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69 years ago today...

jodywy

Well-known member
My FIL was 12 years old playing out in the yard in Daily City Ca. his father called him in to the house. He said the whole city was quite. No cars no kids playing everybody was glued to the radio.
I was buying a custom made 5wt fly rod today for a fund rising auction. When I made out the check I said Dec 7th---- peal day. The gal at the register said oh yes. My Grandfather asked my grandmother to marry him this day after he heard the news as he was in the Navy and expected to be shipped out soon.
Sue wore her pearls to work today; Tenny wore them to one of her finals
 
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Anonymous

Guest
Yep- on this date my Dad was at Fort Lewis Washington- having been called up as a National Guardsmen in the 163rd Regimental Combat Team of the 41st Division (Sunset Division- made up of folks from Idaho, Montana, Oregon, North Dakota and Washington) part of FDR's readiness precaution for war-- and within months was on the RMS Queen Elizabeth bound for Australia...Where after additional training they became some of the first to strike back against the Japanese invaders in 1942 in the allied attack to evict the Japanese from New Guinea....
 

Doug Thorson

Well-known member
I think it was Dec 8 when most of the country heard about it, that was when Roosevelt made his speach.

Grandpa, Dad and my uncle listened to the speach on the radio. When it was over my uncle said as soon as school was finished he was off to war(he was a teacher) Grandpa was blind, turned to Dad and said" You will be done with school in the spring so you can run this place."
Dad was born in 1930 and graduated 8th grade in the spring of 42 and started running the ranch at 12.

Tough times make tough people.

God bless all who have ever served!
 

DustDevil

Well-known member
I'm glad there are plenty of people who still remember, seems the "major news media" have forgotten December 7th, 1941. Thanks for bringing it up. I've got an old wooden Philco radio of my Grandparents that carried the news.
 

Clarencen

Well-known member
I was 12 years old at that time. It must have been a nice Sunday afternoon here because my dad was putting a pair of snow tires (knobies) on our 1936 V-8. We heard the news on the radio. Mother went out and told Dad. I don't think a lot of people had even heard of Pearl Harabor before that. It did ring a bell with us though as I had a cousin, Dad's sister's son who was in the Navy, he had been stationed there. I believe the news was pretty sketchy at first. Everyone stayed close to the radio hoping to learn more

The next day when we came home from school Mother told us that we had declared war on Japan, and that Germany had declared war on us. A day or two later we declared war on Germany too. We were not fully prepared for war, and were fighting a war on two fronts. It seems to me that we didn't do to well in the war in the Pacific the first summer.

That spring Japan occupied Indonesia, I believe it was called Dutch Indo China then. We did get some of our rubber from there. That is one of the reasons why tires had to be rationed.
 
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Anonymous

Guest
While helping Josie, my nine year old daughter, with her homework, I asked her if she knew what today was. When she said it was Tuesday the 7th and 18 days until Christmas I then asked if they talked about anything in school today that pertained to this date. When she said no I was pretty disappointed in our education system. Maybe its just me and having grown up in the shadow of the "Greatest Generation". Still, the schools should teach about history and what happened on certain dates. After getting over my shock and then a little mad, I proceeded to give her a history lesson. She has been real curious and asking questions about our heritage so I told her about Papaw. My dad was in the 11th grade when it happened and he also knew what Uncle Sam was going to send him for a graduation present. Having older brothers already serving, one of which who before all was said and done made the March of Bataan, Dad had heard the stories and had been given advice on what to do. With his dad in tow, they went to the Navy recruitng office. Quitting school and eventhough Dad couldn't swim a lick and having a friend take his swimming test for him, he chose the Navy hoping to always have a roof over his head. While sailing the South Pacific on a heavy cruiser, his boat had the bow literally ripped off in a typhoon. The steel held fast on the port side so they were pretty much dead in the water with the bow laid back against the side of the boat. They had to bob along until a salvage tug and crew made it to them from Everette, Wa. Once the bow was cut off and on its way to drydock in Washington, Dads ship headed to Australia and a shipyard there. In Australia they put to big plates of steel on the front to make a "V" shape so the boat could make its way to Washington and have the bow welded back on. I can't even imagine how scary it was to see your steel ship ripped in two while thousands of miles out to sea. Dad was 17 when this happened and had never even seen the ocean until a few short weeks before. He couldn't even tell his family where he was or where he was going. Anyone remember "Loose Lips Sink Ships"? While stationed at Pearl he went to Honolulu on leave. Walking down the street he came across a photographer taking pictures of sailors while standing under a hotel sign that had Honolulu, Hawaii printed in big letters on it. Dad paid the man extra to send the picture to his folks back home so that they would atleast know where he was. While telling this story to Josie I got to thinking about my dad. He never bragged about anything and hardly ever talked about his time in the service. It was after he passed while going through his things that it sank in how proud he was to have been able to serve. I saw a picture of his ship with the bow laid back against the side. I also saw the picture he had sent home letting his folks know where he was and that he was safe. Seeing these things and reading his letters home really got me to thinking about him, my uncles, my aunts who served as nurses and all the rest of the people who gave a part of their life or more. These people, most who left homes that were too poor to even know there was a depression, were ready, willing and able to do what needed down. This really was the "Greatest Generation" and I'm proud to say that I was raised by parents of that era. Its a shame that our schools are more interested in technology and cant/wont tell the students the really neat stories of our past.
 

Angus 62

Well-known member
My folks were only married a few weeks when my father was drafted shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. My mother followed my Dad to California then to the East Coast during his training. Because he was a farm kid he was stuck in a tank as it was thought those kind of guys were mechanically inclined. He ended up in North Africa and from there he went into Southern Europe. When Continental cattle started to become the rage he said many times their best use was to pull plows and that the French Charolais weren't suitable beef even when tenderized with a .30 cal machine gun. :D

He never spoke much about his war experiences, I have always suspected he saw some horrible things. He did say that shortly after their arrival ''in country'' the college kids that had been promoted in the states had a tendency to get lost and the country kids were relied upon heavily. Shortly after he returned home he bought the first part of this place. A reporter from New York had the assignment of visiting some GI's that started farming and ranching after the war. We still have some pictures he took of my folks. In the late 70's he came back for a visit and said of all the original GI's he had visited my Dad was the only one still engaged in agriculture.
 

jodywy

Well-known member
Usually the WSGA convention is during the 7th, I always wore a pearl tie pin that day. The President saw it and we talked a bit, he n she had to start the next meeting he talked about my pearl and her brother who was there that day. She sent me a picture a couple weeks later of her bother in his dress blues back at Pearl Harbor have a reunion with what few Sailors he had served with way back then.
Dad joined the Navy but hurt his back in boot camp, x-rays showed scoliosis so he came back to the ranch.
 

Trinity man

Well-known member
My dad signed up for the navy but was color blind and wasn't able to go. So he surved his time on a tanker hauling fuel. A good friend on my was in the Pacific fight in the war, he told me a stories about everything he seen when we would go coonhunting. I could listen to his stories all day and night when I was a kid. He died about 9 years ago. I sure miss him.
 

mrj

Well-known member
I was a year and a half old at the time, so have no personal memories of Pearl Harbor attack.

I did have three uncles in the war. My mothers' brother in the Army serving in the Philipines, two of my dads' brothers in the Air Force. The youngest uncle in the Airforce died when his plane went into the ocean. It isn't known if it was from enemy action, or other cause. His name is on the Pearl Harbor memorial.

Another of my dads' brothers was a mining engineer and was sent to Peru, I believe some time before Pearl, but mining minerals for military use, as I undertand it. He remained there several years, but was back before the war was was over, if I remember correctly.

My dad had severe heart problems and was 4-F. He did in 1949 at age 40, though he was able to work in a local grain elevtor till maybe a year or so before he died. One brother was required to help grandpa run the ranch, as were many, in order to keep a food supply for the country.

One aunt was a nurse, two were stenographers, both in Washington, DC area, and the youngest of them went to Europe and worked for the military when the war ended, for a few years.

My grandmother was a Gold Star mother. I didn't really know what that meant at the time. Grandpa never could talk about uncle Gordon, the youngest of his five sons, without tearing up. That was very strange to me, when age five to twelve (when he died) because he was always such a rough, tough old cowboy the rest of the time.

Yes, it is disgusting that little, if anything, is taught about that in our schools. I wonder if it isn't part of the denial of the heroic things our nation has done, as well as being pushed out by all the social engineering things they teach kids these days.

mrj
 
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