Podcasts about battleship row

Last time we spoke about the ending of the Second Battle of Changsha. In late September and early October 1941, Chinese commander Chen Cheng planned an operation to retake Yichang, a strategic Yangtze River city whose control was essential for protecting the approach to Chongqing. Japanese forces were pulling back from Changsha, weakened by supply problems and casualties, which created an opportunity for Chen to intensify his campaign. Yichang had been captured by Japan in 1940, a defeat that Chen carried as a personal and political burden. He therefore moved to encircle the Japanese 13th Division inside Yichang and drive it to collapse. Although the Chinese held a clear manpower advantage—fourteen divisions against the encircled Japanese—progress was slowed by stubborn fighting from prepared, entrenched positions. The battle inside the city produced desperate close-quarters combat and heavy casualties, showing how the fate of Yichang and the wider defense of Chongqing were tightly linked.    #214 War hits the Pacific Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War.   The guns fell silent on October 9, 1941, as the Ninth War Zone's forces restored their pre-battle positions, marking the end of the Second Battle of Changsha. The balance sheet was grim on both sides, but it was China that bore the heavier cost. The Ninth Military Front suffered 70,672 killed, wounded, or missing. The concurrent Yichang offensive added a further 21,368 casualties to the Sixth Military Front, a force that outnumbered its Japanese opponents ten to one yet still failed to retake the city. By the time the dust settled, the Chinese army had lost nearly 100,000 men across both theatres. The Chinese command was frank, at least in private, about what had gone wrong. The Japanese had moved with a speed that recalled Blitzkrieg, advancing 130 kilometres in eleven days and withdrawing at twelve kilometres a day, catching the defenders perpetually off-balance. The 26th, 37th, 10th, and 74th Corps had been picked apart piecemeal rather than fighting in concert, the original plan to destroy the Japanese south of the Miluo River coming to nothing. Elite formations had paid a disproportionate price: the 74th Corps suffered 14,521 casualties, the 37th Corps 14,015, and the 58th Division alone lost 6,192 of its 11,907 men, nearly its entire fighting strength.   Yet none of this was the story the public would hear. On October 10th, China's National Day, radio stations announced the "Second Great Victory in Northern Hunan", the annihilation of over 40,000 enemy troops. Newspapers rushed out special editions. Congratulatory telegrams flooded in from government ministries and civic organizations. Senior officials seized on the moment: Sun Ke, Premier of the Executive Yuan, declared that the victory "laid the foundation for the counter-offensive and the recapture of Hankou and Guangzhou," while General Bai Chongxi called it "the pivotal moment for us to turn defeat into victory." Chiang Kai-shek, reading through the pages of triumphant commentary produced overnight by his propagandists, was reportedly impressed by their industry, if not convinced by their content. He had not wanted to call it a victory at all, but the political calculus was unavoidable: after four years of war, an exhausted nation needed the psychological sustenance that only "victory" could provide.   The gap between public performance and private reality was nowhere more visible than in the arrival of a twenty-two-member international press delegation on October 13th. Journalists from Britain, the United States, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Hong Kong, and major Chinese newspapers were flown to Changsha and carefully guided through selected battlefields, where they inspected mountains of war trophies and heard testimony from soldiers and civilians. They left satisfied, presenting their war souvenirs—swords, binoculars, Japanese military flags—to their audiences back home as proof of Chinese heroism and Japanese defeat. Both China and Japan were claiming victory simultaneously. The only conclusion the foreign press could draw was that one side was lying, and it was not the side that had shown them the evidence.   Chiang Kai-shek's real verdict came at the Third Nanyue Military Conference, held from October 16 to 21. His anger was withering. He condemned his generals for their obsession with defending sprawling outer perimeter lines while leaving city centres barely fortified, a mentality so rigid, he said, that the Japanese could announce the exact time of their advance and withdrawal in advance and still execute it on schedule without interference. "Generals, what a disgrace this is!" On the failure to capture prisoners, only 263 prisoners were claimed across the entire front, of whom only 16 names were actually published, he was almost incredulous: "We can definitely defeat the enemy, capture many enemy prisoners, and seize countless enemy weapons! Even if we cannot capture ten thousand prisoners, we should at least capture a thousand! If not a thousand, then at least a hundred! But now, you don't even have ten!" The conference handed down punishments to match the rhetoric. Liao Lingqi, commander of the shattered 58th Division, was sentenced to death for desertion and shot on October 22nd. His men were so outraged that three regimental commanders resigned in protest; the division was pulled from the order of battle entirely and given three months to rebuild. Li Yutang, commander of the 10th Corps, was dismissed—though the Third Battle of Changsha would begin before his replacement could take post, and he would be reinstated to play a key role in the city's defence.   On the Japanese side, the 11th Army acknowledged 1,670 killed, 5,184 wounded, and 14 missing, far fewer than Chinese claims, though post-war regimental histories suggest the true figure was higher. Lieutenant General Anami, who had championed the operation, found himself stung by the charge that the battle had served mainly as material for Chinese propaganda. On November 23rd, he reportedly reacted with visible displeasure when someone in his headquarters said as much aloud.  Anami's annoyance was easy enough to understand, but the accusation carried a troubling degree of accuracy. The Second Battle of Changsha had yielded no decisive strategic gain and no substantial alteration in the military balance. What it did generate, rather effectively, was a story and by the autumn of 1941, stories were one of the few things China still had in plentiful supply. The most consequential struggles were taking place not along the Miluo River, but in foreign ministries and embassies, in Washington and Moscow, in the messages passing between Chongqing and London, and in the increasingly strained calculations of statesmen trying to determine, amid rapidly changing circumstances, whom to support and for how long.   For Chiang Kai-shek, the challenge was never merely military. It was structural, and had been so from the outset. He had always seen clearly, precisely because he understood China's weakness, that Japan could not be defeated by China alone. The country lacked the industrial base, the logistical reach, and after four years of relentless attrition more and more the manpower needed to force a decisive result on the battlefield. China's survival depended on making its war inseparable from the wars of other powers. Since 1937, Chiang's diplomacy had pursued that single objective: convincing enough great powers that their interests were aligned with China's, and holding that coalition together long enough for Japan to be subdued. That effort turned out to be vastly more difficult than it ought to have been.   The problem started with the international order in which the war emerged. Chiang had hoped to assemble a concert of allies willing to help defend China against Japanese aggression. He was blocked not just by the reluctance of neutral states to aid China, but by the speed with which alliances shifted in the opening years of the Second World War. He had never welcomed the prospect of a general European conflict, correctly fearing that it would push China even further to the margins of world attention. Even so, he recognized that once the lines had hardened between the imperial democracies and fascism, new alignments might become possible. From his perspective, the growing amity between Berlin and Moscow was therefore disastrous. He had been eager to draw the USSR into war against Japan. Instead, the Soviets were now effectively aligned with the Nazis, who were themselves allied with Tokyo.   The world created after Versailles had already enraged many Chinese. After all, the May Fourth demonstrations of 1919 had arisen directly from the settlement reached at the Paris Peace Conference. Yet that older order had at least possessed recognizable anchors, especially the dominance of the two great European empires and the United States. Now those empires were weakening, and no one could say with confidence what the new geopolitical order would be. For all Chiang knew, Germany might emerge as Europe's new dominant power. The early years of the European war produced a bewildering spectacle of diplomatic realignment.   The Nationalist government had previously enjoyed a short-lived flirtation with Nazi Germany. In fact, Hitler's regime continued supplying Chiang with munitions in the first months of China's war against Japan. The Anti-Comintern Pact of 1936 had theoretically joined Germany, Italy, and Japan into the Axis, but mutual distrust prevented them from forming anything like a fully coherent alliance. Chiang found it useful to imply to Western powers that he might be pushed into closer alignment with Germany, a particularly disturbing possibility for the USSR, which faced enemies in both Europe and Asia. But eventually the contradictions in German policy toward East Asia became too severe. In April 1938, Germany yielded to Japanese pressure and ended its support for China.   Britain offered little meaningful help. Neville Chamberlain became prime minister in May 1937 at the head of a Conservative-led National Government, and was quickly overwhelmed by the deteriorating European situation. If Czechoslovakia was for him a "far-off country of which we know nothing," China's fate was even more distant and obscure to many,  perhaps most  policymakers in London. The Nationalists had more success in cultivating the United States. At the Nine-Power Conference in Brussels in November 1937, the Chinese delegation failed to persuade Washington to impose sanctions on Japan and confront it directly. By the middle of 1938, however, American views were beginning to shift. As Japan pushed deeper into southern China, it became increasingly obvious that the occupied territory would be closed to foreign trade. In December 1938, Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau arranged a private American loan of $25 million to China, to be repaid through shipments of tung oil, a varnish product whose real importance lay not in itself, but in what the arrangement signified: a quiet American expression of faith that Chongqing would survive. Chiang also held on to the hope of an even less likely partnership. He had become fiercely anti-Communist during the 1920s, yet in the early years of the anti-Japanese war his greatest hope still rested on Soviet entry into the conflict. Soviet advisers and pilots had aided China from 1937 to 1939, but the USSR never formally declared war on Japan. Still, as Japanese aggression in northern Asia intensified, it remained possible that the Soviets would eventually be drawn in.   Then, as so often happened whenever Chiang tried to impose some control over the course of the war, events beyond China's borders altered the struggle in fundamental ways. While Western attention remained fixed on Europe's darkening horizon, a battle with major consequences for East Asia unfolded on the frontiers of Outer Mongolia, Manchukuo, and the eastern Soviet Union. Throughout much of 1938 and early 1939, one faction within the Japanese Imperial Army sought to pressure the Soviets along their eastern frontier. The USSR appeared vulnerable; Stalin's paranoid purges had executed or exiled many of the Red Army's best officers. In May 1939, fighting broke out near Nomonhan between forces from Soviet-backed Mongolia and Japanese troops from Manchukuo. Within days, both sides had reinforced heavily, until nearly 60,000 Soviet troops faced about 40,000 soldiers from the Kwantung Army. Over the next four months, until mid-September, they fought a major battle ending in a decisive Japanese defeat and establishing the reputation of General Georgi Zhukov, who would later become one of Stalin's most celebrated wartime commanders. The much-derided Soviet Army had fought with formidable effectiveness, and the result was not only a ceasefire but also a nonaggression pact between the two sides, extinguishing, in one stroke, Chiang's hopes for a Chinese-Soviet military alliance. The final blow came after developments in northern Europe. In the Winter War of 1939–1940, the Soviet invasion of Finland led Britain and France to back a motion expelling the USSR from the League of Nations. China, then a member of the League Council, declined to use its veto to block the resolution. Stalin was enraged by Chiang's failure to prevent Soviet expulsion, and mutual suspicion thereafter poisoned relations between the two leaders for the rest of the war against Japan. China would now have to continue without further major Soviet backing.   By the spring of 1940, China's position had become deeply precarious. In March, senior Japanese negotiators sought an agreement with Chiang in Chongqing, while Wang Jingwei was trying to formalize his rival Nationalist government in Nanjing. This effort, known in Chinese as the Tong Operation, and in Japanese as Operation Kiri, led to talks in Hong Kong from March 7 to 10, 1940. Militarily, the Nationalists were in grave danger: the United States remained neutral, and Europe was in chaos. Indeed, that same spring, with France seemingly near collapse, the British government also sent out discreet feelers to explore the possibility of a negotiated peace with Germany. For China, Western assistance was nowhere in sight. The Japanese judged the moment favorable for pressing Chiang toward concessions. Faced with serious danger to his regime, Chiang allowed the door to negotiation to open just slightly.   As a consequence, the Japanese delayed full recognition of Wang Jingwei's new government. Through the summer and autumn of 1940, Tokyo remained uncertain about the defector. Prominent Japanese figures such as Count Arima Yoriyasu of the Privy Council said Wang's conduct demonstrated his untrustworthiness, and Foreign Minister Matsuoka Yōsuke continued to express interest in an agreement with Chongqing. Zhou Fohai captured the defectors' frustration, men who believed they had made the highest patriotic sacrifice when he wrote: "Chongqing sees us as collaborators, we see ourselves as heroes. We think only peace can save the country — that's why we think of ourselves as heroes. If we end up classed as heroes, then China and Japan will be at peace. If we end up classed as collaborators, then China and Japan will never be at peace."That formulation conveyed something genuine about the moral dizziness of the period. Most of the defectors were not men devoid of principles; they were men whose principles had carried them to a place that history would find exceptionally hard to pardon.   The "New Fourth Army Incident" brought to a close one of the most consequential years in modern Chinese political history. The battle of ideas unfolding in 1940 was already visible to informed contemporaries. Early in 1941, US Ambassador Nelson Johnson sent Washington a detailed assessment of the Chinese political situation in reply to another report passed along by Major Evans Carlson, an American officer who had made an extensive journey through the Chinese interior. The contrast between the two documents revealed a widening split in American views of China. Carlson, together with his travelling companion, the New Zealander Rewi Alley, had become increasingly sympathetic to the Communists after visiting their territories in 1938 and admiring their discipline. Carlson described the Nationalists as moving toward "fascism," and argued that American aid should be conditioned on Chiang's government being compelled to adopt more "democratic" institutions.   Johnson strongly disagreed. It was "only normal and natural," he wrote, that the Nationalists wanted to retain power, but during the war they had established the National Political Consultative Council, in which multiple parties, including the Communists, were represented. He also noted that the CCP could publish its own newspaper in Chongqing in a way that would have been impossible before the war. One might have expected the Nationalists to use the war as a justification "to extinguish . . . all political opposition," yet instead they had chosen to "muddle along." Johnson further thought that the influence of competing cliques inside the Nationalist Party had been overstated. Chiang Kai-shek, by contrast, had "grown in stature, as he has come to be recognized as the symbol of united resistance to Japanese encroachment"; ultimately, "it is he who makes the final decisions." Johnson did agree with Carlson that Chiang's regime was hesitant to encourage a broad-based popular movement animated by anything beyond anti-Japanese feeling, though he also pointed to Nationalist cooperative programs and county-level reforms. But he rejected the idea that American support should depend on sweeping political transformation. Chiang was committed to continuing the war against Japan, and Washington should back him in that effort. In a notably farsighted passage, Johnson wrote: "It is my view that since the fall of the Manchu dynasty and the collapse of the traditional Chinese concept of government the Chinese people have been feeling their way along toward a new evolving form of government. A definitive form of government has not yet been established and may not be established for decades; it may or may not be in the form of a democracy, but it will be a type of government that will be adapted to the needs of China and its people." The tension between these two American interpretations,  Carlson's idealized belief in the Communists and Johnson's pragmatic support for Chiang was more than a minor bureaucratic dispute. It foreshadowed a debate that would dominate American foreign policy for the next decade, and would still echo when the People's Republic was proclaimed in 1949.   The disastrous experience of 1940 seemed to cast doubt on whether any future for China existed outside the Japanese Empire. As 1941 wore on, another dreadful event shook the exhausted wartime capital. On June 5, Chongqing endured roughly five hours of bombing, driving the population into air-raid shelters. In one tunnel in the Shibati district, the conditions were even worse than usual. The large shelter was supposed to have lights and electric fans, but the generators had never been connected. Inside, the air was dark, hot, and suffocating. Around ten that evening, people began emerging from the tunnel when rumors spread that the Japanese were returning with poison-gas bombs. Air-raid wardens forced people back inside, even as others were still trying to come out. Bodies toppled over one another, and panic spread as people realized they could not breathe. Over the next few hours, hundreds died underground in the darkness. The exact number was never definitively established: the official figure was 461, though a contemporary police report placed it far higher, at 1,527. What rescuers remembered most vividly were the tortured expressions of the dead, people tangled together in each other's arms as they lost consciousness, clothing ripped to shreds by desperate hands clawing at one another, and bodies so drenched in sweat that they looked as though they had been soaked in water. One survivor, Tang Zhengchang, remembered a hand reaching out from a pile of corpses and pleading, "Sir, please help me . . ." The grip on Tang's shorts was so tight that it pulled them off; he escaped the tunnel naked from the waist down. Official descriptions of the disaster were softened. Even so, the tragedy deepened the city's gloom and in a place already saturated with grief, an added layer of darkness mattered a great deal.   Yet events elsewhere would soon offer the National Government a narrow margin of hope. Late in 1940, Franklin D. Roosevelt won re-election as president of the United States. "I am not going to send your boys into any foreign wars," he had proclaimed during the campaign against Wendell Willkie. But Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull both understood that Nazi domination of Europe posed a grave challenge to American influence there. And with China's "Open Door" to trade effectively shut by Japanese occupation, it was becoming increasingly clear that strict neutrality might not remain viable. In a 1941 report on China's domestic and foreign situation, Ambassador Johnson noted that during Germany's sweeping victories across Europe in mid-1940, the Chinese had become anxious about whether the Allies would remain committed to their cause. Britain's refusal to surrender, however, together with continuing Soviet goodwill, lifted public morale in China. People now looked toward the United States and Britain for support and felt that "victory" was "virtually theirs."   Then, on June 22, 1941, the world awoke to news that roughly three million German soldiers were advancing into the Soviet Union. Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's invasion of the USSR, dramatically overturned the nonaggression that had governed relations between the two major European dictatorships for the previous two years. It transformed the war in Europe entirely. Less obviously, it also transformed the war in Asia. Thanks to intelligence leaks, Chiang Kai-shek had already realized that war between Germany and the USSR was likely. After the neutrality treaty between the USSR and Japan was signed on April 13, 1941, Chiang predicted that the United States would be drawn into the Asian war, and even that Japan might eventually reverse course and strike the Soviet Union. If that happened, China would become the critical Asian ally of both Washington and Moscow. Stalin had been caught off guard by the German assault — largely because he ignored increasingly urgent warnings from senior colleagues receiving intelligence from well-placed spies in Germany and the Comintern, eager to preserve its alliances, now pressed the Chinese Communists to cooperate more closely with the Nationalists. On June 23, 1941, the CCP Central Committee responded with a declaration that it would "persevere in the Anti-Japanese United Front, persevere in Nationalist-Communist cooperation," and would align itself with the British, the Americans, and others resisting the "fascist rulers" of the Axis.   In Chongqing and Yan'an, the German attack on the Soviet Union was interpreted as a hopeful sign that Japan's fortunes might be beginning to turn. In Nanjing, the reaction was different. On June 22, Zhou Fohai recorded in his diary that, although the outcome "cannot be predicted," members of the Nanjing regime "all believe Germany will win and will take Moscow within two months." Zhou speculated that Japan could not easily reconcile its neutrality treaty with the USSR and its membership in the Anti-Comintern Pact, which was supposed to unite the Axis against Soviet expansionism. Still, because Germany had struck first, Japan was under no formal obligation to help. Zhou also continued to view events through a lens he had never abandoned: that of Chinese nationalism. "If Chongqing joins the Allies and they win," he wrote, "then this is good for China." If they lost, it would be disastrous for Chiang Kai-shek; but because Wang Jingwei had established a government in Nanjing under Japanese sponsorship, China now had "a foot in both boats." It was a ruthless calculation, but not a wholly dishonorable one. Zhou was not merely advancing Japanese interests. He was hedging, wagering on multiple futures in the name of a China he believed would endure beyond whatever constellation of powers happened to dominate at the moment. Whether posterity would judge that conduct prudent or collaborative was a question he could neither settle nor live to see resolved to his satisfaction.   The summer of 1941 marked a major geopolitical turning point in the war. Until then, the conflicts in China and Europe had remained separate, if desperate, struggles on the Eurasian continent. Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union now forced Japan to decide whether it too would enter war against the USSR. Debate in Tokyo was brief. Although some officials, including Foreign Minister Matsuoka, favored striking north before moving south, both the Kwantung Army and the Navy advised against helping Germany at least until Germany had succeeded in drawing substantial Soviet forces away from Siberia and into Europe. Konoye, once again prime minister, agreed. With the northern option set aside, Japanese leaders turned toward another great power instead: the United States. Japan's failure to gain further decisive momentum in China had fueled demands for broader regional expansion, especially into Southeast Asia, with its abundant oil, rubber, and other strategic resources. From 1940 onward, measures such as the pressure to close the Burma Road made it increasingly obvious that Tokyo had adopted a more aggressive posture in Asia. Unable to subdue China, Japanese policymakers chose instead to escalate the conflict still further.   Japanese political life had become ever more dominated by the unresolved war in China. As early as 1938, military expenditures consumed about 70 percent of the national budget, and that same year a National Mobilization Bill granted the government "total war control" over the zaibatsu, Japan's major industrial conglomerates. By 1940, the New Order was making itself felt throughout everyday life, with campaigns against luxury and extravagant consumption taking on new prominence. In February 1940, a parliamentarian was expelled from the Diet simply for daring to criticize the "holy war" in China. In such an atmosphere, retreat from imperial ambitions became increasingly unthinkable. That figure, 70 percent of the national budget devoted to the military is worth dwelling on, because it reveals something essential about the trap in which Japanese strategists had placed themselves. The war in China had not been won, yet abandoning it would have meant admitting a failure so severe that it would have shaken the ideological and institutional foundations of military supremacy in Japanese politics. The only apparent ways out required pushing further in: more conquest, more extraction, more expansion. The logic was brutally clear, and profoundly destructive.   The Roosevelt administration watched these developments with growing alarm. Though still formally neutral, the United States was already using Lend-Lease to provide major assistance to Britain and the Soviet Union in their struggles against Germany. It now expanded aid to China as well. On February 10, Roosevelt's representative Lauchlin Currie visited Chongqing to inform Chiang Kai-shek that the United States would soon provide $45 million in military equipment. General John Magruder, head of the small AMMISCA mission,  the American Military Mission in China had been sent to Chongqing in September 1941, as part of quiet preparation for possible Chinese entry into an alliance against Japan. The China branch of the OSS, precursor to the CIA, was led by General William "Wild Bill" Donovan, whom Roosevelt had dispatched to China in early 1941.   The Americans repeatedly tried to discourage Japan from moving south into Southeast Asia, but relations only grew more confrontational. Japan occupied the southern part of French Indochina, and in response the United States imposed an oil embargo in July 1941. The consequences were immense. Japan imported around 80 percent of its oil from the United States. Without that supply, its navy, the essential instrument for southern expansion  had reserves for perhaps eighteen months. The real question facing Tokyo, then, was not whether it must act, but how soon. Unable any longer to resist mounting military pressure for war, Konoye resigned on October 16 and was replaced as premier by General Tōjō Hideki. Tokyo accelerated its preparations for conflict with the Western powers. Planned targets included Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaya, the Netherlands East Indies, and the Philippines. I should note, if you want to learn about all of this history in more detail, you can go check out the pacific war channel on youtube. I have a chronological series that is just now talking about events like the Japanese invasion of french indochina and the road to pearl harbor.   Throughout the autumn of 1941, increasingly desperate negotiations took place between Japan and the United States. Washington insisted that Japan withdraw from China; Tokyo was equally firm that it would do no such thing. From the Japanese point of view, the demand to leave China was not a serious negotiating position but a demand for national humiliation a call to repudiate four years of war, vast casualties, and the ideological basis of Japanese militarism in a single diplomatic act. In the end, the gulf between the two positions could not be bridged.   While civilian and military leaders in Tokyo argued over the pace at which they should move toward war, few among Japan's rulers doubted that war was coming. At the imperial conference of November 5, it was formally agreed that if no satisfactory diplomatic solution had been reached by December 1, war would follow soon after. Talks in Washington between Ambassador Nomura Kichisaburō, diplomat Kurusu Saburō, and Secretary of State Cordell Hull led nowhere. On November 26, Hull delivered a note repeating the American position that Japan must withdraw from both China and Indochina. On December 1, the imperial conference resolved to go to war; the following day, the date of attack was fixed as December 8, December 7 by American time. In one sense, this was the culmination toward which the entire previous decade had been moving. The war in China had started as a localized conflict, then expanded into a continental one, and was now about to become something larger still: a truly global war, stretching from the North Atlantic to the western Pacific. China's long, lonely resistance would suddenly gain new dimensions and new allies,  though not the ones Chiang had spent four years trying to cultivate, and not under circumstances he would have chosen.   In the early morning of December 7, 1941, the US Pacific Fleet lay anchored at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, its sailors and officers still largely asleep as dawn crept across the Pacific. The attack did not come without warning signs,  American and Japanese diplomats had been locked in increasingly desperate negotiations throughout the autumn, each side hardening its position until no room remained to maneuver. Washington had demanded that Japan withdraw from China, a condition Tokyo viewed not as a serious opening offer but as a demand for national humiliation: a call to repudiate four years of brutal war, hundreds of thousands of casualties, and the entire ideological foundation upon which Japanese militarism rested. No agreement was possible on those terms, and both sides privately knew it.   The strike force assembled in secret was formidable. Six aircraft carriers,  the Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū, Hiryū, Shōkaku, and Zuikaku had sailed under strict radio silence across the North Pacific, launching their aircraft in two successive waves before the American base had any meaningful chance to respond. The first wave of approximately 183 planes swept in just before 8 a.m., targeting the rows of battleships moored along Battleship Row and the military airfields at Wheeler, Hickam, and Ford Island simultaneously, ensuring that American aircraft could not scramble in time to mount an effective defense. A second wave of roughly 170 planes followed less than an hour later, pressing the attack on damaged ships and harbor installations.   The destruction was staggering. The battleship Arizona suffered a catastrophic magazine explosion after a armor-piercing bomb penetrated her forward decks, killing nearly 1,177 of her crew in minutes, almost half of the total American dead from the entire attack. The Oklahoma capsized after being struck by multiple torpedoes. The West Virginia and California sank at their moorings. In total, seventeen vessels were damaged or destroyed, and the vast majority of military aircraft at the nearby airfields were caught on the ground and obliterated before they could take flight. Around 2,400 Americans were killed and another 1,100 wounded, making it the deadliest single attack on American soil or territory in the nation's history to that point.   Yet the attack was not a complete strategic success for Japan. The US Pacific Fleet's aircraft carriers, the vessels that would ultimately decide the naval war in the Pacific happened to be at sea that morning and escaped unharmed. The harbor's fuel storage and repair facilities were also left largely intact, allowing the fleet to reconstitute faster than Japanese planners had anticipated. What Japan achieved in tactical devastation, it partly squandered in strategic miscalculation. The attack ended American neutrality instantly and irrevocably. The following day, President Roosevelt addressed Congress, calling December 7 "a date which will live in infamy," and within hours the United States declared war on Japan. For China, after more than four years of fighting alone, the blow that devastated Pearl Harbor paradoxically carried a thread of desperate hope at last, the great power Chiang Kai-shek had spent years trying to draw into the conflict had arrived, not under circumstances he would have chosen, but arrived nonetheless. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. After years of fighting, China's situation darkened in 1941 with intense bombing of Chongqing and fears of poison-gas attacks. Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in June shifted alliances and pressured Japan toward wider war. Japan escalated plans for Southeast Asia, suffered an oil embargo, and negotiations with the United States broke down over withdrawing from China and Indochina. Then the Pearl Harbor attack began the Pacific War.

“Man your battle stations! This is no sh*t!” This is the story of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  It's 7:55 on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941. 183 Japanese aircraft descend on the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Sailors awaken to a nightmare as “Battleship Row” becomes a graveyard, hundreds of US planes are destroyed without ever leaving the ground, and the cries of thousands of dying, wounded, and terrified Americans rend the air. It is a day that will “live in infamy.” And it means war. ____ Connect with us on ⁠HTDSpodcast.com⁠ and go deep into ⁠episode bibliographies⁠ and ⁠book recommendations⁠ join discussions in our ⁠Facebook community⁠ get news and discounts from ⁠The HTDS Gazette⁠  come ⁠see a live show⁠ get ⁠HTDS merch⁠ or become an ⁠HTDS premium⁠ member for bonus episodes and other perks. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Pearl Harbor, the turning point in American history. Long before December 7, 1941, the collision between two Pacific powers had already begun. Manchuria had fallen to Imperial Japan in 1931, marking the start of Japan's empire push across China. The United States, publicly neutral, watched war spread while trying to stay out of global conflict. But by 1941, diplomacy broke down. After Japan moved into French Indochina, the U.S. answered with crippling oil embargoes that threatened Japan's military ambitions, leaving its leaders convinced war was the only path to secure resources like those in the Dutch East Indies.On November 26, 1941, a strike fleet built around six carriers under Admiral Chuichi Nagumo slipped into the Pacific Ocean under radio silence, heading toward a target few considered possible: Hawaii. In Washington, leaders knew war was imminent through broken diplomatic codes, but nothing pinpointed the exact time or place. At Pearl Harbor, defenses were relaxed, planes parked tight at airfields, and anti-aircraft crews off rotation—ready for sabotage, not annihilation.At 7:55 a.m., Commander Mitsuo Fuchida signaled the raid with “Tora! Tora! Tora!”, unleashing a two-hour nightmare. Torpedoes smashed hulls, bombs detonated steel, and Battleship Row burned. Pilots attacked at sunrise, one timing mistake putting the rising sun directly in American defenders' view, and later claims even surfaced that the glare briefly impaired their approach. The result was devastating—and unifying. But decades later, the question remains a ghost story wrapped in cipher smoke: did the U.S. government know more than it said?Tonight, around the digital campfire, we explore the lead-up, the attack, and the theories www.patreon.com/theconspiracypodcast

This week Seth Paridon and Jon Parshall finally get to the meat of the Pearl Harbor series with Part 1 of our discussion of the First Wave. We get into the nuts and bolts of 1st Air Fleet's run towards Pearl Harbor, the launch sequence, the attack plan and the flight into Oahu in great detail, giving way to conversations about William Outerbridge and USS Ward, Opana Point and the various early warnings given to the Americans that an attack was imminent. Of course, the "what if this had been done" creeps into our talk, but we shut down the alternate history pretty quickly with cold, hard facts. This episode goes into the first wave of torpedo attacks on the ships around Ford Island including Battleship Row and ends with USS Oklahoma rolling over. Next week we wrap the First Wave so don't miss that one either as Jon and I continue our authoritative series on the attack on Pearl Harbor. #wwiihistory #wwiihistory #ww2 #usnavy #usa #usarmy #medalofhonor #enterprise #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #cv6 #midway #wwii #wwiihistory #ww2 #worldwar2 #usnavy #usnavyseals #usmc #usmarines #saipan #usa #usarmy #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #battleship #battleships #ussenterprise #aircraftcarriers #museum #essex #halsey #taskforce38 #wwii #wwiihistory #ww2 #usnavy #usa #usarmy #medalofhonor #enterprise #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #cv6 #midway #wwii #wwiihistory #ww2 #worldwar2 #usnavy #usnavyseals #usmc #usmarines #saipan #usa #usarmy #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #battleship #battleships #ussenterprise #aircraftcarriers #museum #hollywood #movie #movies #books #mastersoftheair #8thairforce #mightyeighth #100thbombgroup #bloodyhundredth #b17 #boeing #airforce wwii #wwiihistory #ww2 #usnavy #usa #usarmy #medalofhonor #enterprise #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #cv6 #midway #wwii #wwiihistory #ww2 #worldwar2 #usnavy #usnavyseals #usmc #usmarines #saipan #usa #usarmy #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #battleship #battleships #ussenterprise #aircraftcarriers #museum #hollywood #movie #movies #books #oldbreed #1stMarineDivision #thepacific #Peleliu #army #marines #marinecorps #worldwar2 #worldwar #worldwarii #leytegulf #battleofleytegulf #rodserling #twilightzone #liberation #blacksheep #power #prisoner #prisonerofwar #typhoon #hurricane #weather #iwojima#bullhalsey #ace #p47 #p38 #fighter #fighterpilot #b29 #strategicstudying #tokyo #boeing #incendiary #usa #franklin #okinawa #yamato #kamikaze #Q&A #questions #questionsandanswers #history #jaws #atomicbomb #nuclear #nationalarchives #nara #johnford #hollywood #fdr #president #roosevelt #doolittle #doolittleraid #pearlharborattack

The sparks before the ignition of war.By FinalStand. Listen to the Podcast at Explicit Novels.Time is not your enemy any more than breathing and your heartbeat are inconvenient."Aya, Why don't you go help Saku," I rechanneled Aya's boundless energy. "Back in the day, every noble was attended to by squires who took care of their gear and served that noble as body servants. In turn, she taught them the art of war." Sakuniyas shot me a nasty look.Aya poked her head between Pamela and Miyako."That sounds like fun," she met Saku's glacial chill with a warm spring breeze."I don't want their help," she grumbled."It sounds like free labor," Pamela smirked."I said I don't want their help," Saku snarled."Okay," I rolled my eyes. "Aya, Fatal Squirts, attention!" They all looked at me. "I command you, as your Celestial Potentate Poohbah, to stare at Sakuniyas until she gives you a task of a personal, to her, nature to do. Get at it."Four sets of precocious, will-eroding cuteness assaulted the Assyrian Queen, victor of a hundred battles and skirmishes."You are despicable," was Saku's chosen acidic barb."I second that motion," Pamela patted me on the back. "I keep finding myself being prouder and prouder of you, every day. Stop it," she teased me.None of those words dampened my mood, or my plan."How much longer is this flight going to take?" Saku groused."Four hours," I lied. It was way closer to two.To my way of thinking, it wasn't like she could get much angrier with me after she discovered my ruse. (I was wrong. She could and did. I'm an idiot.) Saku shook her head, and the task-mastering began. An hour and forty-five minutes later, the pilot alerted us that we were ten minutes from our final approach. Bits and pieces of her armor were all over the front seats and the floor of the exit-way space.Diligent little fingers were still polishing and checking straps for signs of excessive wear or fabric fatigue. Their 'noble' hovered over them, pointing out the right way to do things and what they were doing wrong. Her congratulating them for doing a good job was rather non-Amazon of her, but the kids ate it up.With the ten minute warning still hanging in the air, my duplicity inspired Saku to finally flip out. I was pretty sure she didn't think through what she was doing. She simply drew her 22cm/9in blade and threw it at my face. Miyako caught it between her hands, an effortless clap, fuck."Four hours!" Saku howled at me. "You said we had four hours, I could have held them off for two!""Why do you think I lied to you?" I kept my amusement out of my tone because I was rather attached to the idea of my wagging tongue not being cut out of my mouth.It wasn't lost on us that every member of my SD team was alert and had blades drawn (firefights on planes in mid-flight is severely frowned upon) and were staring at her. I wanted to tell Rachel to 'stand down', except that would be unfair. I wasn't 100% sure Saku was done being furious with me.Telling Rachel to set aside her instincts was something I tried to keep a minimum, only to be used when it I was forced to take in the bigger picture."What is going on here?" Rachel asked with professional calm. So, I told her the truth, the real truth."Oh," Rachel grunted. She gave a motion for her team to rest easy then came my way."Knife," she held out a hand to Miyako who instantly gave it over, pommel first. Rachel deftly flipped it over so she was holding the razor sharp blade then smacked me on the top of my head, hard."Ow, " I whined. "That hurt.""It was supposed to," Rachel glared. She walked down the aisle to Saku, returning her blade."Did you just smack him in the head?" Saku was trying to make sense of what she'd seen."Yes," Rachel nodded."He screwed up and I impressed upon him to not do it again. As you might guess, this is a fairly regular occurrence with him. We all take wicked-fine pleasure in that part of his education.""But you are his bodyguards, is he really the Head of House Ishara, or was that a lie as well?" Saku was still confused by her prideful arrogance and how I was misplacing my own."Sakuniyas, Cáel was not raised in our culture. He has only been a member of the Host for a few weeks. This is not to belittle his impressive education," Pamela intervened. "Both he, and those of the House who know him, agree that the occasional physical chastisement works better than words alone.""You could reward me with sex," I muttered. "Positive reinforcement, ""Forty-six days, Bitch," Rachel growled."You are ferocious in battle, fearless and clever," Saku turned back to me. "Why do you put up with this constant degradation?""Degradation? I'm not insulted by what Rachel did or said," I retorted. "She is trying to teach me things I need to know if I'm going to survive. I respect her superior knowledge in her professional capacity," I continued. "I don't get upset when people tease, taunt, or challenge Cáel 'Wakko' Ishara, that's me, if you are confused.I save my indignation for those who scorn Dot Ishara, Yakko Ishara and all members of House Ishara, past and present. Quite frankly, being disrespectful to me is actually rather difficult because I only care about the sensibilities of a handful of people.""How can any warriors follow a leader into battle if that person has no pride and never shies away from shame?And besides, what is this Wakko/Dot/Yakko nonsense," Saku persisted. "Fatal Squirts, start assembling my armor." Her attention was split between me and her panoply."Hello," I snickered. "I'm a male Amazon. The fact that I haven't run for my life way before now is all the heroic background check anyone should require.Doubting my common sense actually makes sense. Doubting my courage, or loyalty is idiotic in too many ways to count. As for revealing the hallowed and revered enigmatic occult appellations of my House, " I started."Get him!" Tiger Lily showed some faux-outrage."Shit!" I cried out as Delilah, Tiger Lily and the rest of the SD swarmed me. Pamela and Miyako were of no help whatsoever. I could not express my joy more at the resulting physical abuse and humiliation aimed my way. I was tickled. Yes, my Kick-Ass, full-blood, natural born killers pinned me down and tickled me until I nearly peed on myself.In a very short period of time, we'd shared some really nerve-racking moments. Dad dying, my showdown with Hayden, being mugged by Carrig and the rest of the crap that rained down blow after blow once I came out of my coma. They had taken me numerous times to the hospital and had to sit back helplessly while I suffered. Yet, I refused to be repressed by circumstance.I fought for our people, OUR people now, both with the Earth  and  Sky in shared counsel and the Seven Pillars on the battlefield. Rachel hadn't given me word-one of a reprimand for leaving Charlotte to raise the alarm while I rushed into danger. I was an Amazon in her eyes. Charlotte could fix the phone. Miyako and I could not. The bridge had to be secured immediately.We couldn't wait on Charlotte. I didn't even act as if what I did was all that brave. Rachel knew me far better now; she wouldn't make that mistake. Had I been able to fix the phone, I would have stayed and sent Charlotte. Had the whole team been there and Rachel told me to stay, I would have stayed while they ran into the fight.No. The situation hadn't allowed that, so I had killed a number of men and been wounded. The backside of my right thigh had merely been grazed (which my normally mangled left side found to be grossly unfair.) That was another scar to add to my 'sexy'. I had fought in my own insane manner and was alive solely because Saku had decided to shoot another man instead of me.Even after I knew who she was, I had allied with her and charged the rear of the enemy troop convoy. In the after-battle analysis, they weren't sure how many Seven Pillar Special Forces I had killed, both in the gulch and when I annihilated the back section of the attack column, and took my impromptu flying lesson.Credit for destroying the bridge jacks, thus making the BBQ a carnal cookout featuring Chinese 'Long-Pig', was still hanging out there as well. Rachel and company were still pissed with me despite all that. Why? On a purely personal level, they realized they would miss me if I got myself killed. They were not supposed to feel that way about their protectee.I certainly wasn't their first protective detail, though they were starting to believe I'd be their last. No, I had done everything right, by going into harm's way, and they were furious with the universe for placing us in that situation. Since the universe wasn't offering itself up to be punished, it fell on me to soak up their pique.Delilah was simply picking on me because she could get away with it this time."You are all embarrassments," Saku remarked bitterly once my screams began breathless pleas for mercy. "The Host has fallen a great way since my day." What a killjoy. I finally got my breath back."And the Queen on the floor of the Royal chambers, pushing around toy chariots with her two eldest sons and a child-playmate, was the height of decorum."Well, if looks could kill, I would have never made my nineteenth birthday, so Saku's glare was just another walk in the park."That was a personal moment with my family. It was a very private moment," she sizzled."My Mother's line is, it is what it is. My Father was murdered. My Father's sister and I were never close. These people are my family and my choice of kin.""English," Pamela chided us."Having no family to call your own, you welcome so many that 'family' has no meaning," Saku angrily mocked my words.There was a hushed moment then everyone but the three other Squirts and Saku started laughing. The three kids didn't know me either."By what metric do you measure family by?" I snickered."On his third day on the job, Fehér mén (Aya's pet name for me, White Stallion in the Magyar tongue, it is complicated) threw his body over my sisters and me to protect us," Aya said."He spared my foster-sister when she gravely insulted him," Mona volunteered. "He didn't know me. The Amazon, Constanza, would have died by anyone else's hand, except his. You may look down your nose at his mercy. As you do so, consider that it is his mercy that allows you to feel that way about him, and us right now." Whoa,"I have never seen him fight out of pride, or take joy in any combat," Rachel stared down Saku. "My only fear is that Cáel will get himself killed saving my life, or the life of any member of my team. He knows it is wrong. He knows I will be absolutely furious with him, and he accepts that. He is like no other Amazon I have ever known.We have limits. We follow orders. At our best, we put the welfare of the Host over our own survival. Not Ishara, Wakko Ishara. He follows the dictates of his house and those are to seek mercy and peace where appropriate. He is like no Amazon I have ever known, and I have zero doubt that he is one of the best Amazons I will ever know," she finished with a chuckle."I'm speaking my mind, aren't I?" she asked me."Afraid so, sorry about that," I apologized for corrupting her social skills."Saku, your mistake is that you confuse his caring about you and caring about your opinion of him," Pamela finished things up."Sakuniyas, I will work to honor my pledge to you. I will try to keep you alive because you can be a powerful ally of the Host, but also because it is the right thing to do," I enlightened her. "That doesn't make you all that special though. Personally I think you are a horrible, bitter bitch and lousy company for any non-masochist.I'm going to help you in the same way I'm going to help everyone else here. This is despite me feeling confident that not a single Amazon on this planet has a living father. They've never had brothers because their mothers murdered them. Your crappy attitude doesn't influence me one way, or the other. You are a horrible fucking person born to a horrible fucking race, my race, the Amazon Host.""You kill your fathers and sons," Delilah mumbled as she looked from face to face, finding not a single bit of denial, or shame. "I thought that was so much Greek bull's buttocks.""Nope," Aya shrugged. "Before I left for camp, Momma told me they put Daddy, my other Daddy, down when I was two." Kind of like Old Yeller, or Benji. "His name was Paul Twelve."Delilah looked at me with downright worrisome eyes."Yeah, I figured that out on day two on-the- job," I relayed to her. "For the past 2500 years, every male child of the Host has been tossed off a cliff to his death, or left out in the wilds for predators to devour. Every male they have kidnapped has been under a death sentence from the moment of capture.They tried to genetically breed their captive male population with Amazon females, but something went wrong. The males began passing on genetic defects that poisoned the race. In response, they have begun recruiting men, such as myself, and exterminating their old male breeding populace.Initially, I didn't run because I was sure they would hunt me down and kill me. Later, later I came to like enough of the Host to decide that knowing what was going on meant I couldn't let it slide. I couldn't leave this issue for someone else to tackle. I know I'm facing long odds, yet I'll never succeed if I don't try," I wrapped up my little my 'Cáel's Amazon Primer' lecture."Okay, okay, Cáel you are blood nuts, and hellishly brave. The rest of you are just hellish, killing your own kin as infants or if they get too old," Delilah sputtered. "That's plain wrong.""I had sons," Saku stated. "They grew into fine, strong warriors. My daughters married into the nobility.""Delilah, we don't expect you to understand our culture. Twice in our people's history, men have tried to eliminate our society, stealing our homes and property, and enslaving our children and sisters. We let down our guard once, and that nearly destroyed us, except we now have Cáel and a better understanding of what happened that second time," Tiger Lily educated Delilah."It turned out that not all males betrayed us. No, when we needed them the most, they sacrificed themselves for the welfare of our people and we repaid that loyalty with anger and barbarism. That is a burden we have carried all these centuries without understanding it. Only within the past month has the real truth about the Second Betrayal become known.Many of us are now re-evaluating the dictates of our faith concerning men and sons. After all, Cael is the descendent of Amazons of a First House, dating back to the Trojan Wars. He has been welcomed by his ancestors and his goddess, Dot Ishara," she completed."What is it with the Dot, Wakko and, ""Everyone buckle up," the pilot announced over the intercom. "We are on our final approach." Saku and the Squirts had her armor in some kind of order, we buckled up and let the plane coast on down to earth."Delilah and Cáel, since our 'vacation' was cut short, we haven't been able to bring your personal effects back from Africa yet," Rachel told us."Also, there will be four of Javiera's people meeting us in the hangar," she added. "We have been told to view them as non-hostiles.""Oh joy," Pamela muttered then, "There is nothing to worry about folks.""What? Me worry?" I goofy grinned her way.(Governments, horrendous enemies and ruthlessly evil friends)Four SUVs waited for us in the wide-open hangar. No sooner had the pilot given us the 'green light', than Rachel released the door/stairs mechanism and Charlotte began her decent. We had the camp FN P-90's, not the older Havenstone UMP 40's, so that was the weapon whose sights she was looking down as her eyes scanned the room. Five people. Four SUVs.Rachel went next with me right behind her. My SD's precautions turned our guests from a rather annoyed-casual to alert-angry. Standing with our two standard Mercedes GL550's was Wiesława of House Živa. A sole guardian indicated to me that an ass-kicking was in the offing elsewhere. The Golden Mare, Saint Marie was gathering the Havenstone Security Detail for some purpose, which meant she could only spare one more warrior for me.I was fine with that. Not only did I feel bad about denying her the four ladies I had, I knew we were going into this global conflict outnumbered and out-financed. The Seven Pillars had gotten at least one blow in by striking at the Amazon summer camp. I had every reason to believe other unexpected attacks had occurred all across the globe.In the closest black Tahoe SUV (didn't anyone use sedans anymore?) were two men in modestly tailored, off-the-rack suits. One with buzz-cut gray-white hair, was closer to fifty than forty, was as tall as me (a bit over six feet) and close to my weight and build. That guy was pissed off.His partner was smaller (5ft 10in.) and lighter. He was also cocky with that 'I know more than you schmucks' air about him. Beside the farther SUV, a Range Rover (black, of course, I swore in that moment that if I ever got to have my own fleet of House Ishara SUV's, I was going with baby blue, just to fuck with people's heads), were two other men, one cultured and the other a bad-ass.

On December 7, 2024, recalling December 7, 1941 and the Imperial Japanese Navy's successful attack on the US Navy at Pearl Harbor, and how the newspapers and the radio audience listened especially to Admiral Bill Halsey, who is quoted in legend as having said, as he commanded Enterprise back to Pearl Harbor and saw the destruction on Battleship Row, "Before we're through with them, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell." MAY 1942 ENTERPRISE

Barbara Kotinek was just a young girl when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. She got an up-close view of the Japanese pilots when they flew over and the devastation along Battleship Row, especially the flaming USS Arizona. When the enemy flew over her Naval housing, they even waved to her and smiled. She climbed a clothesline to get a better view. Her family was so certain that the Japanese were going to invade Oahu, that her father gave the young girl a gun so she could do the unthinkable: Shoot herself and her mother if Honolulu was invaded. This short clip is from a searing, personal interview full of emotion, even decades after that “Day of Infamy.”  Watch the full film here:   #HerWarHerStory #WomensHistoryMonth #WWIIFoundation #GreatestGeneration #PearlHarbor #Resilience #Courage

It's late in 1941. Honolulu basks in Hawaiian warmth and Battleship Row sparkles with military confidence, just weeks before the day that would live in infamy. Downtown, Police Detective Joe McGrady receives a brutal double murder case that's about to change his life. The first victim is the nephew of an Admiral; the second is a young Japanese woman. What do these killings have to do with the impending attack on Pearl Harbour and Imperial Japan's grasp for Pacific supremacy? How far will McGrady go to uncover the truth and chase a killer? Find out more as we dive-bomb into extended discussion over James Kestrel's Edgar Award winning war-time thriller, Five Decembers.

When most people think about December 7, 1941, they think about Pearl Harbor. They think about the USS Arizona. They think about Battleship Row. But can you name a Medal of Honor recipient from that action? To explore the story of these men, the MacArthur Memorial Podcast hosted Colonel Charles A. Jones USMCR (Retired), an expert on the Medal of Honor and the Medal of Honor recipients of December 7, 1941. Follow us on:Twitter: @MacArthur1880; @AEWilliamsClarkFacebook: @MacArthurMemorialwww.macarthurmemorial.org

On a sleepy Sunday morning in 1941, the Hawaiian island of Oahu couldn't have looked anymore idyllic. Even with the fairly recent arrival of the United States Pacific Fleet which had deployed to the island from San Diego to their new main base at Pearl Harbor only seemed to harbinger nothing more than a display of US naval prestige. Arranged off Ford Island in a line were seven of America's mightiest battleships. This part of the harbor had become known appropriately as Battleship Row and the sight of these seemingly invulnerable battlewagons must have convinced all that America's might was unquestionable.And yet the sun was rising literally and figuratively, shining a spotlight on a vast fleet of aircraft that buzzed through the morning sky and into history. This is the story of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Welcome to Wars of the World. The Lowcountry Gullah PodcastTheculture, history and traditions podcast where Gullah Geechee culture lives!Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify

Michael "Mickey Ganitch" Ganitch grew up in Ohio and joined the U.S. Navy in early 1941, as he puts it, to dodge being drafted into the Army. Less than a year later, he had a front row seat for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor while in the crow's nest aboard the USS Pennsylvania as it sat in dry dock off Battleship Row.In this edition of "Veterans Chronicles," Ganitch describes the attack in detail, how it could have been even worse, the refurbishing of the USS Pennsylvania and the key role it played in many invasions in the North Pacific. He also shares the harrowing story of the Pennsylvania getting struck by a Japanese torpedo and how he managed to survive.Finally, Ganitch tells about his interesting role in atomic testing after World War II ended.

More assessments of the Solorigate affair, with an excursus on Pearl Harbor. Shareholders open a class action suit against SolarWinds, but no signs of an enforcement action for speculated insider trading. Emissary Panda seems to be working an APT side hustle. Kevin Magee has insights from the Microsoft Digital Defense Report. Our guest is Jason Passwaters from Intel 471 with a look at the growing range of ransomware as a service offerings. And to-ing and fro-ing on Chinese telecoms at the New York Stock Exchange. For links to all of today's stories check out our CyberWire daily news brief: https://www.thecyberwire.com/newsletters/daily-briefing/10/2

This episode covers the first attack wave of Japanese aircraft, from the Japanese point of view. Battleship Row is hit, but Fuchida's plan is far from perfect. Then came the high level bombers, which inflicted damage on every battleship, sinking 3 of them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The first air wave of attacking Japanese warplanes reaches Oahu, on their way to Pearl Harbor. But before they reach Battleship Row, several civilian planes offer the excited pilots a chance to score their first kills. The locals and US Military personnel on the ground can't believe their eyes. They assume, it's the most life like war game ever put on by the Army and Navy Brass. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pearl Harbor’s famous Battleship Row, whale watching, to a festive luau with authentic Polynesian dancing, Hawaii’s sure to please. Feel the sand in your feet, smell the fresh fragrance of the island flowers, smile as the tranquil ocean waves hit your legs, savor the sumptuous cuisine, taste the aromatic coffee, and just relax as you experience the best of the Hawaiian Islands.

Pearl Harbor’s famous Battleship Row, whale watching, to a festive luau with authentic Polynesian dancing, Hawaii’s sure to please. Feel the sand in your feet, smell the fresh fragrance of the island flowers, smile as the tranquil ocean waves hit your legs, savor the sumptuous cuisine, taste the aromatic coffee, and just relax as you experience the best of the Hawaiian Islands.