Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

December 7, 1941: A Message from Pearl Harbor that changed the World forever.






Japanese Admiral Yamamoto’s sleeping giant quote portrayed at the very end of the 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora! as:

"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."


It was reported he wrote in his diary "I'm afraid all we've done is to wake a sleeping giant and fill it with great resolve." But, he never kept a diary and no evidence has surfaced that he ever said it. However, the quotation came to encapsulate his belief that Japan could not win a long war with the United States and that the attack on Pearl Harbor had become a blunder partly due to the bungling by the Foreign Ministry in delivering Japan’s declaration on December 7, 1941 to the State Department which led to the attack happening while the United States and Japan were technically at peace.

Honolulu Star-Bulletin extra on Pearl Harbor attack, today 1941:


FADM Chester Nimitz believed the U.S was fortunate that the attack on Pearl Harbor came as a surprise. Had the U.S. known of the approaching Japanese fleet, the American fleet would have been sent to intercept it and then been entirely lost to a superior force.


Dec 7, 1941: Kazuo Sakamaki became the first Japanese PoW in U.S. captivity after his midget sub ran aground during the attack on Pearl Harbor. 50 years later, he was reunited with the sub when he attended a symposium at the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas.


Dec 7, 1941: USS Ward (APD-16) fired the first American shots of the war in the Pacific when the destroyer sank a Jap midget sub trying to enter Pearl Harbor. The 14th Naval District HQ believed the action was a false report, not recognizing that the sub was part of an incoming Japanese attack. USS Ward was built at the Mare Island Navy Yard, California in a record of 17½ days back in WWI days!!



Ironic Fate: Set ablaze by kamikaze strike on 7 December 1944. Later scuttled by gunfire from the USS O'Brien whose commanding officer was the Captain of the Ward on December 7th 1941. WoW!


In early December 2017, Ward's wreckage was located by RV Petrel on the seabed in Ormoc Bay near Ponson Island in the Philippines.


The photo of the explosion of USS Shaw's forward magazine is one of the most iconic images from the attack on Pearl Harbor. Despite the heavy damage, the Shaw was repaired by 1942 and served in the Pacific for the rest of the war, earning 11 battle stars.




On the bow of the small boat, battling the fire & rescuing survivors, is the Mess Attendant (a cook) who had first mounted a machine gun attack against Japanese aircraft aboard West Virginia. Afterward he conducted rescue operations. Navy Cross recipient Doris "Dorie" Miller, namesake of future aircraft carrier USS Doris Miller (CVN 81).


Full Size Image

1. USS West Virginia (BB-48) sunken and on fire on Dec 7, 1941.
2. USS West Virginia (BB-48) raised, repaired & anchored in Tokyo Bay for Japan's formal surrender in September 2, 1945.


After the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, the Bill Of Rights was prepared for an emergency evacuation. Archivist of the United States Solon J. Buck stands with a volume containing the Bill of Rights, wrapped for "quick removal."




For a 1961 episode of THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, Walter Cronkite visited Pearl Harbor with the Japanese spy who had tracked and reported US Navy ship movements prior to the 1941 surprise attack. The visit was supposed to be a secret, but the former spy got drunk and revealed who he was to the locals. Cronkite had to quickly spirit the spy out of town before he was grabbed and beaten.

World War II With Walter Cronkite: December 7, 1941 - 1983:




On Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day 2022, the keel was laid for Block V Virginia-class submarine USS Arizona (SSN 803), named in honor of the 1,177 heroes lost aboard BB-39 at Pearl Harbor. The Arizona will be the first US Navy submarine to deploy with hypersonic missiles around 2028.


The sponsor for Arizona is Nikki Stratton, the granddaughter of Donald Stratton, a Seaman First Class aboard the battleship USS Arizona who survived the attack. He died in February 2020 at the age of 97.