December 7th

[Rodnok1]

Let us remember today, December 7th, 1941 Pearl Harbor day an important date in our history. Not many WW2 vets left unfortunately either.

[Mike Mercury]

[dwjz06]

[z06psi]

Let me rummage in my pics. I have a pic of the plate on the USS Missouri that commemorates this day.

[Dan Dlabay]

I have been to the USS Arizona memorial. It is a solemn place of honor to the men who died on Dec. 7 1941. May they rest in peace and be blessed by God

[JetMechZ16]

Originally Posted by Dan Dlabay

I have been to the USS Arizona memorial. It is a solemn place of honor to the men who died on Dec. 7 1941. May they rest in peace and be blessed by God

I've been there too.

[z06psi]

I as well and it is something else just to be in the presence of those lost. That and Arlington's tomb of the unknowns.

[04 commemorative]

My Dad...not Pearl Harbor but pretty wild.

[snide]

[Rikki Z-06]

My Great Uncle Paul was on the USS Nevada.

[69camfrk]

Being ret. .mil, I hit a bunch of people up at work. They all knew and remembered.

[Grey Ghost]

A few pieces from my WW2 collection. I sold most of it off yrs. ago. Started collecting in the 1980's.

[z06psi]

Originally Posted by Rikki Z-06

My Great Uncle Paul was on the USS Nevada.





Attachment 49855

It's still there on the other side of Ford Island laying on its side. Partially out of the water.

[Rikki Z-06]

Originally Posted by z06psi

It's still there on the other side of Ford Island laying on its side. Partially out of the water.

Yes it is, sad.

[Bill]

My great uncle went down on the cruiser USS Houston.

https://news.usni.org/2014/08/22/nig...s-houston-went

It was nearly 2400 when, Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!, the nerve shattering “General Alarm” burst through my wonderful cocoon of sleep and brought me upright on both feet. Through two and a half months of war that gong, calling all hands to battle stations, had rung in deadly earnest. It meant only one thing, “Danger”—man your battle station and get ready to fight. So thoroughly had the lessons of war been taught us to the sharp, heartless clanging of that gong that I found myself in my shoes before I was even awake.

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! The sound echoed along the steel bulkheads of the ship’s deserted interior. I wondered what kind of deviltry we were mixed up in now, and somehow I felt depressed. I grabbed my tin hat as I left the room and was putting it on my head when a salvo from the main battery roared out overhead, knocking me against the bulkhead. We were desperately short of those eight-inch bricks and I knew that the boys weren’t wasting them on mirages. I flashed my light to assist me in passing through the deserted wardroom and into the passageway at the other end, where a group of stretcher-bearers and corpsmen were assembled. I asked them but they didn’t seem to know what we had run into. I left them and climbed the ladder leading to the bridge.

As I climbed there was more firing from the main battery, and now the five-inch guns were taking up the argument. I realized that it was getting to be one hell of a battle and I started running. On the Communication deck where the one-point-one’s were getting into action, I passed their gun crews working swiftly, mechanically in the darkness without a hitch, as their guns pumped out shell after shell. Momentarily I caught a glimpse of tracers hustling out into the night. They were beautiful.

sunda-strait

Before I reached the bridge every gun on the ship was in action. The noise they made was magnificent. The Houston was throwing knockout punches. How reassuring it was to hear, at measured intervals, the blinding crash of the main battery, the sharp rapid crack of the five-inch guns, the steady methodic pom, pom, pom, pom, of the one-point-one’s; and above all that, from their platforms high in the foremast and in the mainmast, came the continuous sweeping volleys of fifty-caliber machine guns which had been put there as anti-aircraft weapons, but which now suddenly found themselves engaging enemy surface targets.

As I stepped on the bridge the Houston became enveloped in the blinding glare of searchlights. Behind the lights I could barely discern the outlines of Jap destroyers. They had come in close to illuminate for their heavy units which fired at us from the darkness. Battling desperately for existence the Houston‘s guns trained on the lights, and as fast as they were turned on, just as fast were they blasted out.

Although the bridge was the Houston‘s nerve center, I was unable to find out what we were up against. This was mainly because the tempo of the battle was so great and every man stationed there so vitally concerned with his immediate duty that I was reluctant to butt in at such a time and ask a question that had little relative meaning. What we had actually run into was later estimated to be sixty fully loaded transports, twenty destroyers, and six cruisers. We were in the middle of this mass of ships before either side was aware of the other’s presence.

Suddenly surrounded by ships, the Perth and Houston immediately opened fire and turned sharply to starboard in an effort to break free. However, the fury of the Japs was not to be denied and the Perth was mortally wounded by torpedoes. Lying dead in the water she continued to fire with everything she had until Jap shells blasted her to bits and she sank.

When Captain Rooks realized that the Perth was finished he turned the Houston back into the heart of the Jap convoy, determined in the face of no escape to sell the Houston dearly.
Dennis Adams' painting "HMAS Perth in the Battle of Sunda Strait." Australian War Memorial

Dennis Adams’ painting “HMAS Perth in the Battle of Sunda Strait.” Australian War Memorial

At close range the Houston pounded the Jap transports with everything she had, and at the same time fought off the destroyers that were attacking with torpedoes and shellfire. Jap cruisers remained in the background, throwing salvo after salvo aboard and around us. The Houston was taking terrible punishment. A torpedo penetrated our after engine room, where it exploded, killing every man there and reducing our speed to fifteen knots.

Thick smoke and hot steam venting on the gun deck from the after engine room temporarily drove men from their guns but they came back and stayed there in spite of it. Power went out of the shell hoists which stopped the flow of five-inch shells to the guns, from the almost empty magazines. Men attempted to go below and bring shells up by hand, but debris and fires from numerous hits blocked their way. In spite of this they continued to fire, using star shells which were stowed in the ready ammunition boxes by the guns.

Number Two turret, smashed by a direct hit, blew up, sending wild flames flashing up over the bridge. The heat, so intense that it drove everyone out of the conning tower, temporarily disrupted communications to other parts of the ship. The fire was soon extinguished, but when the sprinklers flooded the magazine our last remaining supply of eight-inch ammunition was ruined, which meant that the Houston was now without a main battery.

Numerous fires were breaking out all over the ship and it became increasingly difficult for the men to cope with them. Another torpedo plowed into the Houston somewhere forward of the quarterdeck. The force of the explosion made the ship tremble beneath us, and I realized then that we were done for.

Slowly we listed to starboard as the grand old ship gradually lost steerageway and stopped. The few guns still in commission continued to fire, although it was obvious that the end was near. It must have torn at the Captain’s heart, but his voice was strong as he summoned the bugler and ordered him to sound “Abandon Ship.”

When I heard the words “Abandon Ship” I did not wait to go down the ladder which already had a capacity crowd, with men waiting; instead I jumped over the railing to the deck below. That was probably a fortunate move, for just as I jumped a shell burst on the bridge, killing several men. I trotted out on the port catapult tower where the battered and unflyable hulk of our last airplane spread its useless wings in the darkness. It contained a rubber boat and a bottle of brandy, both of which I figured would come in handy, but I was not alone in this, for five people were there ahead of me.

Despite the fact that we were still the target for continuous shells and the ship was slowly sinking beneath us, there was no confusion. Men went quietly and quickly about the job of abandoning ship. Fear was nowhere apparent, due possibly to the fact that the one thing we feared most throughout the short space of the war had happened.

Captain Rooks had come down off the bridge and was saying goodbye to several of his officers and men outside his cabin, when a Jap shell exploded in a one-point-one gun mount, sending a piece of the breach crashing into his chest. Captain Rooks, beloved by officers and men, died in their arms.

When Buda, the Captain’s Chinese cook, learned that the Captain had been killed, he refused to leave the ship. He simply sat cross-legged outside the Captain’s cabin, rocking back and forth and moaning “Captain dead, Houston dead, Buda die too.” He went down with the ship.
Sinking of USS Houston (CA-30) in the Battle of Sunda Strait, 1 March 1942. Painting by Joseph Fleischman, 1950. Naval History and Heritage Command Photo

Sinking of USS Houston (CA-30) in the Battle of Sunda Strait, 1 March 1942. Painting by Joseph Fleischman, 1950. Naval History and Heritage Command Photo

During this time I made my way to the quarterdeck. Dead men lay sprawled on the deck, but there was no time to find out who they were. Men from my division were busily engaged in the starboard hangar in an effort to bring out a seaplane pontoon and two wing-tip floats that we had filled with food and water in preparation for just such a time. If we could get them into the water and assemble them as we had so designed, they would make a fine floating structure around which we could gather and work from.

I hurried to the base of the catapult tower where I worked rapidly to release the lifelines in order that we could get the floats over the side and into the water. I uncoupled one line and was working on the second when a torpedo struck directly below us. I heard no explosion, but the deck buckled and jumped under me and I found myself suddenly engulfed in a deluge of fuel oil and salt water.

Up until that moment I must have been too fascinated with the unreality of the situation to truly think about it and become frightened, but when this sudden torrent of fuel oil and water poured over me, all I could think of was fire. It was the most helpless sensation I ever had experienced in my life. Somehow I hadn’t figured on getting hit or killed, but now I was gripped with the sudden fear of blazing fuel oil on my person and covering the surface of the sea. I was panicked, for I could figure no escape from it. The same thought must have been in the minds of the others, for we all raced from the starboard side to the shelter of the port hangar. No sooner had we cleared the quarterdeck than a salvo of shells plowed through it, exploding deep below decks.

Events were moving fast, and the Houston in her death throes was about to go down. There was only one idea left in my mind, and that was to join the others who were going over the side in increasing numbers. Quickly I made my way to the port side and climbed down the cargo nets that were hanging there. When I reached the water’s edge I dropped off into the warm Java Sea. When my head came above the surface I was aware that in the darkness I was surrounded by many men, all swimming for their lives. Frantic screams for help from the wounded and drowning mixed with the shouts of others attempting to make contact with shipmates. The sea was an oily battleground of men pitted against the terrors of death. Desperately I swam to get beyond reach of the sinking ship’s suction. As much as I loved the Houston I had no desire to join her in a watery grave.
Naval History and Heritage Command Image

Naval History and Heritage Command Image

A few hundred yards away I turned, gasping for breath, to watch the death of my ship. She lay well over to starboard. Jap destroyers had come in close and illuminated her with searchlights as they raked her decks with machine-gun fire. Many men struggled in the water near the ship, others clung desperately to heavily loaded life rafts, and then to my horror, I realized that the Japs were coldly and deliberately firing on the men in the water. The concussions of shells bursting in the midst of swimming men sent shock waves through the water that slammed against my body with an evil force, making me wince with pain. Men closer to the exploding shells were killed by this concussion alone.

Dazed, unable to believe that all this was real, I floated there, watching as though bewitched. The end had come. By the glare of Japanese searchlights I saw the Houston roll slowly over to starboard, and then, with her yardarms almost dipping into the sea, she paused momentarily. Perhaps I only imagined it, but it seemed as though a sudden breeze picked up the Stars and Stripes still firmly two blocked on the mainmast, and waved them in one last defiant gesture. Then with a tired shudder she vanished beneath the Java Sea.

The magnificent Houston and most of my shipmates were gone, but in the oily sea around me lay evidence of the carnage wrought by their last battle. Hundreds of Jap soldiers and sailors struggled amidst the flotsam of their sunken ships; and as I watched them drown or swim for their lives, I smiled grimly and repeated over and over, “Well done, Houston!”

The Navy recovered the ship's bell, which use to be displayed on the Battleship Texas, but it, and the USS Houston memorial onboard were moved years ago, not sure where to.

[JetMechZ16]

Originally Posted by bill_daniels

My great uncle went down on the cruiser USS Houston.

https://news.usni.org/2014/08/22/nig...s-houston-went




The Navy recovered the ship's bell, which use to be displayed on the Battleship Texas, but it, and the USS Houston memorial onboard were moved years ago, not sure where to.

I read some more about the USS Houston and the Battle of the Java Sea. I always feel a sense of awe at what these men endured during WWII. I feel proud to have had a connection to them serving in the USN.

[Norm]

Finished watching the 3 part series on the Smithsonian channel of the before leading up to the attack up to the end off dropping the A-bomb on Japan. Lot of declassified info before the war, what a Charlie Foxtrot....on our side.

[Bill]

Originally Posted by JetMechZ16

I read some more about the USS Houston and the Battle of the Java Sea. I always feel a sense of awe at what these men endured during WWII. I feel proud to have had a connection to them serving in the USN.

The Houston actually survived the Battle of Java Sea, a big defeat for the allies, only to be sent back out quickly lacking a full complement of munitions and provisions, lacking even a full tank of fuel, and lacking any significant rest for the sailors. They were finally two cruisers, the Australian Perth and the Houston, against an 80+ship Japanese convoy. At night. No help was coming. Once they were lit up with Japanese search lights from all angles, they had to know they were ****ed, but they kept fighting until all they had were starbursts and 1.1" AA guns. Think about that. They know they're ****ed, they're going to get sunk, they're going to die, but they still go out figuratively flipping the bird in unison shooting whatever they could until the Captain ordered the abandon ship.

No quit in those guys.

[JetMechZ16]

Originally Posted by bill_daniels

The Houston actually survived the Battle of Java Sea, a big defeat for the allies, only to be sent back out quickly lacking a full complement of munitions and provisions, lacking even a full tank of fuel, and lacking any significant rest for the sailors. They were finally two cruisers, the Australian Perth and the Houston, against an 80+ship Japanese convoy. At night. No help was coming. Once they were lit up with Japanese search lights from all angles, they had to know they were ****ed, but they kept fighting until all they had were starbursts and 1.1" AA guns. Think about that. They know they're ****ed, they're going to get sunk, they're going to die, but they still go out figuratively flipping the bird in unison shooting whatever they could until the Captain ordered the abandon ship.

No quit in those guys.

I would have been proud to serve with men like that.

[JetMechZ16]

The true measure of a man is seen more in his conduct while facing defeat than victory. Those men were measured and not found wanting.