thedrifter
12-01-08, 07:55 AM
Heritage Museum looks back at day of infamy
By Jennie Jones Giles
Heritage Museum
Published: Monday, December 1, 2008 at 4:30 a.m.
At 7:53 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, the first Japanese bombs fall on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. At 7:58 a.m., a message is relayed to Mare Island Naval Station in San Francisco Bay: “Air raid Pearl Harbor. This is no drill.”
As the people in Hawaii were awakening that Sunday morning to bombs falling, residents of Henderson County were just finishing their noon meal.
It was 1:47 p.m. EST (8:17 a.m. in Hawaii) when Navy Secretary Frank Knox calls and informs President Franklin Delano Roosevelt of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
It was 2 p.m. in New York City when the kickoff starts the football game between the N.Y. Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers. At 2:26 p.m., the radio broadcast of the football game is interrupted with the news that would change the lives of every American for the next four years.
By 2:30 p.m. that Sunday, every radio station in the nation is interrupting regular broadcasts with news bulletins. By 4 p.m., every radio broadcast in the nation is reporting updates on the situation at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
It was 67 years ago this Sunday when the Japanese navy launched the surprise military strike against the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The news of the attack sent a shockwave across the United States, united the nation and brought the country into full-scale involvement in World War II.
The attack sank four U.S. Navy battleships and damaged four more. The Japanese also sank or damaged three cruisers, three destroyers and one minelayer, and destroyed 188 aircraft. The casualty list included 2,335 servicemen and 68 civilians killed, with 1,178 wounded. Included in this total were 1,104 men aboard the battleship USS Arizona.
Among the men on the USS Arizona were three sailors with ties to Henderson County: Mark Alexander Rhodes, Clarence James Hamilton and Paul Hedrick. All three are memorialized at the Honolulu Memorial in Hawaii. The Veterans of Foreign Wars Post in Hendersonville is named for Rhodes and Hedrick.
It was Monday, Dec. 8, when President Roosevelt gave his famous speech calling for Congress to declare war against Japan, calling Dec. 7, 1941, “a date which will live in infamy.”
This speech can be heard in its entirety in the multimedia at the Henderson County Heritage Museum, followed by the Navy anthem. The multimedia at the museum also features veterans from Henderson County telling of their experiences in World War II.
In display cases at the museum are World War II artifacts from the Marines, Navy, Army and Army Air Corps. On the display walls are maps of the European and Pacific theaters of the war and other information on World War II.
The Pearl Harbor Commemorative Committee is holding a ceremony at 4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 7, in Bo Thomas Auditorium at Blue Ridge Community College to commemorate the 67th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack. High School winners from a countywide essay contest on “The Significance of Pearl Harbor” will read their essays. Pearl Harbor survivor Ralph Wingerter will speak.
The public is invited to tour the Heritage Museum and attend the ceremony Sunday at BRCC. The museum will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and from 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. For more information, visit www.hendersoncountymuseum.org.
Ellie
By Jennie Jones Giles
Heritage Museum
Published: Monday, December 1, 2008 at 4:30 a.m.
At 7:53 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, the first Japanese bombs fall on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. At 7:58 a.m., a message is relayed to Mare Island Naval Station in San Francisco Bay: “Air raid Pearl Harbor. This is no drill.”
As the people in Hawaii were awakening that Sunday morning to bombs falling, residents of Henderson County were just finishing their noon meal.
It was 1:47 p.m. EST (8:17 a.m. in Hawaii) when Navy Secretary Frank Knox calls and informs President Franklin Delano Roosevelt of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
It was 2 p.m. in New York City when the kickoff starts the football game between the N.Y. Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers. At 2:26 p.m., the radio broadcast of the football game is interrupted with the news that would change the lives of every American for the next four years.
By 2:30 p.m. that Sunday, every radio station in the nation is interrupting regular broadcasts with news bulletins. By 4 p.m., every radio broadcast in the nation is reporting updates on the situation at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
It was 67 years ago this Sunday when the Japanese navy launched the surprise military strike against the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The news of the attack sent a shockwave across the United States, united the nation and brought the country into full-scale involvement in World War II.
The attack sank four U.S. Navy battleships and damaged four more. The Japanese also sank or damaged three cruisers, three destroyers and one minelayer, and destroyed 188 aircraft. The casualty list included 2,335 servicemen and 68 civilians killed, with 1,178 wounded. Included in this total were 1,104 men aboard the battleship USS Arizona.
Among the men on the USS Arizona were three sailors with ties to Henderson County: Mark Alexander Rhodes, Clarence James Hamilton and Paul Hedrick. All three are memorialized at the Honolulu Memorial in Hawaii. The Veterans of Foreign Wars Post in Hendersonville is named for Rhodes and Hedrick.
It was Monday, Dec. 8, when President Roosevelt gave his famous speech calling for Congress to declare war against Japan, calling Dec. 7, 1941, “a date which will live in infamy.”
This speech can be heard in its entirety in the multimedia at the Henderson County Heritage Museum, followed by the Navy anthem. The multimedia at the museum also features veterans from Henderson County telling of their experiences in World War II.
In display cases at the museum are World War II artifacts from the Marines, Navy, Army and Army Air Corps. On the display walls are maps of the European and Pacific theaters of the war and other information on World War II.
The Pearl Harbor Commemorative Committee is holding a ceremony at 4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 7, in Bo Thomas Auditorium at Blue Ridge Community College to commemorate the 67th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack. High School winners from a countywide essay contest on “The Significance of Pearl Harbor” will read their essays. Pearl Harbor survivor Ralph Wingerter will speak.
The public is invited to tour the Heritage Museum and attend the ceremony Sunday at BRCC. The museum will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and from 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. For more information, visit www.hendersoncountymuseum.org.
Ellie