Category Archives: Military

U.S. Naval Base Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941

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The Japanese plan was simple on the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941: Destroy the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

Pearl Harbor is a U.S. naval base near Honolulu, Hawaii. It is located near the center of the Pacific Ocean, roughly 2,000 miles from the U.S. mainland and about 4,000 miles from Japan.

No one in the military, in the intelligence community, or in the President Roosevelt Administration believed that the Japanese would start a war with an attack on the distant islands of Hawaii.

Additionally, American intelligence officials were confident that any Japanese attack would take place in one of the (relatively) nearby European colonies in the South Pacific.

However, at about 8 a.m. on the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941, Imperial Japanese Navy planes filled the sky over Pearl Harbor and attacked with bombs, torpedoes and strafing gunfire. In less than two hours, the surprise attack resulted in the eight battleships moored in Pearl Harbor sustaining significant damage.

In all, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor crippled or destroyed nearly 20 American ships and more than 300 airplanes. Dry docks and airfields were likewise destroyed.

The attack also killed 2,403 U.S. personnel, including sailors, soldiers and civilians. Additionally, 1,178 people were wounded. 129 Japanese soldiers were killed. Half of the dead U.S. personnel at Pearl Harbor were on board the battleship, USS Arizona.

Japanese failed to cripple the Pacific Fleet.

By the 1940s, aircraft carriers had become the most important naval warship, and as it happened, all of the Pacific Fleet’s carriers were away from the base on the morning of December 7, 1941.

Moreover, the Pearl Harbor assault had left the base’s vital onshore facilities—oil storage depots, repair shops, shipyards and submarine docks—intact. As a result, the U.S. Navy was able to rebound relatively quickly from the attack.

References:

  1. https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/pearl-harbor

November is Military Family Appreciation Month.

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Let’s celebrate how special military families are and recognize all the ways they support their service members.

November is Military Family Appreciation Month—a time when America honors and recognizes those unique sacrifices and challenges family members make in support of their loved ones in uniform.

“Military Families Serve, Too.”

No matter what rank or branch, or where life has taken them, our nation’s military families share the common threads of service and sacrifice.

November is a month to celebrate the Military Family and honor the commitment made by the families of the nation’s service members. It is a time to honor the military family – a time to celebrate their successes.

85% of military families surveyed feel the American public does not understand the sacrifices they make. ~ Source: USO

During Military Family Month, we thank military families for the tremendous contribution they make in support of our service members, the military mission and the nation.

Military life imposes unique demands on them, and during these difficult times, they have exhibited exceptional sacrifice, resiliency and courage.

The sacrifices and duty involved in service to the nation by military families often goes unnoticed by those in the civilian world. Their countless moves, school changes, friends and sports teams left behind, job changes, months missing their loved one, and nonstop deployments.

Over two million children have parents who served in Iraq or Afghanistan alone.

All Americans should share in the responsibility of caring for our military families. These families have stepped up to the plate at great personal cost, and the toll that multiple and extended deployments take can be very high.

Stress levels sky rocket, and spouses and children can struggle when service members are gone for prolonged periods, and some may even have a difficult time adjusting when the service member returns.

At a minimum, these families deserve some recognition and our appreciation.

Families provide our Servicemembers with invaluable encouragement and love, and manage the home front while their loved ones are deployed.

As we approach the winter holiday season when families across the world come together, we pay special tribute to our deployed forces and their families, who are separated this holiday season.

The dedication and strength of military families during a sustained high operational tempo, increased deployment and long separations is an inspiration to us all. The nation understands that families also serve, and is honored to pay tribute to them.

References:

  1. https://www.dodea.edu/dodeacelebrates/militaryfamilyappreciation.cfm
  2. https://www.militaryfamily.org/november-is-military-family-appreciation-month/

USS Doris Miller (CVN 81) — Aircraft Carrier

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U.S. Navy named its newest aircraft carrier USS Doris Miller (CVN 81).

USS Doris Miller (CVN 81) will be the first aircraft carrier named for an enlisted Sailor and the first named for an African American.

Most supercarriers are named for U.S. presidents — the USS John F. Kennedy. USS Ronald Reagan. USS Abraham Lincoln. Henry Kissinger called them “100,000 tons of diplomacy,” and that power has long been reflected in the Navy’s conventions for naming them.

Doris Miller, who went by “Dorie” in the Navy, was one of the first American heroes of World War II.  He saved the lives of his USS West Virginia (BB 48) shipmates and then valiantly fought attacking Japanese forces during the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor.

During the attack and as his battleship, the USS West Virginia, was sinking, he helped move his dying captain to better cover, then jumped behind an anti-aircraft gun and shot at Japanese planes until his ammunition was gone.

For his bravery, he was awarded the Navy Cross—the first African American to receive this honor.

Almost two years after his valor at Pearl Harbor, Miller loss his life when the ship he was assigned was sunk during battle.

For more information:  https://www.npr.org/2020/09/29/917816651/a-military-first-a-supercarrier-is-named-after-an-african-american-sailor

Reference:

  1. https://www.history.navy.mil/news-and-events/multimedia-gallery/infographics/heritage/the-history-of-doris-miller.html

Changing Names of U.S. Army Posts Named after Confederate Generals | Army Times

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U.S. Army bases and installations in the South named to honor Confederate generals include slaveholders and generals who failed on the battlefield

The U.S. Army has 10 posts named after Confederate generals across the South, including major installations at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Benning in Georgia and Fort Hood in Texas.

Experts told Vox that they believe the Army has dragged its feet on this issue for years regarding why those 10 facilities haven’t had their names changed for three primary reasons: 1) the pervasiveness of the Lost Cause myth in Army culture, 2) bureaucratic inertia and competing problems, and 3) courting controversy

These installations–three in Virginia, two in Louisiana, two in Georgia, and one each in Alabama, North Carolina, and Texas–tended to be named after local rebel generals— either by the local community or by the U.S. Army, which appeared to believe that traitorous Confederate Army history was a part of its own history.

The Confederate generals, whose names should be removed from U.S. military bases, were not only on the losing side of the secession and rebellion against the United States, some weren’t even considered good generals and don’t appear to deserve celebration.

The 10 Confederate generals include some who made costly battlefield blunders; others mistreated captured Union soldiers, some were slaveholders and one was linked to the Ku Klux Klan after the war.

Several retired Army generals support name changes. 

Retired Army General David Petraeus, U.S. Army, Retired, wrote in The Atlantic that the names should be changed. “These bases are, after all, federal installations, home to soldiers who swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States,” Petraeus wrote. “The irony of training at bases named for those who took up arms against the United States, and for the right to enslave others, is inescapable to anyone paying attention.”

“Most of the Confederate generals for whom our bases are named were undistinguished, if not incompetent, battlefield commanders,” Petraeus wrote.

References:

  1. https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2017/08/16/there-are-10-posts-named-after-confederates-should-the-army-re-name-them/
  2. https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2020/06/14/military-base-namesakes-include-slaveholders-failed-generals/?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=Socialflow+MIL&utm_source=facebook.com
  3. https://time.com/3932914/army-bases-confederate/
  4. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/take-confederate-names-off-our-army-bases/612832/
  5. https://www.vox.com/2020/6/9/21285097/army-base-name-change-confederacy-marines-navy
  6. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/the-myth-of-the-kindly-general-lee/529038/

https://twitter.com/armytimes/status/1272180815745736710?s=21

Military service academies plan for students’ return in fall | Military Times

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“We cannot develop leaders for our nation’s military online”. Vice Admiral Sean Buck, USN, Superintendent, U.S. Naval Academy, Class of 1982.

The U.S. Naval Academy is planning to have its 4,400 midshipmen return to campus in Annapolis, Maryland, for the fall, after students completed the last semester with online learning from their homes around the nation due to the coronavirus, academy officials said Monday.

Vice Adm. Sean Buck, the superintendent, told the academy’s Board of Visitors he has been communicating with the leaders of the nation’s other service academies, and they also plan to have their students on campus in the fall.

“I can tell you, as of this morning, every single military service academy in this country is opening in the fall,” Buck told the board in an online meeting. “We all are developing very detailed plans with regards to health, safety and the protocols that we need to put in place to manage risk.”

While academics can be done online, Buck said the other two pillars of the academy’s mission statement are developing midshipmen morally and physically, and those goals require hands-on experiences on campus.

Read more: https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2020/06/01/military-service-academies-plan-for-students-return-in-fall/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=Socialflow+MIL&utm_medium=social

Navy named aircraft carrier for Pearl Harbor hero Doris Miller | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

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Doris Miller awarded the Navy Cross medal

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the Navy announced that its next $12.5 billion Ford class aircraft carrier, CVN-81, will be named after Doris Miller, an enlisted sailor who received the Navy Cross for his valor during the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, when he manned a machine gun on the USS West Virginia to fire back at attacking Japanese planes.

Despite having no training in operating the big guns, he bravely jumped into action. Miller later recounted: “It wasn’t hard. I just pulled the trigger and she worked fine. I had watched the others with these guns. I guess I fired her for about fifteen minutes. I think I got one of those Japanese planes. They were diving pretty close to us.” Later versions of the story had Miller shooting down four Japanese planes, but the truth is he probably didn’t hit any. During the time he was firing the gun only one Japanese plane was shot down.

Miller, a mess attendant in a racially segregated rating aboard the battleship USS West Virginia, will be the first African-American to have a carrier named after him.

— Read on www.staradvertiser.com/2020/01/17/hawaii-news/navy-to-name-aircraft-carrier-for-pearl-harbor-hero-doris-miller/