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Friendly Fire at Pearl Harbor

Discussion in 'Pearl Harbor' started by GRW, Oct 31, 2021.

  1. GRW

    GRW Pillboxologist WW2|ORG Editor

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    This doesn't get mentioned often.
    "Japan’s Sunday morning surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 incapacitated American naval power in the Pacific. Tragically, the sudden assault took the lives of more than 2,300 US military personnel. The American public was understandably outraged. These are the basic facts, but sometimes the stories within the story are far more intriguing.
    The 1937 Packard Six touring car sits on four flat tires, stopped dead at the corner of Judd and Iholena Streets in Honolulu. The vehicle is peppered with holes and the body of the driver can still be seen slumped over the steering wheel. The famous photo was shot by Look Magazine photographer Patricia Robbins, but the image turned up everywhere because it seemed to prove the unmitigated barbarism of the Japanese attack.
    Collier’s ran the photo a year later in the December 1942 issue. Pulling no punches, the cover of the magazine showed a devilish bat creature, wearing Imperial Japanese Navy dress uniform and hefting a cartoon bomb. The caption with the photograph of the destroyed automobile reads as follows:
    “Three civilians in this riddled car met death from fragments of a bomb dropped by a Japanese plane eight miles from Pearl Harbor, far from a military objective. Japanese planes bombed residential districts, hospitals, and schools. In Waikiki they machine-gunned civilian centers and strafed the streets.”
    Almost none of it was true.
    The four men in the car were ship riggers on the way to Pearl Harbor to assist with recovery efforts just as the second wave of Japanese attackers arrived around 9:00 a.m. In a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, an errant shell from a Navy vessel some 6.6 miles away, crashed down to earth near the car and exploded. Killed instantly were Joseph Adams, 50, his son 18 year old John Adams, and Joseph McCabe Sr., 43. David Kahookele, McCabe’s first cousin, survived the explosion but he died while being transported to the hospital.
    These men were not the only victims near the blast. Groups of children of the neighborhood were perched on their front steps, watching the Japanese planes zooming overhead and the explosions off to the west. Matilda Faufata was standing with her cousins near her front door when the shell landed in the street near the Packard. A fragment of shrapnel struck 12 year old Matilda in the heart.
    Aboard the USS Astoria (CA-34) in the spring of 1942, a crew fires their 5/25 anti-aircraft gun during target practice. The fuse setter for the weapon can be seen in the foreground. Courtesy National Archives.
    The stray shell, probably a 5-inch shell from a battleship or heavy cruiser, was one of about 40 projectiles known to have landed among the neighborhoods surrounding Pearl Harbor. They thumped down on top of homes, shops, and a school, doing roughly half a million dollars damage.
    Most of the 49 civilians killed during Pearl Harbor actually died from American gunfire, not the enemy’s attack."
    www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/friendly-fire-pearl-harbor?fbclid=IwAR3S0gNmM32IGTz4fMd5TnRbyiw6lgneVM_5N6SRohIM-r1r5EthFuiQJXk
     
    Biak and Kai-Petri like this.
  2. OpanaPointer

    OpanaPointer I Point at Opana Staff Member WW2|ORG Editor

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    The Pearl Harbor Hearings cover misset and unset shells. It was no secret by 1946.
     
  3. bronk7

    bronk7 Well-Known Member

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    not surprising ......friendly fire and, more frequent is the MSM getting it totally wrong
     
  4. Biak

    Biak Boy from Illinois Staff Member

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  5. harolds

    harolds Member

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    This is why civil defense policies are needed. Standing around and gawking at an air raid is just asking for trouble. Bomb shelters, large and small, can protect one not only against enemy bombs but duds, as mentioned above. Shrapnel and expended bullets coming down also contain risk. In Europe, most major countries had civil defense shelters and procedures set up before the war started. Here in the USA, we had little or no CD activity.
     
  6. Kai-Petri

    Kai-Petri Kenraali

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    In Germany, I read, when people were in the cellars, where also the Winter coal was stored, during bombing part the coal could start burning and carbon monoxide could be Created that killed the people hiding the bombing, not the bombing itself. Just one detail itself when talking about outside shelters.
     
  7. bronk7

    bronk7 Well-Known Member

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  8. bronk7

    bronk7 Well-Known Member

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  9. Biak

    Biak Boy from Illinois Staff Member

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    HarHarHar
     
  10. bronk7

    bronk7 Well-Known Member

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    yes, HAHAHAHAH......
    I send PMs and these people don't even want to even try to discuss the issues.....
    ..they can't refute the facts --which I've posted before on WW2F
    ..
    ....come over to USMessageboard website..just about anything goes there.....but don't be puss like some people
    ..or perhaps should I post a thread here---? would you ignore the facts also?
    ..of course there are a lot of brainwashed hitlerjugend on WW2F that believe the MSM crap
    ..and, when some people state facts, the HJ go apeshit yelling RACISM/etc
    ....WW2F is very tame compared to other sites ...
     
    Last edited: Nov 14, 2021
  11. Kai-Petri

    Kai-Petri Kenraali

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    If we are tame and Hitler Jugend what's your point? I cannot see how you mix them together? Do you?
     
  12. Takao

    Takao Ace

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    Yet another misinterpretation of the facts...
    Nobody is hiding from you, especially me.

    The lack of response, is a result of a MOD deleted post, pointing out the fact that right-wing media is also MSM. Apparently, the MODS see you as a "weak sister", a nd coddle you by deleting posts you may find offensive...While, at the same time, allowing you to air you irrational fears and call other members "Hitler Jungend" and pusses. My only explanation for this is that you need to be wet-nursed, while the rest of us are made of sterner stuff.

    Still waiting for those PMs.
    Did you send them "snail mail"?
    Or, is this yet another falsehood, fiction, lie, etc. That you are telling.

    I have refuted your "alternate facts" or "counterfactuals", if you prefer, and have had posts deleted and been given cooler time...Making quite clear that refuting your "alternative facts" is a fool's errand, although not because these "alternate facts" are correct or true.

    Ah, yes, a place where zealots on both sides gather to talk past each other, as opposed to a forum where members talk to each other. Thanks all the same, but I prefer talking to people, not past them.

    As opposed to those who succumb to their irrational fears?

    Less your statement of facts...More your misinterpretation of them.


    I'll see how long this post stays up, because some don't want Bronk's feelings hurt.

    I give it 5 minutes...10 tops.
     
  13. Takao

    Takao Ace

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    Facts don't stand in the way of irrational fears...All kinds of possibilities for mixing open up.
     
  14. Biak

    Biak Boy from Illinois Staff Member

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    This post went from an article on WW2 Pearl Harbor to present day hysteria/conspiracy BS.

    If there's anything I've learned in the last 5-6 years is you can't fix stupid but you can ignore it.
     
  15. Kai-Petri

    Kai-Petri Kenraali

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    Ï think mixing is the problem. We are HJ or tame. Not both. I´d rather be Schindler than hard core nazi. All the other answers are not correct. Just my view on this matter.
     

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