2020 Dec. Goat Daily Rant 07
12Daily Rant: A moment of silence.
And a little bit of history.
It’s the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Mostly, I won’t say much, but I will leave you with this:
The latest Ford-class supercarrier will be named after Doris “Dorie” Miller, a relatively common man who did some uncommon things stationed aboard the battleship USS West Virginia. Later in the war, he would die when his ship, the USS Liscome Bay sank in the battle of Makin. He was just a cook, but he worked the AA guns on that battleship well enough, and his name is being assigned to one of the greatest ships ever to grace the oceans.
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Fun fact: Pearl Harbor wasn’t the only US base the Japanese attacked on that day; they also attacked Guam and the Philippines, both of which were US territories.
When we won, the US took back control of those territories, along with tons of islands in the Pacific: What is now the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, Palau, and the North Mariana Islands.
Guam and the NMI are the only ones left that are still a part of the US. The others have varying levels of affiliation with the US.
@Weboh Fun fact: There were also attacks that day on British holdings in Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong. The first nation to declare war on Japan in response was Canada.
“Dorie” Miller was the first black American awarded the Navy Cross, the Navy’s second highest honor, after the Medal of Honor. His rank was Cook, First Class.
Fun Facts: The Ford-class carriers cost $13 Billion each, and take 8 years to build. They have two nuclear reactors on board. The USS Gerald R. Ford was commissioned into service in 2017.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_R._Ford-class_aircraft_carrier
My uncle was shipboard in the Pacific. He saw incredibly horrible things. Perhaps he did those as well.
His letters home were nothing but jokes. Only, once he mentioned that some reporter had been with his group.
And the reporter’s story was picked up by the local paper. And that’s how his stateside family had some idea of what the sailors and marines went thru.
My uncle never, then or later, spoke of the ugly details to his mother or younger sisters. He prob spoke w his Dad, a WWI vet, a little more freely.
When they were not in action or doing chores, being aboard ship count be seriously boring. They gambled low-stakes like crazy, often just for ciggies.
Some of the sailors also hung out in the radio room. If two or more of the radio techs were present, one of them would use the spare equipment to try to pick up am and shortwave broadcasts from N America. They often found something. Then they’d go get whoever onboard came from the area of the source of the radio signal, and listen to some home news and music.
@f00l That’s why shoes and buckles are shined, shirts are pressed nice and sharp. Plenty of down-time with not much to do, waiting for those brief moments of terror that combat brings.