On 75th anniversary, U.S. veterans recall Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor

[Solomon2]

| Wed Dec 7, 2016 | 12:19pm EST
On 75th anniversary, U.S. veterans recall Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor

Jerry Yellin, a former captain and World War Two Army Air Force P-51 pilot, embraces Hiroya Sugano, director general of the Zero Fighter Admirers Club, during the 6th annual Blackened Canteen ceremony at the USS Arizona Memorial, during the 75th Commemoration of the attacks on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, U.S. December 6, 2016. US Navy/Petty Officer 2nd Class Somers Steelman/Handout via REUTERS


By Dana Feldman and Hugh Gentry | LOS ANGELES/HONOLULU

It has been 75 years, but U.S. Navy veteran James Leavelle can still recall watching with horror as Japanese warplanes rained bombs down on his fellow sailors in the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into World War Two.

Bullets bounced off the steel deck of his own ship, the USS Whitney, anchored just outside Honolulu harbor, but a worse fate befell those aboard the USS Arizona, USS Oklahoma, USS Utah and others that capsized in an attack that killed 2,400 people.

"The way the Japanese planes were coming in, when they dropped bombs, they'd drop them and then circle back," said Leavelle, a 21-year-old Navy Storekeeper Second Class at the time of the attack.

Leavelle, now 96, was among 30 Pearl Harbor survivors honored at a reception in Los Angeles before heading to Honolulu to mark Wednesday's 75th anniversary of the attack.

The bombing of Pearl Harbor took place at 7:55 a.m. Honolulu time on Dec. 7, 1941, famously dubbed "a date which will live in infamy" by U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt. Fewer than 200 survivors of the attacks there and on other military bases in Hawaii are still alive.

Wednesday's commemoration at a pier overlooking the memorial to the sunken USS Arizona built in the harbor is set to begin with a moment of silence at precisely that time.

About 350 World War Two veterans and their families will be serenaded by the Navy's Pacific Fleet Band with a musical remembrance made bittersweet by the knowledge that every member of the USS Arizona band - one of the best in the Navy - died that day.

Attendees will watch a parade, and two families will participate in a private ceremony in which the ashes of crew members who survived the attack and later died, will be interred in a turret of the Arizona.

Across the United States on Wednesday, Americans will pause to remember those who died at Pearl Harbor, and the long and difficult war that followed.


WAR BEGINS

The shock of the Pearl Harbor attack is vividly illustrated in an exhibit at Massachusetts' Museum of World War II, which features relics including a West Point cadet's letter to his father - then-Brigadier General Dwight Eisenhower - on how to prepare himself for the coming war. [L1N1E01KC]

The United States declared war on Japan the next day. Three days after that, Germany's Adolf Hitler declared war on the United States.

Will Lehner, 95, was among those who had a chance to fight back in the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack. The 2nd class naval fireman was working in the boiler room at the USS Ward, patrolling the entrance to the harbor when crew members spotted a Japanese submarine.

"That submarine was on the surface and our skipper didn't know if it was ours or not," Lehner, 20 at the time of the attacks, said at the Los Angeles event. "He said: 'Load your guns.'"

"The first shot went right over the top, the next shot right after it hit that submarine and punched a hole in it."

After the war, a historical discrepancy nagged at Lehner. The remains of the Japanese submarine had not been recovered, and many historians doubted that it existed. That changed in 2002, when the sub was found.

"For 62 years," Lehner said, "Nobody believed us."

For his part, Leavelle would be touched twice by the hand of history. After the war, he became a policeman in Texas. On Nov. 24, 1963, he was the Dallas officer handcuffed to Lee Harvey Oswald when the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy was shot to death by nightclub owner Jack Ruby.

(Reporting by Dana Feldman in Los Angeles and Hugh Gentry in Honolulu; Writing and additional reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Peter Cooney)

 

[Solomon2]

Kuniyoshi Takimoto was a navy aircraft mechanic when Japan launched its attack on Pearl Harbor. Photo: Behrouz MEHRI / AFP

We did our jobs: Japanese participant remembers Pearl Harbor
Kuniyoshi Takimoto, now 95, reflects on the event – rarely spoken about in Japan – that sparked war in the Pacific 75 years ago
By SHINGO ITO DECEMBER 5, 2016 4:38 PM (UTC+8)

Navy aircraft mechanic Kuniyoshi Takimoto watched as Japanese planes roared off the aircraft carrier Hiryu to attack Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

The shock assault 75 years ago this Wednesday in Hawaii sparked patriotic celebration in Japan but left Takimoto feeling uneasy.

“I wondered if such a poor country would be all right fighting such a big one,” the former real estate agent, now 95 and one of the few Japanese participants still alive, told AFP at his home in Osaka.

This attack brought America into World War II — though it was already well underway for Europe, and China.

This year’s anniversary comes after President Barack Obama’s visit in May to Hiroshima, the Japanese city pulverized by a US atomic bomb in the closing days of the conflict.

Japan’s Pearl Harbor blitz fired up resolve in the US, with president Franklin Roosevelt declaring the day would “live in infamy.”

“What you see in kamikaze movies never happened on aircraft carriers. We had to do our jobs, rolling the dice against death”

“It was just a start … and more or less a deceptive attack,” Takimoto said, stressing that given its surprise nature some success was virtually guaranteed.

He and other crew members were stunned when first informed of the mission after their flotilla departed toward Hawaii.

Reaching an area 460 kilometers (285 miles) from target, the first wave of some 180 planes — including nimble Zero fighters — roared off the Hiryu and other carriers, followed later by a second swarm.

‘Rolling the dice’
Pilots and mechanics were phlegmatic throughout, as aircraft took off one by one minus any special rituals or even “banzai” cheers.

“What you see in kamikaze movies never happened on aircraft carriers,” Takimoto said firmly. “We had to do our jobs, rolling the dice against death.”

Despite his misgivings about the risks of attacking the US, Takimoto was proud to support the pilots. “We built relations of trust that went beyond words,” he said.

Japan also attacked the Philippines, Hong Kong, Guam, Singapore, Malaya, Burma and the Dutch East Indies, in one fell swoop, overturning what had seemed an eternal Western colonial order.

But despite such initial success, the tide was fated to quickly turn — confirming Takimoto’s fears. In June 1942, at the epic Battle of Midway, a US aerial blitz engulfed the Hiryu in massive flames.

A thousand crew members died, while 500 survivors, including Takimoto, were picked up by nearby Japanese ships, a scene he described as “hell.”

Tunnel vision
After Midway, US-led forces began to reconquer the Pacific, island by island, on battlefields in Guadalcanal, Saipan, the Philippines, Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

Japan finally surrendered but only after the US dropped two atomic bombs — the second on Nagasaki — and the Soviet Union declared war.

Takimoto has no plans to personally commemorate Pearl Harbor this year, calling it just one of many momentous episodes in the war. For himself, he calls Midway “much more important.”

Indeed, Pearl Harbor draws little attention in Japan compared with annual events marking the atomic bombings — solemn, nationally televised memorials attended by the prime minister.

Among the few instances of remembrance are brief fireworks in Nagaoka, the hometown of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, who masterminded the attack but was killed after the US targeted his plane in 1943.

In the US, meanwhile, every December 7 is National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, and the atomic bombing anniversaries are not officially commemorated.

Such historical tunnel vision on both sides is no surprise, says Yujin Yaguchi, professor of American cultural studies and Hawaiian history at the University of Tokyo.

Diplomatic moves
“People more naturally remember getting a beating rather than meting one out,” Yaguchi says.

Both Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima have mythic symbolism in the US and Japan, respectively, and are deeply intertwined in historical justifications.

Without Pearl Harbor there would have been no Hiroshima, goes one argument. Another is that a conventional attack on a military base is not the moral equivalent of targeting civilians with nuclear weapons.

“People more naturally remember getting a beating rather than meting one out”

Obama’s visit to Hiroshima, the first by a sitting American leader, was generally well-received in Japan, and seemed to be an attempt at seeking common ground, though no apology was offered.

The trip sparked debate over whether nationalist Prime Minister Shinzo Abe should return the gesture and visit Pearl Harbor.

Yaguchi says Abe might do so “if he thinks it would strengthen the Japan-US alliance” though only after carefully weighing domestic sentiment. And while Abe appears unlikely to go this year, his wife Akie made a quiet offering of flowers and prayers at Pearl Harbor in August.

Takimoto, who has over the years denounced the war and the leaders who started it, said he believes Abe will go only if he thinks it likely to boost his popularity.

(Agence France-Presse)

 

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Thank you to those who served during World War II. You truly are the greatest generation.

 

[C130]

it's amazing how close the U.S and Japan have gotten since WW2.

we shouldn't punish people for the sins of their fathers.