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thedrifter
12-06-03, 07:46 PM
Americans keep coming to Pearl Harbor, 62 years after tragedy




By Matt Sedensky
ASSOCIATED PRESS
9:45 a.m. December 6, 2003

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii – Woody Derby was just 23, a farm boy from Iowa enjoying his Sunday newspaper, when his life – and the nation – changed forever.

Sixty-two years after that haunting Dec. 7 at Pearl Harbor, thoughts of the Japanese attack that killed 2,390 people are not far off for Derby, nor are they for a nation that has seen more dismal days, fought in more wars, lost thousands more sons and daughters.

Americans keep coming back to remember.

"Why do you think?" asked Derby, 85. "It's the worst military defeat the U.S. has ever had."

On Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese forces attacked American and British territories and possessions in the Pacific, including the home base of the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor.

Hundreds are expected to gather Sunday at the USS Arizona National Memorial to mark the 62nd anniversary of the surprise attack that launched the United States into World War II.

About 1.4 million people visit each year – some paying homage by tossing flowers into the waters from the memorial above the sunken USS Arizona.

Derby worked in the supply room aboard the USS Nevada when the ship was attacked. He remembers the sounds of the bombing, the gushing water that flooded his ship, the fellow sailors lost.

The crew of the USS O'Kane, who served in the war in Iraq earlier this year, also will honor the Arizona, which lost 1,177 crew members, most of whom are still entombed in the sunken battleship.

"It kind of makes you stop and think about what people have done for us to be free the way we are," said Jan Winn, 62, of Redlands, Calif. "It makes you hope we don't have to go through it again."

Larry Solomon, of Lexington, Ky., said he listened during his flight to Hawaii as two young girls discussed Pearl Harbor.

One of the girls shrugged off the trip, saying it was a place where "just a bunch of people got bombed," Solomon recalled. The other, he said, seemed to understand the importance of visiting the site.

"You've got to go," Solomon recalled the girl saying. "You've got to be a part of history."





On the Net:

National Park Service, USS Arizona, www.nps.gov/usar/index.htm


http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/20031206-0945-pearlharboranniversary.html


Sempers,

Roger
:marine:

thedrifter
12-07-03, 10:29 AM
To make sure we never forget


A red dawn shrouds the Iwo Jima Memorial in Arlington, Virginia, on December 7, 2003 -- serving as a grim reminder of that day 62 years ago when a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor brought America into a world war.
Photography Dec 7, 2003, 00:00


http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/uploads/120703iwojima.jpg

Doug Thompson / Capitol Hill Blue


Sempers,

Roger
:marine:

thedrifter
12-07-03, 10:32 AM
Flying right into a war
By JOEL ESKOVITZ
Scripps Howard News Service
Dec 7, 2003, 05:24

The logbook rests open on the page where Ernest "Roy" Reid registered the flight he took that December day. Alongside a listing of the plane's make and model (B-17C), Reid had penned in the flight path from Hamilton Field near San Francisco to Hawaii's Hickam Field.
What makes this particular item so compelling -- and the reason a photo of this page is stored in the Library of Congress today -- is the entry in the remarks section for the flight: "War! Plane shot down on arrival."

Reid was flying in the first American plane shot down in World War II. His planned stop for fuel en route to a mission in the Philippines gave him a view of one of the most tragic days in American history.

The 83-year-old Stuart, Fla., resident can still picture that initial image of black smoke emanating from Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, and several burning planes on the ground.

In all that confusion, as Reid's plane nearly crashed and the surgeon on board was shot and later died, the lieutenant colonel immediately knew what was afoot.

"If I saw one airplane burning, I would just think it was an accident," he said. "It was obvious, the only thing it could be was that it was an attack. I knew instantly that there was a war on."

Reid joins more than 10,000 soldiers and civilians whose roles in military conflicts are chronicled in the federal Veterans History Project, which seeks to catalog a nation's military history through firsthand accounts. The program, based at the Library of Congress, has been so successful that organizers have just aired their first radio documentary on it and now envision a book and even a traveling exhibit that would share select stories with the public.

"It's really important for the younger generation, especially those who are not going to serve, to learn their history through the voices of those who lived it," said program director Ellen McCollough-Lovell. "If you talk to the students, they'll say things like, 'I never read this in my history books.' "

In existence for four years, the project is battling time as the veteran population from the two world wars dwindles. She notes that one of the first letters she received was from a woman requesting that a project partner interview her father who had served, with a note at the bottom that said, "Please hurry!"

So the priority for the partners _ veterans organizations, libraries and school classes that are tracking down the stories of civilians and military officers _ is to find the older veterans first, although eventually McCollough-Lovell anticipates that soldiers returning home from Iraq will be asked to participate.

Staffers entered Reid's story into the collection last year, although he has been compiling records of his experience and jotting down notes since a few months after the attack. He wrote about his flirtation with death in Air Force Magazine, which published it in 1991 to commemorate Pearl Harbor's 50th anniversary.

It was also during that time that his artifacts -- including the logbook and most likely one of the last telegrams out of Hawaii, telling his mother he was safe -- disappeared.

His son, Lee, believes they were stolen and is frantically trying to track them down. A photo editor at the magazine whose photographer last saw the relics said that while he has witnessed collectors abscond with such items, it is more likely they were lost in the mail.

Lee Reid has been using his spare time over the past few years to try to return the items to his family. "My mom almost broke into tears because of the sentimental value of the telegram," he said, adding that the final destination for that and the logbook should be somewhere like the Veterans History Project, which can ensure access for historians and researchers.

Right now, only photos of the mementos, along with Roy Reid's written accounts of his military career, are filed away in the Library of Congress.

There, historians can read about Reid's initial shock of stumbling upon a war and his fight to avoid enemy fire after the plane went down. They can see through his eyes the initial stream of ambulances that overwhelmed the local hospital.

And they can learn about his most harrowing discovery when he returned to find his mangled plane.

"The next day, I climbed into the cockpit of our plane," Reid wrote. "I discovered four bullet holes in the armor plate behind my seat. I was one of the lucky ones on the Day of Infamy."


(Contact Joel Eskovitz at EskovitzJ@shns.com)

© Copyright 2003 by Capitol Hill Blue


http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_3644.shtml


Sempers,

Roger
:marine: