern tradition will accept that rationale. Apparently. they didn't.






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The great majority of Flying Tigers were released from active duty by U.S. to join this squadron.

But that statement needs to be qualified. Chiang sent his brother-in-law to the US to recruit planes, pilots and mechanics. Chennault, who had been hired by Chiang in the late '30s after being forced to retire by the US Army, came along with the brother-in-law to advise him. This was in the spring of '41. George Marshall and "Hap" Arnold refused China's request, and it was only after a secret executive order by FDR that the pilots were made available, although the army still threw up every obstacle it could to prevent their release, mainly because they believed the US itself would be at war with Germany soon (at this point in Washington Germany was still the likely foe for the US). Most of the pilots recruited were fairly new, most having only experience in trainers, and probably went becaue of the $600 a month salary and the $500 bonus for every Japanese plane shot down (and many it seemed hoping to get some quick experience, and cash, and then move on to jobs as commercial pilots). But again, it was a secret EU by FDR, that was not known until later, so there was no way the Japanese would have known about it. Even if they had though, 100 pilots, 200 mechanics, and 100 obsolete fighters are hardly grounds for war. There were other major problems between the two powers that were much more significant.

The P-40's were U.S. made ,they engaged pre-infamy, and with a few months into the war had joined other elements forming the 8th? air force.

But those P-40 Tomahawks had already been rejected by the British as obsolete. And I honestly don't see that it matters that they were used by the AVG prior to Pearl, as they were used by mercenaries under contract with Chiang's government. The AVG's contract with China didn't expire until July, 1942, at which point Chennault was returned to active duty, but the AVG wasn't absorbed into the USAAF as the 14th Air Group until 1943, I believe.

It seems to me that a Japanese informant might not very well understand nor care about the nuance between mercenary American air strike/sorties and Official American air strike/sorties.

No offense, but I think you're over emphasizing the importance of the Flying Tigers prior to December 1941. I don't think they were of much concern to the invading Japanese in the late '30s. The early AVG had been more talk and bravado than real action, as they were really no match for the new Zeros. It wasn't until after Pearl that they began to distinguish themselves.

Just because our western tradition views a loophole that accepts a subversion of congresses (then) sole right to declare war, does not mean that an eastern tradition will accept that rationale. Apparently. they didn't.

But you seem to be suggesting that the Japanese went to war over Chennault's AVG, when there is no historical evidence that it was ever a serious issue in Tokyo. It was never put on the table by the Japanese at any point in negotiations between the State Department and Japan's Foreign Ministry. Certainly the Japanese were upset over the US' obvious support of China, but it was the US-led embargoes after their advance into Indochina that the Japanese considered a real threat to their interests.

I'm not sure exactly what you meant when you said "a loophole that accepts a subversion of congresses (then) sole right to declare war". How did FDR's allowing China to recruit those pilots usurp Congressional authority to declare war?

I don't dispute any of your facts, even some revelations there.
America was clearly not a neutral country, and was never going to side with the axis.
My point is Japan was justified by U.S. actions and obvious intentions.
I agree that the Flying Tigers were not very important by themselves.
I use them to show how America was already involved, and clearly taking sides.
To be a neutral nation is to not be involved at all in a conflict.
We were clearly involved! Aid and comfort etc.
The Emperor doesn't have to cite the flying tigers as a pretext. He could see the way the wind was blowing and chose to attack with Divine wind of his own.
regarding the congressional question(AHHH can of worms) provoking the response of war by overt actions by the executive without approval of the legislative, subverts the constitution.

provoking the response of war by overt actions by the executive without approval of the legislative, subverts the constitution.

FDR was never neutral in his own mind. He made that clear enough. It was the Isolationist-dominated Congress that maintained US neutrality prior to December 1941. But I'm still not sure how FDR subverted the Constitution in the case of the AVG. Actually, Congress only has itself to blame. While I agree completely that it had been obvious to the Japanese that the US supported the Chinese (which should have been no big secret to anyone, as the US, along with the League of Nations, had condemned the Japanese in 1932 for its occupation of Manchuria), selling weapons to China was not subverting the Constitution. The Neutrality Act of 1937 stated that the US couldn't provide arms to belligerents (nations at war), but since Japan never officially declared war on China, technically FDR could say it was not a war. A loophole, yes, but a loophole big enough to drive a truck through, and very legal. FDR had stated that the arms sales were 'on a day-to-day basis, or until Japan declares war', so those 'Japanese informants' you spoke of could have made Tokyo aware of how to stop the sales.

Did Japan have the right to attack Pearl Harbor? Sure. If Japan believed war was in its self interest, it had every right. Did it have an obligation to declare war first? It had never done so before, so there was no reason to assume it would do so in 1941, and if you're picking a fight with a much stronger opponent, might as well get in the first blow. Did the US have the right to respond and pulverize the Japanese to dust? Yes.

I'm doing an interview for a history paper....on people who remember about Pearl Harbor and the bombing. If you're interested, please email me at ylee6@district125.k12.il.us or WHaNeyCri@yahoo.com by Thursday.