Japan Attacked America and Started WWII 75 Years Ago

The Imperial Japanese Navy launched an unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, December 7, 1941. The next day, President Franklin Roosevelt faced an emergency gathering of the U.S. senators and representatives to declare war against Japan and later Germany and Italy.

More than 16 million American servicemen and women participated in WWII, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. A canvass conducted by the federal office during the first quarter of this year listed only 620,000 veterans of the war remain alive.

To honor the men and women who fought and many who died defending America, I posted a blog about the Pearl Harbor attack in November, 2014.  In alignment with the upcoming 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, I am sharing that blog post again here. 

World War II began without warning for the United States on December 7, 1941.  A surprise attack from the Empire of Japan started the war during a beautiful Sunday morning on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, the home of the U.S. Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor.

A clear sky with a warm day looming made it promising to spend time outside on a golf course or a tennis court.  Instead of providing for a day of leisure, the weather gave perfect conditions for a flight of fighter airplanes to find their way from an aircraft carrier hundreds of miles off shore.

Minutes before 8 a.m., Japanese fighter planes began dropping specially designed torpedoes into the harbor. The torpedoes were set to run only 35 feet deep to be effective in the shallow water.  Delivered with deadly accuracy, the underwater, powered bombs were fired from the first wave of 83 aircraft sent from one of six aircraft carriers.

An armada of 30 warships including the carriers traveled undetected for thousands of miles from the Land of the Rising Sun.  An attack force of 423 fighter/bomber planes rested on top of the carriers and remained undetected during the attack that lasted less than two hours. The fighters had to fly almost 90 minutes from the carriers to reach Pearl Harbor.

The element of surprise worked perfectly for the Japanese. Their fighters were able to cross several miles of ocean, follow the terrain of the island and find the harbor without any resistance from the Americans.

Ironically, one Army private saw the first wave of planes crossing Oahu. He and another soldier were manning a remote radar station. It was used to give advanced warning to the U.S. Fleet of possible enemy planes. When he saw the large flight of planes on the radar screen, he called in the sighting. The radar intelligence office instructed the soldier to ignore them. The radar blips, the officer said, were a flight of B-17 bombers that were expected to fly into Hawaii that morning.

Eight U.S. battleships were stationed in the harbor.  All of them were damaged by torpedoes.  The Arizona and the Oklahoma were destroyed.  Six battleships eventually returned to service after repairs.

The Arizona sank with 1,000 men on board. A memorial of a white concrete and steel structure spans the hull of the sunken ship. It was dedicated on May 30, 1962, to honor the Americans who died in the attacks in 1941.

More than 180 American aircraft were destroyed. Few American planes left the ground. Clustered in tight groups on the airfield, they were sitting ducks for Japanese bombs and machine guns.

The second wave of planes left the attacking carriers with the intent of damaging other ships and shipyard facilities.  Storage tanks holding thousands of gallons of fuel were targeted by the invading planes, but the precious gasoline was not destroyed.

The prime targets wanted by the Japanese consisted of the three Pacific Fleet carriers—the Lexington, Enterprise and Saratoga.  Fortunately, the U.S. aircraft carriers were on maneuvers, many miles from Pearl Harbor. They were safe from the invasion.

By 9:45 a.m., the Japanese inflicted enough damage to cripple the U.S. fleet.  The attackers’ original plan was to send in a third wave of planes to finish off the remaining equipment and the vital fuel supply on Pearl Harbor. The Japanese admirals argued about continuing the attack, because they didn’t know how close the missing American aircraft carriers were to Hawaii. The Japanese had plenty of airplanes and ammunition to complete the attack against the U.S., but the admirals made a mistake in leaving without finishing the job.

The United States government and the government of Great Britain declared war against Imperial Japan the next day.  On December 8, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt made the announcement to a joint session of Congress that the United States was going to war. 

The war would surely have lasted longer if the Japanese had taken their element of surprise to the next level and wiped out Pearl Harbor. Most historians agree that the end of the war would have taken longer but still have the same results even if the attack on Pearl Harbor had been more destructive.

One leader of the Japanese Navy, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, was the main officer in the attack on Pearl Harbor.  While the armada retreated from American waters he described the situation best in facing the United States entering the new war:

“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”

Japanese Midget Subs Used in Pearl Harbor Attack

New facts have surfaced about the role of small submarines the Japanese used in the surprise bombing on Pearl Harbor. That unprovoked attack pushed the United States into WWII 75 years ago.

Military officials always acknowledged that five midget submarines were part of the surprise attack. Until recent years, however, those historians believed that the small underwater boats failed to inflict any damage to the U.S. fleet stationed on the Hawaiian island of Oahu.

Research discoveries from underwater explorations conducted by two respected broadcasting companies—The History Channel and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)—recently uncovered new evidence that led to speculation about the damage inflicted to at least one U.S. battleship.

Japanese Zeros launched from aircraft carriers

This evidence includes newly obtained aerial pictures taken by the pilots of Japanese fighter airplanes, called Zeros, during the attack. The pictures show that two of the small submarines sailed into the harbor and one of the midget subs succeeded in helping to sink the USS Oklahoma. The USS Arizona was sunk inside Pearl Harbor by torpedoes launched from Zeros.

Six other battleships sitting helplessly on battleship row were badly damaged. The damaged ships were repaired and later participated in America’s naval war against Japan.  

Hundreds of pictures were taken by the attacking aircraft and by Americans on the ground during the Sunday morning attack on December 7, 1941. Photographs show the battleship USS Oklahoma exploding upwards before it capsized and sank into the harbor. That evidence plus grainy, out-of-focus pictures from attacking Zeros, indicate at least one torpedo launched underwater by a small submarine hit the battleship.

Because the midget subs used torpedoes with almost twice the destructive power of the ones carried by attacking airplanes, the evidence of the battleship exploding into the air has convinced some historians and photo experts that the USS Oklahoma received major damage from one of the midget submarines.

USS Oklahoma explosion from torpedo hit

Underwater wreckage of the fifth midget sub was uncovered near the entrance to the harbor in August, 2009. The ship’s torpedo tubes were empty, indicating they were fired and may have hit the USS Oklahoma. Bodies of the two-man crew remain inside the wreck that was too badly damaged to raise. A PBS Nova broadcast named “Killer Subs in Pearl Harbor” explores the new evidence of the effectiveness of the surprise Japanese weapon.   

USS Arizona Memorial

Photo evidence of a second midget submarine getting into the harbor shows that ship firing two torpedoes that missed any ships. The two stray torpedoes exploded into a wooden dock far behind the eight battleships sitting on battleship row.

A Japanese Armada of more than 30 ships launched a two-wave attack of fighter/bombers from six aircraft carriers positioned several miles off the coast of Hawaii. More than 400 airplanes rested on the top of the carriers.

The Imperial Naval Fleet stayed so far off shore that the airplanes had to fly almost 90 minutes to reach the U.S. target. It was an amazing feat of using stealth tactics and the element of surprise in an attack that decimated most of America’s naval fleet. More than 2,400 Americans, both military and civilian, died during the attack that began slightly before 8 a.m. Sunday.

The midget U-boats rode on top of submarines that traveled underwater and released the small subs close to the opening of Pearl Harbor. A two-man crew inside the midget submarines had to endure extreme heat that was generated by battery-powered motors that drove twin propellers.

The crew had just enough room to steer the small U-boats and operate a periscope. Most of the cabin was filled with batteries that filled the hot cabin with acrid smells and made the air inside the subs hard to breathe. The crew had very little time to get into the harbor, fire their torpedoes, and retreat to try to be rescued by the mother submarines. They could operate the subs at full power, about 22 mph underwater, for less than one hour.  

The name “midget submarines” is misleading in describing the size of the small attack subs. Measuring about 80 feet long and six feet wide, the small boats were about 1/3rd the length of a full-sized submarine. Deep water exploration submarines today are a fraction of that size. 

Midget Submarines

Each of the small submarines carried two powerful torpedoes attached on top of the ships’ hulls. The torpedoes, each measuring 18 feet long, had twice the destructive power of the ones dropped by the Zeros. Massive recoil from a fired torpedo rocked the midget subs out of the shallow harbor and left a distinctive plum of water from the twin propellers as they broke the surface.

It’s the water spray, called a rooster tail, photo interpreters saw on the captured wartime photography. That’s how they concluded that two of the small subs made the almost impossible trip into the shallow harbor, shot their four torpedoes, and then skillfully sailed out as they tried to get into deep water.

One of the subs sank near the mouth of Pearl Harbor after being hit with depth charges from American ships. Another small sub ran onto a beach on the east side of Oahu. The pilot was captured and became America’s first prisoner of war.  The submarine was put on a tour of the United States to promote the sale of War Bonds.

The Japanese planes disabled America’s entire battleship fleet but fell short of completing the job. Before sending a third air attack that would have completed the destruction to the critical equipment and thousands of gallons of fuel stored on Pearl Harbor, the Imperial Armada retreated back to Japan.

The attackers planned to destroy the three Pacific Fleet aircraft carriers that were assigned to Pearl Harbor. Fortunately, the Lexington, Enterprise and Saratoga were conducting training maneuvers thousands of miles away from Pearl Harbor.

Not knowing when the U.S. carriers were due to return, the admirals in charge of the Japanese fleet feared that their ships could be destroyed by U.S. fighter planes. Retreating before finishing the job was a terrible mistake by the Japanese attackers and an opportunity for the American forces to use their aircraft carriers in the offensive that became World War II.

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Electoral College Selects the President, not Direct Votes

November 8th will be a long night for U.S. residents watching the election returns for America’s President, Vice President, and many state-level offices. After the last of the West Coast polls close, election officials will determine the winning presidential candidate late Tuesday night based on which states each candidate won.

A process called the Electoral College selects the U.S. president by tallying the number of political representatives that are selected per state. A total of 538 electoral votes are up for grabs among the 50 states plus Washington D.C. Whichever political party, Democrats or Republicans, wins the majority of 270 votes or more will be the winner.

Candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will be elected not by the popular votes each citizen makes but by the number of electoral votes they get. A meaning of the word “college” is a group that meets to accomplish particular duties; that’s the function of the Electoral College.

The official decision won’t be publicized until an anticlimactic ceremony is held during a joint session of both houses of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives on January 6, 2017. Envelopes from each state will be opened and the results of the electoral votes read aloud. The ceremony is only a formality, established long before the beginning of mass communication, since the results will be known on election night.

The Electoral College system began at the beginning of U.S. presidential politics with the 13 original states or colonies. The Constitutional Convention of 1787 established the system on September 6th of that year. Almost 3 million people populated the country then, and that was an important consideration by the U.S. Congress to establish a representative-type of election process rather than a direct democratic voting system.

1787 Constitutional Convention

Attendees at the 1787 convention went back and forth with plans to elect a president. They settled on a plan to use the state populations in selecting electors in the same way that U.S. representatives were selected. It was a method of addressing the way the population density of the country was unevenly concentrated on the East Coast, where citizens in those areas could dominate all presidential elections. They realized the population of the U.S. was going to spread westward across the country, and future states would need fair representation in selecting presidents.

Under the first use of the Electoral College, George Washington began his two terms as president in 1789.

California has the greatest number of Electoral College votes at 55. Texas is a distant second state at 38 votes. Six states and Washington D.C. get the lowest number of three electoral votes. The states each getting three votes are Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Vermont.

Obviously, the candidates’ managers concentrate on spending their campaign funds in the states with high number of electoral votes. Their goal is to win the election by getting the majority of electoral votes.  

Two states (Maine and Nebraska) take exception to the winner-take-all method of determining the number of electoral votes each state reports and take the popular votes into consideration when selecting electoral representatives.

Many people consider the Electoral System complicated and unnecessary. Eliminating the electoral method and using the majority of the popular votes to determine the next president gets discussed every election year. Such a change would require an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. 

Thank you for reading this blog. See my website at www.joevlatino.com. 

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Popcorn: It’s Been Around Thousands of Years

Archeological digs in Mexico uncovered evidence of popcorn kernels dating back to 3,600 BC. It’s the earliest evidence that humans ate popcorn. However, historians surmise that the snack food wasn’t a staple in the diets of ancient humans, because it easily burned when cooked over open fires. Its popularity didn’t soar until 5,500 years later during the first part of the 20^th century.

Inventor and entrepreneur Charles Cretors increased the accessibility of popcorn in the early 1900’s when he invented a portable popcorn maker/vendor. A Chicago candy store owner, Cretors was the inventor of a steam powered nut roasting machine mounted on a cart that one person could push and sell the hot snacks around city streets. He adapted that technology to work with popcorn, and the popularity of the convection grew as people bought popcorn from street corner sellers. Acreage of farmland dedicated to raising the unique seed, which is different from the ears of corn people eat, increased as the demand for popcorn grew.     

Making popcorn at home, a depression era shortage of sugar, and the booming business of movie theaters led to an enormous increase in popularity of eating popcorn in North America during the first part of the 20^th Century.

In May, 1929, the U.S. stock market crash started the Great Depression that lasted up to World War II. The population found solace and temporary relief from the lack of jobs, money and adequate food in the low cost of going to the movies. A ten cent movie ticket allowed audiences to see what was called a double feature—two new movies back-to-back. Hollywood kept cranking out movies through the 1930s into the war years to meet the increasing demand for new features. That resulted in a record number of people going to the movies each week. A sugar shortage drove up the cost of candy, and popcorn, with its cheap price of 10 to 15 cents a bag, became the mainstay for movie goers’ snack food.

Two major inventions—the microwave oven and the video tape player/recorder—unexpectedly worked together to get popcorn sales soaring even higher.

A major improvement in making popcorn at home came from an unplanned use of microwave energy. Experimenting in 1945 with cooking food with different energy sources, electrical engineer Percy Spencer discovered that microwave energy did an excellent job of cooking popcorn. During the next decade, the convenience of the new type of cooking resulted in microwave ovens becoming common in homes everywhere.

The invention of video tape machines in 1956 signaled an important boom to home entertainment. During the 1960’s the cost of VCRs kept dropping, allowing most households to own one. Consumers could rent and see full-length movies in their homes without commercials, and eating popcorn while watching movies was a natural progression. Manufactures put several types of electrical popcorn makers on the market, including hot air poppers, to cash in on the growing popularity of making popcorn at home.

According to The Popcorn Institute in Chicago, Americans eat more popcorn than any other country. In the United States, 1.18 billion pounds of popcorn were consumed in 2015. About 70% was eaten at home. The remaining 30% was consumed in theaters, stadiums, and other entertainment venues.

Popcorn kernels are different from other types of corn, and they can last indefinitely when they are stored in a dry place. That’s why kernels have been found in the diggings of ancient civilizations.

The hard, outer hulls of popcorn kernels protect the starch and water inside. During the cooking process, moisture inside the kernels turns to steam and explodes the kernels, making a distinctive popping noise. The exploded or popped kernels become a tasty white puff of low calorie starch. Only specific popcorn kernels have the tough outer husks that allow the moisture inside to get hot enough to explode the seed. That’s why drying and trying to use other types of corn to make popcorn doesn’t work.

By itself, popcorn is considered a healthy, low calorie food. However, popular flavorings such as salts, coconut oils, sugars, and caramel add many empty calories but no nutrition to popcorn. But the popularity of flavored popcorn by consumers has encouraged specialty businesses to spring up inside malls and shopping centers where dozens of different flavors of popcorn are sold.

People have used popcorn for nonfood applications. Some creative uses include stringing popcorn and using it as a decoration, especially during the holiday months when it’s hung on Christmas trees. 

Popcorn has been used as an environmentally safe packing material inside shipping boxes. That application, however, can attract insects that invade the packaging, leading shipping industry officials to prohibit the use of popcorn for packaging.

Thanks for visiting this blog. Go to my website at www.joevlatino.com to get information about my book, “The Device” and to view one of my short stories.   

Constitution Day and Citizenship Day: the Forgotten Celebration

September 17th marks the day in 1787 when the delegates signed their names to the U.S. Constitution. When our founding fathers ratified the Constitution 229 years ago in Philadelphia, they in effect made themselves traitors to the Crown of England and guilty of the capital crime of treason in the eyes of King George III.

 

This observance to the U.S. Constitution emphasizes the bravery and sacrifice of our founding fathers, the signers of the document. But it’s always overlooked by most American citizens because it’s not a federal holiday; the country’s population doesn’t get a mandated day off work. 

The official observance of the important date goes back to the 1939 New York World’s Fair. It was called “I am an American Day” with the slogan displayed throughout the New York celebration. Print media, radio programs and early broadcasts by television networks promoted the slogan. By 1949, governors of all 48 states issued proclamations that gave credibility to the observance that provided recognition to natural born citizens as well as people who become citizens.

The U.S. Congress renamed it “Citizenship Day” on February 29, 1952, and made it officially recognized by the federal government. September 17th was named the official date. The new name downplayed the importance of the time in history that signaled the adoption of the U.S. Constitution; the observance became more orphan-like in its lack of interest by the citizenship. 

Finally, in 2004 a federal amendment to a spending bill renamed it “Constitution Day and Citizenship Day.” The new law mandated that publicly funded educational institutions provide programming about the American Constitution every Sept. 17th. If the date falls on a weekend or other holiday, the next school day will be used. One year later, the Department of Education modified the law so that it would apply to all schools receiving any federal funds.

“Constitution Day and Citizenship Day” is an important part of the cultural heritage of the United States of America. It recognizes the value of the American heritage that allows the success of a nation of free people to have their rights and liberties protected by a written constitution. 

Thanks for reading this blog. Please see my website at www.joevlatino.com.

U.S. Military Jeep Turns 75 Years Old

In the summer of 1940, the U.S. Department of the Army contacted l35 manufacturers about building prototypes of a small, four-wheel-drive vehicle that soldiers could use in field and battle situations. Army officials saw the need for a small, reconnaissance vehicle more than a year before the Japanese attack on the naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, that pushed the country into World War II.

This early, almost desperate request from the U.S. Army indicated the feelings among military leaders that America was destined to join the war being waged in Europe by Japan and Germany. The rugged, multipurpose Jeep started its production run eight months before the United States was attacked on December 7, 1941. This gave America a leg up on one critical piece of war machinery.

Only three vehicle manufacturers responded to the Army’s 1940 request for prototypes of what became the Jeep. The Army set an unrealistic deadline of 49 days for a working model that could be tested. The American Bantam Car Co. met the deadline and provided the first model the Army accepted. Willys Overland and Ford Motor Company won the other two contracts the government provided. The manufacturing began in August,1941.  Bantam pulled out early after producing 2,700 vehicles. Financial problems caused American Bantam to switch to manufacturing military trailers.

Working together, Willys provided Ford with the engine the Army insisted had to propel the vehicle at least 70 miles per hour. The Army’s short deadline included an impossible requirement for a weight limitation of no more than 1,300 pounds. Willys’ prototype weighed about 2,000 pounds because of the large engine needed to meet the speed requirements. The Army relented and accepted the heavier vehicle.

The versatile vehicle was used by all branches of American military as well as the country’s allies during WWII. After the war, civilian models have been sold since 1945. Jeeps had many updates and improvements that kept them in use well into the time of the Viet Nam war. Bigger, more sophisticated vehicles are part of the military inventory today.

The name Jeep became the unofficial designation long before the Willys Quad and the Ford Pygmy started production in August, 1941. Origins of the word jeep (with a small j) appear in military materials as early as the 1920’s. Jeep is a generic term for any unproven or experimental piece of military equipment.

Looking in a military material catalog, one would see the official description of the Jeep as a one-quarter ton, 4x4 Army truck. One explanation of the name Jeep is that it is the slurring of the descriptions government purpose or general purpose.

Another more colorful explanation comes from a character in the Popeye the Sailor cartoons and comic strip series. The Jeep was a magical, lovable character who could make himself invisible. The only word he spoke was “jeep.” His dependable and helpful personality made military people compare him to their favorite Jeep vehicle.

The civilian Jeep has had several owners. Today it’s a wholly owned subsidiary of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. Jeep remains headquartered in Toledo, Ohio, where it started as a civilian company.  

Thank you for reading this blog. Visit my website at www.joevlatino.com for information about by book of short stories.

National Park Service Turns 100 This Month

America’s National Park Service (NPS) is a federal agency that manages all the parks, monuments and many historical properties that belong to the United States. The NPS turns 100 this month.

Yellowstone National Park is the world’s first national park. The U.S. Congress passed a law that President Ulysses S. Grant signed on March 1, 1872, protecting the 3,268.4 square miles that make up Yellowstone--the country’s largest park.

Existing primarily in Wyoming and extending into smaller parts of Montana and Idaho, Yellowstone was described in the law as “a public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.”

The public’s demand for more national parks resulted in the number growing to 35 by the beginning of the twentieth century. Several local and federal agencies claimed authority over the same parks, causing conflicts in financing and managerial responsibilities.

President Woodrow Wilson centralized the responsibilities and management of the national parks. The U.S. Congress approved the president’s National Park Service Act on the 25^th of August one hundred years ago.  The law made the NPS an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior. President Wilson wrote that he wanted the NPS “to conserve the scenery and the national and historical objects and wildlife therein.”

The NPS currently oversees 59 national parks and more than 350 monuments and historic properties. It takes 21,635 employees to care for America’s national parks that welcomed more than 307 million visitors last year. The federal budget to run the NPS in 2016 is at an all-time high of $3 billion. If you want to visit one of the parks or properties in the NPS, you can find the location nearest you by using the NPS website.

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Olympic Rings Symbolize All Countries and Nations

August 5, 2016, marks the opening ceremonies of the 31^st Modern Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Flags and banners showing five different colored rings on a white background line major roads throughout the city in Brazil.  Blue, yellow, black, green and red rings interlock against the white background, representing the colors of all of the competing countries.

The Olympic Flag is an iconic symbol owned by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that uses it to promote the summer and winter games. Headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland, the IOC aggressively protects the copyright of the flag. It’s the exclusive property of the IOC, and it can’t be used without written consent from the international organization.  

A common myth that the symbol of the interlocking rings was used during the first Olympic Games from 776 BC until 338 AD isn’t true.  Baron Pierre de Coubertin, cofounder of the modern Olympic Games in the late 1800’s, designed the Olympic Flag in 1912. He promoted the use of the flag to represent the international spirit of the world-wide competition.

For 16 days the games will match competitors from more than 200 countries. Athletes from throughout the world will try to get hold of gold, silver and bronze metals. For Brazil the real reward will come from millions of dollars tourists bring to the events promoted by the IOC.

Enjoy the games of the XXXI Olympiad!

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