I usually don’t wander into the twentieth century, either on this blog or in my own personal interests, but it seems remiss not to give a nod to the seventieth anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. If you’ve got some time to do a little virtual commemoration, here are some links worth checking out:
- A contemporary news report.
- The National Archives offers a look at the crafting of Roosevelt’s Dec. 8 speech, one of those examples of American rhetoric that still packs a wallop.
- The Naval History & Heritage Command has an annotated collection of images online.
- National Geographic offers a multimedia presentation.
- The National Park Service commemorates significant locations from the Pacific War. I visited the Arizona Memorial as a kid, over twenty years ago. To this day, it remains the starkest, most outstanding thing I remember about that trip to Hawaii.
- A report on today’s commemorative events in Hawaii.
- Finally, and sadly, the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association is disbanding at the end of the year, due to ever-dwindling numbers.
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Here’s another resource that the National Archives just posted, and it’s really pretty doggone cool:
Pearl Harbor In Their Own Words – US Navy deck logs http://j.mp/tcyrzH
Well worth 2min of time to view.
Thanks for the link!
–ML
Bringing the story about disbanding the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association back to the 19th century, Harold Simpson tells in one of his books about Hood’s Texas Brigade that, at their last reunion, the small handful of remaining veterans who’d made the trip were unable to come downstairs in the hotel to the meeting room. The secretary of the association (and its only female member), Katie Daffan, is supposed to have solemnly, with great dignity, called the roll of members, without response. And with that, she closed the proceedings on the last meeting of the Hood’s Texas Brigade Association.
Cou’n Katie always did have a flair for the dramatic.
Thanks, Andy. That’s a pretty neat story.
–ML