70 Years Ago

It began at or around 0755, Hawaii Time on December 7, 1941.

The following call to General Quarters sounded aboard the battleship USS Oklahoma: "Real planes, real bombs; this is no f**king drill!".

Aboard the submarine USS Tautog: "the war is on, no fooling!"

Aboard the USS West Virginia: "Away the fire and rescue party!"

Aboard the old minelayer USS Ogalala: "all ships in harbor sortie!"

Aboard the supply ship USS Castor: "the Japs are bombing us, the Japs are bombing us!"

Aboard the battleship USS Nevada: "All hands, General Quarters! Air Raid! This is no drill!"

Aboard the heavy cruiser USS New Orleans: "Padre, there's planes out there and they look like Japs!"

Aboard the battleship USS California: "Jesus Christ...Jesus Christ!"

Aboard the battleship USS Maryland: "The Japs are here..."

At the Ford Island Administration Building: "Just gotta try to remember this date.."

Aboard the destroyer USS Monaghan: "Hell, I didn't even know they were sore at us!"

The message that shook the world at 0800, Hawaii Time, from the CINCPAC Administration Building: "AIR RAID ON PEARL HARBOR. THIS IS NO DRILL".

From Hickam and Wheeler US Army Air fields: "It's the real thing!"

From naval personnel housing with a view of Pearl Harbor: "there's a battleship tipping over.."

At the Ft. Shafter Catholic chapel: "God bless you all, the Japanese are attacking Pearl Harbor. Return to your units at once.."

Aboard the battleship USS Arizona: "Fire on the quarterdeck!" moments before the forward magazine exploded, killing over 1000 of the ship's company in an instant (see photo above).

Aboard the heavy cruiser USS San Francisco, one below-decks sailor to another: "I thought I'd come up and die with you".

A Marine aboard the 1010 Dock, standing in the open and firing a rifle at attacking Japanese planes: "If my mother could see me now".

Aboard the destroyer USS Helm as a sailor requested the keys to the ammo lockers: "Damn the keys! Cut the locks!"

A signal from the USS Curtiss: "Submarine sighted to starboard" (one of the midget subs the Japanese sent in to attack ships inside the harbor).

To a flight of B-17s coming in from the mainland, air traffic control reported -- after giving routine wind direction, velocity, and the runway on which to land -- "the field is under attack by unidentified enemy planes".

Aboard the repair ship USS Vestal -- along side the destroyed USS Arizona, after she exploded: "Come back! We're not giving up this ship yet!"

Aboard the destroyer USS Monaghan, an unarmed sailor -- throwing wrenches at passing Japanese planes -- was heard yelling for a gun and ammo: "I can't keep throwing things at them!"

Aboard the destroyer USS Helm as she sortied under attack: "Take her out, I'll direct the (gun) battery".

Aboard the light cruiser USS Helena when a Marine-manned gun mount shot down a Japanese plane: "The Marine team scored a touchdown!"

Aboard the dry-docked battleship USS Pennsylvania, in response to a report that the guns were getting too hot, and should the gunner keep shooting: "Hell yes, keep her going!"

A gunner aboard the light cruiser USS Helena, yelled to the admiral on the bridge of the nearby USS Ogalala: "Pardon me, Admiral sir! Would you mind moving from the wing of the bridge so we can shoot through there?" The admiral complied.

Warning message from a scout bomber off the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, that was approaching Pearl Harbor, back to the ship: "White 16 -- Pearl Harbor under attack. Do not acknowledge".

Aboard the now sunken battleship USS West Virginia: "History is being made now, and you and I are in the middle of it, and our actions might affect the outcome".

Aboard the battleship USS Tennessee during the height of the air raid: "To hell with fuse settings -- shoot!"

Aboard the seaplane tender USS Curtiss, a mortally wounded sailor to a friend: "My foot's gone, isn't it?".

Aboard the battleship USS California, a sailor stood fast to his station below decks, knowing the ship was sinking: "This is my station -- I'll stay here and give them air as long as the guns are going". He didn't survive.

Aboard the hospital ship USS Solace, a nurse was heard to shout every time she saw a Japanese plane go down: "Woo-woo, there goes another one!"

Above the Marine airfield at Ewa, Japanese pilot Lt. Yoshio Shiga strafed the field, and turned for a run at a Marine standing by a disabled plane. "The man refused to budge...kept firing back with a pistol".

Aboard the dry-docked destroyer USS Downes, an individual sailor fired a .50 caliber machine gun at the Japanese planes as fires swept closer. Witnessed from the USS Pennsylvania: "wondered how long any man could stand that kind of heat. As the flames swept closer, the sailor seemed to have a harder and harder time keeping his head up. Finally he dropped to his knees, head down, but with one hand still hanging on the trigger of the gun. That's the way he was last seen when flames and smoke closed off the view".

Aboard the USS New Orleans: "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!"

From Honolulu Radio KGMB, announcer Webley Edwards: "This is the real McCoy!"

From US Senator Burton Wheeler of Montana, an up-to-then a supporter of isolationism from foreign wars, in response to a reporter's question about Pearl Harbor: "The only thing now is to do our best to lick hell out of them!"

From the floor of Congress, 1229pm Eastern Time, December 8, 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt: "Yesterday, December 7, 1941...a date which will live in infamy..." began his six minute speech that resulted in a formal declaration of war, and brought the United States into World War II (Germany and Italy would declare war on the United States on December 11, 1941, bringing us all the way in).

70 years ago*.

* Source for quotes: Day of Infamy, by Walter Lord

From 'What If and Back', to Surreal...

Are these two photos somehow analogous? Follow along, and find out.

I found this piece of World War II trivia a tad interesting: in 1943, the US Navy was kinda busy. Seems they had a boatload of issues in two oceans, with ancillary concerns in a few others. Funny how a world war might make it so. But, busy as the US Navy was -- doin' that righteous and thank-God-they-did defendin' the flag thang -- they somehow managed to find time for some sci-fi incidentals.

Seymour, my pet rock, would love this, only to wind up hiding under the loveseat. But I digress.

Ever hear of the "Philadelphia Experiment"? It is also known as the 'Hutchison Effect'. At which time, one of our destroyer escorts went "missing". But apparently, only briefly. The truly interesting thing about it was, 'where' and 'how' it went missing.

It seems that the US Navy -- through magnetic field experimentation -- "tele-transported" a US Navy warship from Philadelphia Navy Yard, to Norfolk, VA. And back. The USS Eldridge (DE-173). The effects on the 181 person crew were more drastic and less desirable than the three hour tour of the SS Minnow, and subsequently never made the '60s sitcom circuit, as did the latter.

It apparently didn't go so well for one Philadelphia-area dog, either: Bozo the Beagle.

At the time of the then highly secret experiment, Bozo the Beagle had recovered from having been hit by a car, and being an early veterinary recipient of his hip being surgically repaired with metal plates. Happily back home, a lopsided-walking Bozo -- at the same instant the USS Eldridge was going from a shadowy outline in the Philly Navy Yard, to a blue flash and *ZAP* arriving at Norfolk -- suddenly *vanished* from his owner's yard. And was reportedly observed by incredulous observers in Norfolk's naval base, stuck to the side of the "Where The F*** did that come from?", highly-magnetized USS Eldridge.

Moments later, when the Eldridge just as suddenly *vanished* from Norfolk, returning to the Philly Navy Yard, Bozo landed abruptly on his owner's porch, a bit worse for wear. Story has it that the cat -- upon witnessing Bozo's remarkable *gone & back* journey -- tossed away all of his catnip, and hid under a bed muttering "nuh UHs" to itself, the rest of its days.

Be that as it may...

If y'all remember, in the late '70s/early '80s, there was a movie about the nuclear carrier USS Nimitz. The ship had just left Pearl Harbor for routine patrol. And a strange anomaly -- perhaps a natural electro-magnetic storm -- overtook the ship, and *POOF*...with a bit more CGI fanfare, the Nimitz found itself in the same position as heretofore. But not in this chronological hereabouts. Suddenly, a 1980s US Navy warship was west of Pearl Harbor...on December 6, 1941.

Date ring a bell? It would to Pavlov *ducking boos and throwd psychology books*

It did to the primary characters, too. And what an amusing -- and not so amusing -- moral and ethical problem it posed for the characters. One that was finally solved, apparently, by the 'captain' deciding to react as the captain of a US Navy warship would be expected to, when he saw a threat to his country.

But just when the audience was rooting for the 1980s US Navy to kick the 1941 Japanese task force's ass...here came that pesky perhaps natural magno-electrical anomaly again, and with some more CGIesqueness, took the USS Nimitz -- and her airborne strike force -- back to the 1980s.

End of the story, other than a weird twist with three plot characters, one of which was a dog. But not Bozo.

Perhaps in the 'Philadelphia Experiment' back in the summer of '43, the US Navy -- intentionally or not -- discovered a 'doorway' into the space-time continuum. Just not how to control it, or make it work without creating basketcases of much of the crew of the USS Eldridge. Not to mention, one banged-up beagle, and the cat that forevermore swore off of catnip.

Perhaps the writer of this 1980s sci-fi movie, had the 'Philadelphia Experiment' in mind. Perhaps not.

In any event, I bring this weird, not well-knowd episode up for....well, 'cuz it was interesting. And ... or ... maybe ... because it has some relevance to a later anniversary this year.

Not that I think a repeat of the 'Philadelphia Experiment' might be actually tried with a US nuclear aircraft carrier. I mean, a nuclear aircraft carrier is not exactly something that leaves a miniscule footprint, even in a giant ocean, even in 1941. And to cover up it's sudden 'disappearance' from 2011, might be more than any fed officials could blow off officially.

BUT...a nuclear attack submarine -- perhaps a Los Angeles Class 688 sub, one more equipped as the ocean-going equivalent of a 'stealth ship' -- now, that might prove a more effective, manageable option. A vessel that can stay submerged for weeks...even months. A vessel that can sail faster submerged, than almost any surface craft of an earlier era. A vessel that can dive deeper, and hide in thermoclines, becoming truly 'invisible' to sonar technology of an earlier time.

And a vessel that can carry more sophisticated and lethal ordnance, than any task force. Maybe not today, to be sure....but it would certainly pack an earth-shaking, bring-enemies-to-their-knees wallop in 1941.

Perhaps just such a sub will leave Pearl Harbor in late November or early December, 2011. Destination: history, by way of years of enhancements to the 'Philadelphia Experiment'.

Perhaps that captain and crew will also find themselves with very real moral and ethical considerations to weigh: witness history as it happened, and leave the future as it has played out? Or, prevent a disastrous national historical event...without knowing what effect on history thereafter? And to do so, with technology possessing a lethality not known to the world in 1941.

What to do: leave the known intact, or try to 'tweak' the future, by way of correcting the known mistakes, with no idea of what the subsequent changing of history will mean? Prevent Pearl Harbor? Prevent the Bataan Death March? Take out Berlin before the Nazi-inspired Holocaust can get truly underway? Save thousands of American lives -- and millions of other innocents who found themselves in the path of the Nazis, Russians, Japanese, and later the American and British air, sea and land counteroffensives -- that were lost in the early, and later, stages of World War II?

OR....change history, by killing some of those who survived, and who then would not contribute to humanity with what they learned from the catastrophic destruction they witnessed, and lived to rebuild from?

Rewrite the past, at the cost of making what was subsequent history, now a huge unknown?

What's more...could the 'Philadelphia Experiment' have contributed -- by accident or design -- to the rumors about the coming of the end of the Mayan calendar, and what it potentially means for 12/21/12?

Perhaps.

Makes for a good sci-fi book or movie idea, eh?

Sure does...if it is just an idea.

69 Years Ago Today

0755 Hawaii time, 69 years ago. "A day that will live in infamy". One day later, it would inaugurate America's official entry into World War II.

Not long after the attack, Admiral Isoroku Yamamato, was asked about Japan's prospects in a war against America: "I can run wild for six months...after that, I have no expectations of success".

About six months later -- and the Battle of Midway -- Yamamoto would know how right he was. But would not live to see the disastrous end for Japan: he was shot out of the sky in an aerial ambush, in 1943.

But on this day, 69 years ago, dusk would see 2403 Americans dead, five battleships and numerous other ships sunk, almost two hundred planes destroyed.

A sleeping giant had indeed, been awakened, and filled with a terrible resolve. What it would cost, counted in the millions, ended with a terrible inauguration into the Atomic Age.