Today is the 77th anniversary of Pearl Harbor day, the day America became officially involved in World war Two. A little known fact is the navy was actually in the war on convoy duty a year before we declared war on Japan and Germany. Here's a tip of the hat to the U.S. marine corps (a part of the U.S. navy, though they hate to think about that and do not like to hear it) as they took over defense of north Atlantic weather stations in Iceland when the U.S. navy took on convoy duty in the Atlantic, so the British could use those troops in raids against Germans after they took over the Scandinavian countries. God bless all the soldiers, sailors air corps and marines who served in world War Two, with a special nod to the sailors who happened to be in Pearl Harbor on that fateful day. We lost 2400 of them. They had no warning, due to a failure of naval intelligence. Every other naval and army installation in the Pacific did have a warning.
World War Two veterans are pretty cool guys. All of the pictures below are family members who were in combat during WW-2. They never talked much about their service until they were old men, decades later.
The first is Joyce's uncle William. He was in the army air corps as a tail gunner in a B-24 bomber. His plane was shot up over Munich Germany, lost an engine or two and was unable to climb high enough to get over the Italian alps so they bailed out. He was captured and spent a year in a POW camp.
The next is my father. He was an artillery man, part of Patton's 3rd army. The picture was taken in Germany.
The next is Joyce's father. He was transferred back to the U.S. after his ship was sunk during the early hours of the battle of New Britain in the Pacific. That is grandma Mickey beside him around the time before they were married.
The last is my uncle Kenny. He was a marine in Carlson's raider battalion in the south Pacific and later in the assault on Guam.
I always enjoy talking with the old WW-2 veterans, especially navy vets. Sailors are always proud of the ships they served aboard, so we can swap sea stories.
Copyright Bill Weber 2018 and beyond.
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