Pearl Harbor thread

EDIT: Doc beat me to it.

1776-81 and 1812-14.

 

There was a big AP story on the last gathering of survivors yesterday, although I can't speak to if/why it wasn't on the digest. There was a story I read somewhere today about engineers using computer modeling on the Arizona to try to guess when the fuel oil tanks might catastrophically give way and dump all that oil out. It has applications on other shipwrecks, as well.

 

I've long thought that it would make a cool sci-fi movie if there was a story of how a sailor trapped when the Arizona was bombed somehow survived the past 65 years down there, only to be rescued in the here and now.

But that's probably too disrespectful to ever merit being made.

 

That's a cool idea. I say we stick Ben Affleck down there.

 

Strange you should mention that. I was talking to a woman today whose friend's father was a sailor on the Arizona. He wasn't on board that morning because he got up early to play a round of golf. When he died this year, he was cremated and his ashes were placed in the Arizona.

 

Good story in the Washington Post about that today -- it seems that eventually the ship will rust and the oil will pretty much burst forth, but they're trying to figure out when.

http://tinyurl.com/y9o24g

And did we really win the War of 1812? I always counted it as more of a tie.

 

Torching of the White House aside, since we weren't British subjects again at the end of it, yeah, I'd say we won.

 

Yeah, but we started it. Trying to invade Canada and all.

 

This looks interesting from the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/opinion/opinionspecial/index.html

Refrenced from this link found on Romenesko:
http://poynter.blogs.com/the_mechanic_the_muse/2006/12/a_decision_of_i.html

 

My father, assigned to the USS Maryland, was 22 and had been in the Navy for nearly five years on December 7 when they were attacked.

He would tell the story in which he saw one Japanese plane flying overhead, the pilot having a big smile on his face.

 

Exactly. The borders didn't move, no property changed hands. It was a tie.

Both sides also got junk food out of the deal -- the Yanks got Dolly Madison pastries and the Canucks got Laura Secord chocolates. Yummy.

 

John Winkin, who coached the University of Maine baseball team to the College World Series six times, was a sailor on board the USS McCall, a destroyer which was assigned to protect aircraft carrier USS Enterprise.

The McCall was supposed to be docked at Pearl Harbor, but couldn't get in because of a storm. If not for that storm, it would have been next to the USS Arizona when the attack began. Winkin and his crewmates saw the entire attack from the top of the channel leading into Pearl Harbor.