December 7 Anniversaries

[jsowers]

[You still have time Jonathan, try to warn the people of Pearl Harbour before it's too late!

Terry, I tried, but nobody would listen and now it's too late.

For those who don't know, that was the storyline on one of the Time Tunnel shows, and my favorite episode. The Pearl Harbor attack 69 years ago today is still one of the most tragic days in US history. A man who grew up about a mile down the road from where I live was killed on the USS Arizona. My mom has been to the Arizona memorial and seen his name listed. It's very eerie how the oil is still coming to the surface from the Arizona.

[paul-f]

In addition to remembering Pearl Harbor in 1941, today is also the anniversary of the granting of US patent #942,699 on bakelite.

  http://www.uspto.gov/news/pr/2001/01-58.jsp

[jsowers]

I bet not many people know Bakelite was named after its inventor, Leo Hendrick Baekeland. I'm glad it's not spelled Baekelite. Like Encyclopaedia Britannica.

December 6, 1941 was the anniversary of the day the script for Casablanca was submitted to Warner Brothers. The day before Pearl Harbor, and the movie was about the war. Little did they know what would happen the next day.

[Dennis Markham]

I split the topic in which Jonathan had posted what now appears as the first message on this thread.  The original discussion was about eBay photos and it evolved to the Time Tunnel Show.  Jonathan mentioned the event at Pearl Harbor so I moved just that post here.  The original topic also contains Jonathan's post.

In reply to Jonathan, here is a photo I took two years ago in November when I visited the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial in Honolulu.  I believe they said that about a quart of oil still seeps out of the ship each day.  I also took a few shots of the names on the wall that Jonathan mentioned.  

[jsowers]

Dennis, if you look at the second column from the right, in the middle where there is one name by itself, then go up two names, that's his name. Lloyd Harold Tussey, Electrician's Mate 3rd Class. There's a great interactive site on the Arizona Memorial where you can look up all who gave their life 69 years ago.

http://go.footnote.com/arizona_memorial/

I did a screen capture and cropped it a little so his name is in the middle and posted it below.

[Dennis Markham]

Thank you Jonathan.  I wasn't aware of that site.  I guess I never looked.  I was hoping you'd be able to identify the man that was your relative's neighbor on the list.  You were one step ahead of me.

[AE_Collector]

So all of these memorials are great but when ever I look at them I can't help wondering how close to "forgotten" they will become years from now once no one can relate to the original event.

With that in mind, this very discussion IS a great example of us remembering those who gave so much for our freedom. Thanks Lloyd Harold Tussey and all of your mates for everything that you sacrificed for the rest of us on that unfortunate day in 1941.

Terry

[McHeath]

So all of these memorials are great but when ever I look at them I can't help wondering how close to "forgotten" they will become years from now once no one can relate to the original event.

An unfortunate and sad deal eh?  Not a single kid at school that I spoke to today knew about Pearl Harbor, or anything really about WW2.  My son, who's in 12th grade, commented that no one at his high school mentioned it today. 

And to make us all really feel old, the elementary school kids I work with now have no living memory at all of Sept 11 because they were born no later than 1998.

[Tom B]

The same sacrifices are still being made today as those of my grandfather's battalion who died on the Somme in July of 1916. My Grandad and one mate were the only ones out of 800 who went into battle- 2 walked out of the line of fire - the rest of the boys were killed or wounded