Friends,
The morning of December 8, 1941 saw a sunrise over the eastern seaboard of a country that some say was unprepared for what had taken place the day before on a Sunday morning that saw the rise of the Sun come to what I consider the pinnacle of
Japanese Imperial Power in the Pacific.
It is said that Admiral Yamamoto spoke these words "I am afraid we have awaken a sleeping giant"!
I'm sure that even with the hard fight ahead that morning was the pinnacle of Japanese Imperial Power!
I don't know at this writing if that is his exact words if his words or tone at all but the giant had already been awakened!
The giant just was not quite expecting the attack on the Sunday morning of December 7, 1941! An attack that occurred upon our Air, Naval and
Ground forces on the Island of Oahu and the civilian population caught off-guard or in some cases at sleep in their beds with many of the crews aboard the ships in Pearl Harbor depleted of their crews as they made their way back from a night on the town or asleep in their bunks on ships unable to get underway upon such short notice!
It is amazing that any of our planes got off the ground and they were outnumbered 100's to 1!
Thank God as I will or have said that the carriers U. S. S. Enterprise, Lexington and Saratoga were not in harbor or within striking distance of the Japanese carrier planes or the Battle of Midway may have never even be more than a minor scuffle.
The battle of the Coral Sea lost and in particular the moral boosting attack on Tokyo by bombers launched from the U. S. S. Hornet just a few months after the attack on Pearl may never have happened.
If you have a political leaning you may blame the
Roosevelt Administration for not being prepared but as noted in the Wikipedia Article a total of 30 pages.
I've had little time to do an in-depth reading of this marvelous account you should search simply as December 7, 1941 on the wikipedia site and read for yourself the accounts not only of the attack and it's aftermath with the loss of human life and Naval, Air and ground forces also read background to the conflict that detail the events leading up to the attack that paint a picture of a Roosevelt Administration already under pressure as you have to know without even researching the federal governments financial condition due to the long and devastating effects of the multi-layered depression that had started in 1929 as well as the natural effects of the droughts in the plains that are commonly referred to as the "dust bowls" our country was making efforts to prepare with little capital do so!
I remember my grandfather Sauce telling me of the anxiety and panic in those days and weeks following the attack as the West coast of the United States prepared for a possible invasion that very well vould have occurred at some point from the 12-07-41 attack forward as you research the details and read the accounts yourself.
I remember grand-daddy Sauce talking of being in basic training in southern California or very near there stories I wish I had listened more intently on but the one thing that always stuck in my mind was him telling of the Army using horses to pull the Artillery even at that late date in history!
I had been told stories of the Japanese government buying all the scrap steel it could to build it's military and prepare for a war against what I thought was The
United States of America and that Hitler had asked the Japanese to delay their actions to give the German forces the time to subdue Great Britain.
I did not know until scanning this wikipedia article that our President's cutting off sales of oil to the Japanaese as well as shipments of airplanes, parts, machine tools and aviation gasoline as early as 1940 when Japan had
invaded French Indochina was an important lead up to action by the Imperial Japanese Regime!
The Imperial government of Japan as stated didn't take such a halt in sales of the listed supplies as anything but an unfriendly act which as I scan the article I see that prevailing sentiment in Washington was that would be perceived as a provocation!
I'm sure many sleepless nights were had in making those decisions to sanction as it would be called now, a country intent on doing it's part in being a successful partner in an Axis of Evil some feel is inconceivable for some Today to perceive as possible in the modern age with our almost seemingly instant knowledge of the actions of this planets nations through our technological advantage until your see, read or hear of the news reports of how easy it is to simply hack into our national computer network that only a few days ago was stated by some one in our nations military as a waste of use against such a nat as the
wiki leaks situation.
The wiki leaks situation has me with feeling thoughts of damn sometimes it is just what the public needs is a dose of the truth it may not be seen as ready to handle and then my thoughts turn to the fact exactly how much damage can the truth cause in a world where China a personal favorite of mine to extol as a friendly that has such an investment in our economy and destiny that surely they would not be found to be attacking or condoning the attack against Google that most assuredly has occurred with the consent and knowledge of the country's leaders!
My patriotism is toward what keeps us free which in my opinion is first and foremost a Free Press and a strong military that is capable of not being caught off guard as we were the morning of December 7, 1941!
Are you my friends of the opinion as I am that we seem to be trying to control the actions of the world and spreading ourselves a little thin lately with somethat almost coming as if it were meant to be or coordinated in some because we find ourselves in some ways in a similar situation as we did on that fateful morning!
The one arm of our military that can bring timely pressure on a rogue or testy nation is our
Naval forces and the mighty carrier task forces we can project because we have numbers unlike we did in late 1941!
The second arm of our military to be able project power in such a fashion would be the Air force a fact that makes having the capability to refuel those forces in the air an even more crucial element that should have already began but due to delays has put us in the position of having 40 year-old planes of unknown numbers to me available and I'm sure with some research I as well as you and our enemies which may not be our enemies in the true sense as of yet but if our economy is further delayed in recovering by high fuel prices which in my mind are a much more threatening issue to our economic recovery than a 2 % cut in payroll taxes when a large percentage of our work force has moved from the payroll to the rolls of unemployed many left off the rolls all together and not counted as unemployed or to the ranks of the self-employed which is the segment of our population that along with agriculture that has built our country!
Only in the last 100 years has industry been the strength of our country with it's decline being almost impossible to overlook to anyone that has in anyway kept up with the news over the last few years!
This fact would almost be impossible to ignore in our preparation for conflicts though not coordinated by an Axis of power such as in WWII with Hitler's ruling Nazis in Germany the Italian fascist government of Mussolini to the eastern arm of the Axis in Imperial Japans intent on ruling southeast Asia and Western Russia!
Austal corporation's operations in Mobile, Al. and those of Northrupp Grunman in a cooperative effort are years behind just as the production and placing into service of the crucial tankers that Boeing Corporation now has seemingly lost again to the cooperative effort of Northrup Grunman, EADS & Airbus that to our area "Mobile Bay Area" may also be about to come to fruition in producing jobs for both aerospace and maritime shipbuilding long sought after for this area!
The Fast Coastal Operating Ships of Austal Corporation are needed to defend our nation against a gradual loss of it's ability to project power anywhere in the world in as short a time as possible!
Why?
As our President stated only 1% of our population is actually in the military service of this country!
Our carrier battle groups need time to arrive in the area and our our supply lines to develop which have shown their vunerability in Apfganistan to atttack not in the theater of batttle but on supposedly friendly soil as is the case in Pakistan!
Our ground forces could even be increased by what I'm sure would be an unpopular but idea to improve our unemployment numbers by instituting a draft of a type possibly based on a short term enlistment with a couple of years of reserve duty. I say throw some ideas on the table in Washington!
As for the attack on Pearl our Naval forces were crippled and the horror of being left helplessly entombed aboard the U. S. S. Arizona which sits on the bottom of Pearl Harbor today as a permenant reminder of what a poor economy and a gradual escalation of the number of hostile nations can lead to; which is all out war and a National debt we may not overcome!
These events could become reality in some foreseeable future and the blame does not lay on the present Adminstration of our country but on the government as a whole over the last ten years beginning with the attacks on the International Trade Center Towers in New York on September 11, 2001.
The decision to invade Iraq a second time and several natural disasters that we have experienced in recent years that not one government agency that I know of has made public as to the extent of the effect those events have had financially.
The decision to invade Iraq on erroneous information for a second time and the combined cost to our economy of the natural disasters we have expereinced namely the hurricanes of 2004 and 2005 you have to dig deep to find except in private organizations such as for example the National Association of Home Builders and Realtors!
Citizens when you consider the increase in gasoline, heating and industrial fuel prices our nation has experienced over the last ten years it is any wonder the population is spent emotionally and financially and mad as hell that anyone would give a tax break to anyone making over 150,000.00 per year unless they were indeed reinvesting profits into facilities.
The question I ask is where has our government been through all of these events and I don't blame one man President bush but his own as I call them "people" and both houses of our congress?
Could we find ourselves over extended? Our own military commanders have softly spoken those words or at least it has been made to seem that way by our national news media a sign that our country's most important foundation of freedom "the free press" has also made things at times seem less than critical even when our financial situation was so critical that our ability to continue our daily operations in the free enterprise system almost came to a stand still in the last months of the Bush administration at which time if not for his own courageous efforts to restart the system our country could easily have gone the way of the old soviet Union after a lengthy arms race with the United States and it's miserable long-term war in the same damn place no one else has had any success!
Afghanistan!
As for Pearl Harbor and the unfortunate and tragic events that unfolded that Sunday morning every American should take the time to read some history of the events leading to that morning and in fact study the efforts of President Roosevelt to prevent our Nation from entering a war before we were ready a mistake that surely would have cost more in lives than not having to have used the Atomic bomb on the civilian and industrial areas of Nagasaki and Hiroshimo!
The ships Austal and Northrupp Grunman plan to build will give our country the ability to project naval power into areas that would need to be secured for operations in deeper waters without threat of submarine attack on scale that might be seen at some point in the future if our nation is not vigilant and the production of the refueling tankers should have already begun to allow our air forces to be on patrol over rogue nations that unfortunately most likely would not have included Iraq under the regime of Saddam Hussein!
We did not have the luxury of the carrier numbers we have today to begin with in WWII but surely the plans for many new ship were on the planning tables and I'm sure now that our nation was on the track to preparing for Japan's entering the war directly against this nation.
In fact President Roosevelt had already authorized and deployed volunteer forces in occupied Manchuria prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor that antagonized if not slowed Japans advance toward complete or almost complete control of south-east Asia in the famous Flying Tigers of which you should also search on Wikipedia at your convenience!
I am sure that God has those men and women that lost their lives that fateful infamous day on December 7, 1941 in his care now regardless of what they were doing hours prior to and especially with their heroism shown in the instances where a few men and women fought bravely in the face of over whelming odds and thank God our carriers were not in harbor that morning as the Japanese planners and commanders had hoped!
In retrospect my only disappointment in our nations response was the lack of preparation in the Philippines where our forces seemingly did not prepare which in no way takes away from the service many thousands of Americans gave both in defending and eventually losing their lives waiting on our forces to fight their way back to those Islands as General Mac Arthur promised upon his retreat from the Island Nation that we proudly call our ally to this day!
I would love to research the individual bravery shown by millions of Americans and allied forces in the second world war but Ensign Joe Taussig, Jr. the only commissioned officer aboard the U. S. S. Nevada that morning back in 1941 and managed to get her limited crew into a position under heavy attack as battleship row was set ablaze with a sky full of overwhelming enemy firepower managed to get underway and moving which must have been noticed by many a American Service man and in doing so ignited what must have been some hope!
Something you can see in the old movie Tora! Tora! Tora! as it is depicted that "one" ship making steam and no disrespect to the fine actors in the modern version but the one scene using modern ships that I recognized the silhouettes as having the look of having been built at Ingalls ship yard in Pascagoula, MS in the 1970's and painted white ruined the modern version for me how about you?
By the way Ensign Joe Taussig, Jr. lost a leg in the action that day as he managed to maneuver with the crew the Nevada to what I think was an eventual grounding to prevent it's destruction and loss!
Wouldn't you have loved to be apart of that defense of our country that beautiful morning on Decmeber 7, 1941 after having spent the evening with a beautiful woman that watched from some distant apartment and hoped that you had served and proudly defended our country and worried if you had survived?
I would have!
What better way to love, live and even die much as the passengers and crew of the plane that went down in Pennsylvania on one man's call for us as a group of civilians to "let's roll" on these SOB's "inserted" for a more accurate view of the state of mind such a group of American's must have held as they possibly overheard that planes destination for use as destructive force that may have dealt our country an unthinkable blow to it's Pride!
God Bless, Peace, Love and knowledge!
-Floyd C. Wooley
Image by fridayn via Flickr
