Thursday, February 7, 2008
Tora, Tora, Tora!
I used to think that meant attack or something along those lines in Japanese. However, upon first viewing the quiet sleepy Sunday that was Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, one of the scout planes for the Japanese shouted into his radio TORA! TORA! TORA!-which actually translates into Tiger Tiger Tiger the operation code word for strategic surprise....the rest as they say is History.
Most interesting to me was the Japanese visitors, which I believe I talked about in other posts. They supposedly feel shame, and are apologetic...Somewhere I wonder if they are like pumping fists at that battle, but then again it did lead to the bombs....
Well here you arrive at the USS Arizona and take a small boat which links you directly to the memorial which is suspended right above the salty catacomb of broken rusted metal and globs of bubbling oil rising to the surface housing the remains of the some 1700 dead. This is one Battleship. Of interest was the Nevada, which was one of the only ships to move and try to get out of the harbor that day. The story goes-that as her silhouette moved gracefully through the smoke and wreckage, sailors cheered throughout the Harbor as it meant one less battleship was affected. Of course this made for a great target and the ship was pummeled by the second Japanese wave, however, the captain, fearing sinking in the middle of the harbor and blocking any movement, ordered the ship to be run ashore on nearby ford island.
Pretty solemn, pretty interesting. I was really thirsty and hungry and had seen that Boston's north end pizza so I wasn't staying.
And of course I think I annoyed some Japanese patrons for my personal questions related to how they felt about the attack. I really wanted one of them to just say, man we kicked your ass that day, so I could say "scoreboard" back to them, and then of course they could say like "yen" or we own you or "Honda" or something like that back to me to complete the circle of Irony.
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