17 June 2011
NEWSLETTER
Please keep your email address up to
date with LaDonna
even if you don’t want it posted online.
Please contact LaDonna
Bradshaw, bb64members@aol.com. Or (601) 693-4614
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NEW EMAIL ADDITION |
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David J. Stiteler |
EM2 E Division |
1951-1953 |
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IN MEMORIAM |
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MEMBER |
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DATE OF DEATH |
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Edgar Morrison |
DC1 R Division 1944-1948 |
6/11/2011 |
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Ed Gavin, Marine Detachment 1956-1957, sent me the following story.
I found it
very interesting and unbeknown to me, so I would like to share it with the
readers of this newsletter.
PEARL
HARBOR AND THE SILVER LINING
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Tour boats ferry people out to
the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii every thirty minutes. We just missed a
ferry and had to wait thirty minutes. I went into a small gift shop to kill
time. In the gift shop, I purchased a small book entitled, "Reflections
on Pearl Harbor” by Admiral Chester Nimitz. Sunday, December 7th,
1941--Admiral Chester Nimitz was attending a concert in Washington D.C. He
was paged and told there was a phone call for him. When he answered the
phone, it was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the phone. He told
Admiral Nimitz that he (Nimitz) would now be the Commander of the Pacific
Fleet. Admiral Nimitz flew to Hawaii to
assume command of the Pacific Fleet. He landed at Pearl Harbor on Christmas
Eve, 1941. There was such a spirit of despair, dejection and defeat--you
would have thought the Japanese had already won the war. On Christmas Day,
1941, Adm. Nimitz was given a boat tour of the destruction wrought on Pearl
Harbor by the Japanese. Big sunken battleships and navy vessels cluttered the
waters everywhere you looked. As the tour boat returned to dock, the young
helmsman of the boat asked, "Well Admiral, what do you think after
seeing all this destruction?" Admiral Nimitz's reply shocked everyone
within the sound of his voice. Admiral Nimitz said, "The Japanese made
three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could ever make or God was
taking care of America. Which do you think it was?" Shocked and
surprised, the young helmsman asked, "What do mean by saying the
Japanese made the three biggest mistakes an attack force ever made?" Nimitz explained. Mistake number
one: the Japanese attacked on Sunday morning. Nine out of every ten crewmen of
those ships were ashore on leave. If those same ships had been lured to sea
and been sunk--we would have lost 38,000 men instead of 3,800. Mistake number two: when the
Japanese saw all those battleships lined in a row, they got so carried away
sinking those battleships, they never once bombed our dry docks opposite
those ships. If they had destroyed our dry docks, we would have had to tow
every one of those ships to America to be repaired. As it is now, the ships
are in shallow water and can be raised. One tug can pull them over to the dry
docks, and we can have them repaired and at sea by the time we could have
towed them to America. And I already have crews ashore anxious to man those
ships. Mistake number three: every drop
of fuel in the Pacific theater of war is in top of the ground storage tanks
five miles away over that hill. One attack plane could have strafed those
tanks and destroyed our fuel supply. That's why I say the Japanese made three
of the biggest mistakes an attack force could make or God was taking care of
America. I've never forgotten what I read
in that little book. It is still an inspiration as I reflect upon it. In
jest, I might suggest that because Admiral Nimitz was a Texan, born and
raised in Fredricksburg, Texas --he was a born optimist. But anyway you look
at it--Admiral Nimitz was able to see a silver lining in a situation and
circumstance where everyone else saw only despair and defeatism. President
Roosevelt had chosen the right man for the right job. We desperately needed a
leader that could see silver linings in the midst of the clouds of dejection,
despair and defeat. There is a
reason that our national motto is, IN GOD WE TRUST. |
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If you have
interesting stories about your time aboard the Wisconsin,
please share them with us. Email them to
me at Dombb64@ptd.net