A FB friend of the conservative POV posted this last night:
Its been fun watching all the RVs and fifth wheels headed out of town for the long weekend. But I like to remember why this weekend is what it is.
In my hometown of San Francisco, at a place called Lands End, there is a memorial to a Navy warship that bore the city's name. USS San Francisco earned 17 battle stars for action in World War 2. None of those were earned easily,and none were more difficult than the night action of November 13, 1942. Portions of her bridge rails, removed after that action when her battle damage was repaired, form a part of the memorial. The holes in those rails were made by Japanese shells and shell fragments and stand as a stark reminder of what price comes with total war.
The names of the 86 men killed that night are inscribed on a plaque under the memorial's flagpole. They include Admiral Daniel Callaghan and his entire staff, her skipper Captain Cassin Young. Executive Officer Commander Mark Crouter
If you happen to be in town this Sunday, May 28th, the annual remembrance ceremony will be held starting at 1130. Remember those 86 who were committed to the deep waters off Guadalcanal having given up everything that had and all they would ever be so that the people back home wouldn't have to.
I added this to his post:
The November 1942 battle was INSANE! Whether through clueless leadership or intentionally, the USN formation went through the heart of the Japanese formation. Ranges were so close that USN 8" shells could penetrate battleship Hiei's armor, when at normal ranges Hiei's armor would have been immune from penetration. At least one USN destroyer passed by Hiei so close that none of Hiei's guns could depress low enough to hit her (USS Laffey?). Meanwhile the destroyer (and others less close) was blasting the bleep out of Hiei's superstructure. USS San Francisco is credited with disabling Hiei's steering, which led to her being sunk. USS San Francisco survived WW2 and was converted to razor blades in 1961.
The USN force in that battle was outnumbered and outgunned (two battleships with 8X 14" guns each vs two heavy cruisers with 9X 8" guns each). At "normal" battle ranges the 8" guns' shells would have been making dents, while the 14" shell would have been making Swiss cheese of whatever they hit. While it is commonplace to say, "What was Admiral Callaghan thinking?!", the answer might be that he knew his only chance to frustrate Japanese plans to bombard Henderson Field into oblivion would be to get so close to battleships Hiei and Kirishima that the 8" shells from USS San Francisco and USS Portland could actually penetrate the battleships' armor. Probably most of the bridge crews of the USN ships knew that their chances of surviving the engagement were very low, but they did their duty; gun crews and engine room crews knew much less, but also did their duty. When the battle was over and consequences fully realized, the USN lost two light cruisers, four destroyers, and, much the greater loss, over 1400 dead, including Admirals Callaghan and Scott.
Last week Mrs. SVPete and I vacationed in Hawaii, our first time in our 50th state. It was a delayed celebration of our 40th Anniversary, delayed by Covid. One of the things we did was a visit to the USS Arizona Memorial and the USS Missouri. Our time on the Memorial was only 10 or 15 minutes, too brief for proper reflection IMO, but limited by how many want to visit the Memorial and the logistics of ferrying and the capacity of the Memorial
(the Memorial was built some 60 years ago, so the anticipated the number of visitors was probably fairly low). It's nice that the number of visitors is that great, 80+ years after the event.
The Pacific War Museum, from which one accesses the Arizona Memorial, is on the Island of Oahu. To get to USS Missouri one must take a shuttle to cross over to Ford Island. Our bus driver pretty much begged bus riders to visit the USS Oklahoma Memorial, which was near the parking lot where he dropped us off. After touring the Missouri and in light rain, Mrs. SVPete and I visited the Oklahoma Memorial. Unlike the USS Arizona, the Oklahoma was raised, because she had become a navigation hazard, moved to a suitable space for removal of crew remains and patching, deemed too damaged and too old to be worth rebuilding, and eventually sent to the West Coast to be scrapped (but sank enroute). The Memorial is a stone engraved with the names of those lost, plus rows of marble pylons, one for each sailor lost, the the name and rank of the sailor or Marine.
The lists of the names of those lost in the two Memorials are in alphabetic order, not in order of rank. So, e.g., the Admiral lost on the Arizona in in the middle of the list, and her Captain near the end. Some 1,177 men were lost aboard the Arizona, nearly half of those killed in the Pearl Harbor attack; some 429 men were lost from the Oklahoma, over 1/6th of those killed in the Pearl Harbor attack. In the heartlessness of war, ships and planes are "quickly" replaced
(and, ironically, by the IJN attack proving that carriers were now the primary capital ships, the battleships the IJN worked so hard to sink or damage would be relegated to secondary roles, being to slow to steam with carriers). The nearly 2400 people lost in the Pearl Harbor attack were irreplaceable, in their cumulative centuries of experience and as human beings.
Every man or woman lost in the US' wars sacrificed their individual futures for the future of the US as a nation.