Pearl harbor
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Not forgotten by this retired Army field artillery officer.
My collection includes a 1936 Type 14 and a 1914 Nagant 95. These two pistols conceivably encountered each other at Khalkin Gol in the summer of 1939. The Russian forces, commanded by Georgi Zhukov, decisively defeated the Imperial Japanese Army as it attempted to invade Mongolia.
The Russians, confident in their ability to defeat a modern, well disciplined army then attacked Finland November 30, 1939, and lost a million men in 90 days. The Japanese realized that frontal infantry attacks against tanks and massed artillery was not wise, turned their attention to what they considered a target of opportunity, one which did not require bayonet charges.
My collection includes a 1936 Type 14 and a 1914 Nagant 95. These two pistols conceivably encountered each other at Khalkin Gol in the summer of 1939. The Russian forces, commanded by Georgi Zhukov, decisively defeated the Imperial Japanese Army as it attempted to invade Mongolia.
The Russians, confident in their ability to defeat a modern, well disciplined army then attacked Finland November 30, 1939, and lost a million men in 90 days. The Japanese realized that frontal infantry attacks against tanks and massed artillery was not wise, turned their attention to what they considered a target of opportunity, one which did not require bayonet charges.
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487 Posts
I remember it well, I live in hawaii, Long time a go today, wasnt the best day for the islands or the country.
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3,258 Posts
Is there a particular reason why you went out out of your way to violate forum rules and emphasize a word that many of us find distasteful? Seems to me that your intent is more for the purpose of trolling for controversy than commemorating an important moment in our country's history.
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851 Posts
Well, some of us will never forget it, but the way education is going (particularly history education) in this country, it is already being forgotten (rather going unknown) by our nation's youth.
Apparently the Reverend Wright, Mr. Obama's spiritual adviser, has his facts backwards:
"Any preacher who dares to point out the simple ugly facts found in every field imaginable is demonized as volatile, controversial, incendiary, inflammatory, anti-American and radical," Wright said, taking time out to note the thousands of Japanese civilians who died 67 years to the day when American warplane dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. (Actually, Dec. 7 marks the day when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.)
FROM: http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/...nity-united-baptist-church-chicago-obama.html
Sorry to stray, but things like this really get me steamed.
Anyway, let's hope these tragic events and valuable lessons of history DO NOT go forgotten.
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990 Posts
My two cents, for what it's worth, is to keep the politics on the sound-off forum, and the Japanese firearms discussions here. I know, this is going to sound ironic, but I come here to get away from all the loonies.
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308 Posts
Really?
“Japan Wars on US And Britain:” New York Times Dec. 8, 1941
“U.S. at War with Japan” Kingsport Times, Kingsport, Tennessee, Dec. 8, 1941
“WAR! Oahu bombed by Japanese planes” Honolulu Star Bulletin, Dec. 7, 1941 (extra)
“Japan attacks U.S.” Fairbanks Daily News, Dec. 7, 1941 (extra)
“Japanese bomb Hawaii; Declare War on US” The Fresno Bee, Dec. 7, 1941 (extra)
“Japan Attacks US in Pacific” The Galveston Daily News, Dec. 7, 1941 (extra)
“US At War With Japan; Manila, Hawaii Shelled” The Charleston Daily Mail Dec. 7, 1941 (extra)
“WAR DECLARED ON JAPAN” The Denver Post, Dec. 8, 1941 (extra)
“Japanese Bomb Pearl Harbor, War Begins” The Daily Progress, Charlottesville, Virginia Dec. 8, 1941
...but to name a few
LETS STOP THE BULLCRAP GOING ON THIS THREAD...THE GUY MADE A MISTAKE...I STILL TALK WITH A LOT OF OLD' TIMERS' THAT STILL CALL THE JAPANESE, JAPS...IT IS THIER RIGHT ...THEY FOUGHT FOR IT, FOR US...I CALL THEM JAPANESE MYSELF, BECAUSE I HAVE FRIENDS IN JAPAN....SO HERE IS A NEWSPAPER FOR HEADLINE PAPA UKIE WAS REFERING TOO...THERE ARE MANY OTHERS
http://mitchellarchives.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/pearl-harbor-ff.jpg
END OF DISCUSSION !!!
http://mitchellarchives.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/pearl-harbor-ff.jpg
END OF DISCUSSION !!!
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321 Posts
I agree. Let's not make this into a tempest in a teapot. I've talked with many US vets who use the war-time slur for Japanese and I let them do it, without using it myself of course. What's the point, with most of the surviving vets in their eighties and some of them in the nineties, in changing the way they refer to Japanese at this late date? Plus, the way I figure it, neither side in that war exactly saw the other in the best light and the language used by one side to describe or refer to the other reflected that terrible reality. Many US vets were able to move beyond the impact of war and no longer use the term but many internalized their experiences and still use it. While I don't agree with the use of such slurs, I'm not going to hold it against some old men because they still do.
Having said all that, it is good to take a moment and think about what Pearl Harbor Day commemorates and the lives lost.
Best,
Gunnar
Nicely stated, Gunnar!
My father served in China at the end of the war and afterward would never even consider buying a Japanese car. He always referred to the Japanese using the "abbreviated" term. I don't know the scars he carried, but I would never assume to judge. I've had the opportunity to travel to Tokyo and meet many wonderful Japanese people. Hard to believe the difference 60 years of peace and cooperation can make. It was a different time then and a different time now.
That said, we should never forget that day.
My father served in China at the end of the war and afterward would never even consider buying a Japanese car. He always referred to the Japanese using the "abbreviated" term. I don't know the scars he carried, but I would never assume to judge. I've had the opportunity to travel to Tokyo and meet many wonderful Japanese people. Hard to believe the difference 60 years of peace and cooperation can make. It was a different time then and a different time now.
That said, we should never forget that day.
+1
Its a bit of a shame to see someone (or worse a new member) get jumped all over for sharing a picture or newspaper article that may have the "bad" word in it. Are these articles and pics not just as much a part of history as the rifles we enjoy
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I posted about this on another thread.
One thing I'll never do is to hold it against a Vet that uses the word "Jap". He's been through things I can't even imagine.
But you & I wern't there and we have the luxury of historical hindsight. So it seems to me we don't need to use that word - especially now that we know it does does insult some of our friends here.
One thing I'll never do is to hold it against a Vet that uses the word "Jap". He's been through things I can't even imagine.
But you & I wern't there and we have the luxury of historical hindsight. So it seems to me we don't need to use that word - especially now that we know it does does insult some of our friends here.
My father was a vet, a Japanese American vet of the 442nd (all composed of Japanese AMERICANS) that is the most hightly decorated combat unit in the history of the United States for it length of time of service. While he was fighting for this country his own parents, brothers and sisters who were American born citizens were behind barb wire because they were "Japs". After the war when my father and his buddies came back to their hometown, to this day they still remember existing buildings that used to be ice creams shops, barber shops, taverns etc...that said "NO JAPS ALLOWED" For that reason the word "JAP" never meant anything good to Japanese in this country. Whats funny is even German americans thought of Japanese as "Japs". In the late 50's my dad said he and other Japanese farmers could not any work done by a machine shop in our hometown. It was owned by a American of German descent. My dad asked him why he would not work on any of the Japanese farmers machinery, he said "cause the Japs were cruel to the prisoners", my dad replied well "your German, you know what they did? They killed 6 million Jews nothing compares to that". The man could not reply, but would still not give in he didn't like "Japs" . I'm a collector and run across many veterans too, I hear them say "Jap", I inform them I don't like that word but I don't tell them they can't use it. I hope that if Caucasian vets in the Pacific have the right to use that word, Japanese Americans vets who fought in Europe and the Pacific (Military Intelligence Service... one guy on the board his dad decoded and interpret messages for US army) have the right not to hear it.
The usage of "Jap 99 rifle", "Jap ammo" etc...does not bother me, these words are not directed to people, and I know some of you guys that I know that no offense is intended. I read the post and see many members trying hard to accomodate our feelings and that is really appreciated.
The usage of "Jap 99 rifle", "Jap ammo" etc...does not bother me, these words are not directed to people, and I know some of you guys that I know that no offense is intended. I read the post and see many members trying hard to accomodate our feelings and that is really appreciated.
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321 Posts
Okha,
Thanks for sharing about your father's experiences. His experience with the German-American machine-shop owner is interesting. Yes, given that some Americans of German extraction were also interned during the war, the owner should have been more sympathetic however this was not the case. One reason, I think, is that German immigration to the US had gone on for much longer than Japanese or even East Asian immigration. Germans were a presence in America from colonial times. As I recall, the American colonial legislatures in the 1760s once only narrowly decided to maintain English as the colonial lingua franca instead of German as, in some areas, German settlers neared the numbers of those from the British isles. Another reason is that, obviously, German migrants were viewed as being members of a wider European civilization by the Anglo-Saxon establishment in America - even during world wars I and II. Japanese were viewed, by more established native-born Americans during that time, as part of a lesser-known - and hence more threatening - cultural "other." Add this, even before 1941, to the increasing geo-political rivalry between Japan and the US and you have Americans veiwing Japanese immigrants with alot more cynism than toward German or Italian emigres.
True, Germans were interned but very few relative to their numbers in the population and most of those so jailed were conspicuously political and were frequently active in the American Bund or the neo-fascist Silver Shirts. Additionally you had the problem of numbers. So many Americans had some amount of German-blood that a comprehensive program of internment such as happened to Japanese but directed towards German ethnics was simply unattainable had the desire even existed. Had such a program been carried out, the Feds would have been interning most of the population Wisconsin and the Dakotas!
Nikkei, by contrast were mainly concentrated on the West Coast in 1941 and their cultural and physical differentiation from Euro-Americans meant that they were more easily identified as threats and targeted for internal exile.
Despite all this, it is interesting that the justified compensation reward paid to Nikkei internees and their next of kin in the 1980s was not also paid out to German and Italian internees. While European internees, as I indicated, were far fewer than those of Japanese extraction, there is no reason they should not have been compensated as well. Many ethnic German US citizens suffered privation as well. Neither have the Aleuts of Alaska been compensated for being forcibly moved during WWII to get them out of the way of advancing Japanese forces in 1942.
To address the question of justifying racial or national animosity, I think it is just human nature not to want to acknowledge or dwell on bad things done by your own group and instead refer to acts committed by other groups, particularly as those acts affected your own group. Hence the ethnic German disliking Japanese-Americans due to Japan's treatment of POWs and his silence on the holocaust. Not that the guy, simply by being being German was in any way culpible for German atrocities any more than your father was culpible for Japanese atrocities because of his ethnicity.
My point is that each of us, as a member of some community, real or imagined, prefers to remember our strengths or when our group was the victim and not the un-edifying parts of our history when our group attacked others. Germans prefer to remember Dresden but not Auschwitz, Jews prefer to remember Auschwitz but not their role in the Bolsehvik Revolution or the dispossesion of the Palestinians, Japanese prefer to remember the Tokyo firebombing and the atom bombs but not the Sino-Japanese war or the Thai-Burma Railway, British people recall the Blitz but not the shooting of un-armed Indian protesters in 1919. Not taking sides, just saying that that is just a part of being human.
Best,
Gunnar
Thanks for sharing about your father's experiences. His experience with the German-American machine-shop owner is interesting. Yes, given that some Americans of German extraction were also interned during the war, the owner should have been more sympathetic however this was not the case. One reason, I think, is that German immigration to the US had gone on for much longer than Japanese or even East Asian immigration. Germans were a presence in America from colonial times. As I recall, the American colonial legislatures in the 1760s once only narrowly decided to maintain English as the colonial lingua franca instead of German as, in some areas, German settlers neared the numbers of those from the British isles. Another reason is that, obviously, German migrants were viewed as being members of a wider European civilization by the Anglo-Saxon establishment in America - even during world wars I and II. Japanese were viewed, by more established native-born Americans during that time, as part of a lesser-known - and hence more threatening - cultural "other." Add this, even before 1941, to the increasing geo-political rivalry between Japan and the US and you have Americans veiwing Japanese immigrants with alot more cynism than toward German or Italian emigres.
True, Germans were interned but very few relative to their numbers in the population and most of those so jailed were conspicuously political and were frequently active in the American Bund or the neo-fascist Silver Shirts. Additionally you had the problem of numbers. So many Americans had some amount of German-blood that a comprehensive program of internment such as happened to Japanese but directed towards German ethnics was simply unattainable had the desire even existed. Had such a program been carried out, the Feds would have been interning most of the population Wisconsin and the Dakotas!
Nikkei, by contrast were mainly concentrated on the West Coast in 1941 and their cultural and physical differentiation from Euro-Americans meant that they were more easily identified as threats and targeted for internal exile.
Despite all this, it is interesting that the justified compensation reward paid to Nikkei internees and their next of kin in the 1980s was not also paid out to German and Italian internees. While European internees, as I indicated, were far fewer than those of Japanese extraction, there is no reason they should not have been compensated as well. Many ethnic German US citizens suffered privation as well. Neither have the Aleuts of Alaska been compensated for being forcibly moved during WWII to get them out of the way of advancing Japanese forces in 1942.
To address the question of justifying racial or national animosity, I think it is just human nature not to want to acknowledge or dwell on bad things done by your own group and instead refer to acts committed by other groups, particularly as those acts affected your own group. Hence the ethnic German disliking Japanese-Americans due to Japan's treatment of POWs and his silence on the holocaust. Not that the guy, simply by being being German was in any way culpible for German atrocities any more than your father was culpible for Japanese atrocities because of his ethnicity.
My point is that each of us, as a member of some community, real or imagined, prefers to remember our strengths or when our group was the victim and not the un-edifying parts of our history when our group attacked others. Germans prefer to remember Dresden but not Auschwitz, Jews prefer to remember Auschwitz but not their role in the Bolsehvik Revolution or the dispossesion of the Palestinians, Japanese prefer to remember the Tokyo firebombing and the atom bombs but not the Sino-Japanese war or the Thai-Burma Railway, British people recall the Blitz but not the shooting of un-armed Indian protesters in 1919. Not taking sides, just saying that that is just a part of being human.
Best,
Gunnar
Good Discussion
I’ve been roaming this forum for about a year and it’s been some time since I’ve enjoyed a thread this much. I’m sure this is an old conversation between old friends, but it’s the first I’ve been able to hear it.
Okha, my hat is off to your father and it was great to hear some of his history and experience. There is nothing like being able learn history from those lived it, or people who knew those that lived it. Thank you for sharing.
Ketoujin, that was an interesting post as well and I enjoyed reading it.
I’ve been roaming this forum for about a year and it’s been some time since I’ve enjoyed a thread this much. I’m sure this is an old conversation between old friends, but it’s the first I’ve been able to hear it.
Okha, my hat is off to your father and it was great to hear some of his history and experience. There is nothing like being able learn history from those lived it, or people who knew those that lived it. Thank you for sharing.
Ketoujin, that was an interesting post as well and I enjoyed reading it.
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14,480 Posts
Interesting thread. Having some Cherokee blood, I know lots of folks have been screwed by the majority and the "might is right" principle. The trial of tears was not pretty. Nor is the fact that when Columbus came to America, 6 million Native Americans were living fairly nice lives. By 1900, less than 100,000 remained. Native Americans were enslaved in California but the only slaves most folks are aware of in America were black.
Man's inhumanity to man is not new and it is not gonna end. I have always found it interesting that each group knows its history but is largely unaware of the plight of so many others in the same boat. Good thing that most of us move on and do not hold a grudge or dwell on it. Also, it seems a bit strange that the liberals do not care about the repression of Muslem women in Afganistan and other countries and could care less about what Sadam did to the Kurds. George Bush is more evil than those folks.?
One of my favorite movies is "Go For Broke". The 442nd was amazing and deserved even more credit than it got. Several CMHs were in order.
Man's inhumanity to man is not new and it is not gonna end. I have always found it interesting that each group knows its history but is largely unaware of the plight of so many others in the same boat. Good thing that most of us move on and do not hold a grudge or dwell on it. Also, it seems a bit strange that the liberals do not care about the repression of Muslem women in Afganistan and other countries and could care less about what Sadam did to the Kurds. George Bush is more evil than those folks.?
One of my favorite movies is "Go For Broke". The 442nd was amazing and deserved even more credit than it got. Several CMHs were in order.
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19,433 Posts
A movie I'd also recommend is "American Pastime". Well done movie set in an internment camp.
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