US Hawks Hang Gliding Association

I'm remembering all those who saw the sun rise over Pearl Harbor,this day in 1941 and never got to see it set.

When i was a little boy I met a woman who was a nurse on duty at the hospital when the attack came. When she finally got to go home, three days later, her husband was among the missing. No sign of him was ever found.

This evening I will sit on my back porch and play a flute for her husband and all the others who didn't get to go home again that evening. I will have been blessed with watching another sunset.

Frank

I worked with Charley Risher, for many years, who was blown off the deck of the Arizona at Pearl Harbor. I mentioned this a while back and made an erroneous statement that Charley trained under Pappy Boyington as one of the early pilots to fly from carriers or whatever they called the early launch craft. It wasn't erroneous that he flew with Boyington but I believe I said that they launched with steam power when he actually told me that it was black powder that was used to propel their Biplanes off the deck. Steam came later.
Charley suffered for years driving trains into the sunsets and sunrises, with a bad back from his Pearl Harbor injuries.
Sunsets are great but sometimes sunrises sucked after a long night over the road.
I broke an alcohol free streak last night with an actual 9 year old bottle of Miller Draft, in a toast to my old friend, C.A. Risher.
May he rest in peace.

Great first hand accounts at:

   http://www.hometownheroesradio.com

May also be playing on your local radio stations.

My exposure to Pearl Harbor is my (now 88 year old) mother telling me about listening to the radio (where she lived east of Rochester, NY) with her mother and father and having the announcement of the attack break into the regular radio show.

My father, now passed, was too young to join the armed forces until 1943. He did so well on the Navy entrance exams that they sent him to college - which was required for his becoming an officer. He graduated in 1945 just before the war ended. The Navy basically just told him to go home.

It's very sad to think of all the military personnel who lost their lives on 12/7/1941.

All gave some.....Some gave all

Hand Salute !