Pearl Harbor Survivors Won't Be Attending the Ceremonies This Year-- Part 2

But this year, the health risks among the aging survivors will prevent them from going.  The National Park Service and Navy will jointly host the event this year and the ceremony is also closed to the public.  

The gathering will be televised and will feature a moment of silence, a flyover in missing man formation and a speech by the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

Mickey Ganitch served the rest of the war on the USS Pennsylvania, helping recapture the Alaskan islands of Attu and Kiska.  The battleship also bombarded Japanese positions  to help with the amphibious assaults on Pacific islands of Kwajalein, Saipan and Guam.

Ganitch remained in the U.S. Navy for more than twenty years.

--Pearl Harbor

Survivors Remember Pearl Harbor From Afar in 2020 Amid Pandemic-- Part 1

Every December 7 every one of my eight blogs devote themselves to this day.  I am not forgetting.

From then December 6, 2020, Go Erie (Ohio) by Audrey McAvoy, AP.

U.S. Navy sailor Mickey Ganitch was getting ready to play a football game in Pearl Harbor that day.  Instead of football, he spent the day scanning the skies for Japanese planes-- still wearing his padding and brown football uniform shirt. 

Now, 79 years later, the 101-year-old Ganitch and other survivors of the battle will not be attending the ceremonies there because of the virus.  He has attended them most years since the mid-2000s.

Nearly 80 years ago, his USS Pennsylvania football team  was scheduled to face the team from the USS Arizona.  They had donned their uniforms aboard their ships since there was nowhere to change near the football field.

The pigskin showdown never happened.

The USS Pennsylvania was in drydock when the attack took place so none of the torpedoes which did so much damage to other ships were able to hit them.  The ship was one of the first to return fire.  Even so, the ship lost 31 men.  Ganitch said a 500-pound bomb missed him by about 45 feet.

--Pearl Harbor

Things to Know About Pearl Harbor

Well, more than five.

From the December 7, 2019, Kankakee (Illinois) Daily Journal "Five things to know about Pearl harbor."

**  The attack destroyed or damaged  about 20 Navy ships and more than 300 planes.

**  Drydocks and airfields were likewise destroyed.

**  2,403 sailors and soldiers and civilians were killed.

**  Nearly all the battleships at Pearl Harbor were significantly damaged:  Maryland, West Virginia, California, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Tennessee were either sunk of badly damaged.  All, however, were raised and repaired and fought.  The USS Arizona and Oklahoma were both sunk and never fought again.

**  Despite this,the U.S. Pacific Fleet was not knocked out of the war..

**  The Japanese failed to destroy the most important onshore facilities:  oil storage depots,  repair shops, shipyards and submarine yards.  As a result, the U.S. was able to rebound rather quickly.

**  Unexpected American reaction.  The attack united the country with a desire to go to war,

**  When FDR asked for a declaration of war the next day,  Congress was just one vote shy of unanimous, with Rep. Jeannette Rankin of Montana voting against it (she had also voted against the WW I declaration).  She said, "As a woman I can't go to war, and I refuse to send anyone else."

--GreGen

Just One In Three Pearl Harbor Survivors Will Be Able to Attend a Ceremony Today

These are some of today's headlines about Pearl Harbor from around the country to mark the event.  You can type in the headlines to read the articles.

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**  Pearl Harbor veteran's internment to be the last on the USS Arizona.

**  Wisconsin Pearl Harbor survivor to release book detailing his life story.

**  Writer remembers Pearl Harbor survivors.

**  Pearl Harbor survivor to rejoin 'all my buddies' as his ashes are placed on sunken battleship.

**  USS Arizona survivor remembers Pearl Harbor.

**  Pearl Harbor commemoration to continue  in Inland Northwest, even after death of last known local survivor.

**  Oldest Pearl Harbor survivor being honored in Solana Beach.

**  Norris Burkes:  Grass Valley Pearl Harbor survivor Joe Feld remembers the Day of Infamy.

**  Pearl Harbor survivors return to Oahu  to share their memories of the attack.

December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor

This is a new blog so might confuse readers as to why I take this day to write about this event, which took place today, 78 years ago on the island of Oahu.  I write about it in all my blogs this day.

A Day of Infamy.  A Day which won't be forgotten in my blogs.