The Last Pearl

"On this day, we resolve forever to keep the memory of the heroes of Pearl Harbor alive as a testament to the tremendous sacrifices they made in defense of freedom and all that we hold dear."--The Rightful Commander-in-Chief of the United States of America Donald J. Trump, Dec. 7, 2019


Pearl Harbor survivor Sterling Robert Cale dies at 102 | American Military News

Sterling Robert Cale, a Pearl Harbor survivor who served the United States throughout World War II, and also in Korea and Vietnam, and then met thousands of visitors as a volunteer at the Pearl Harbor National Memorial, died Jan. 20 at his home in Aiea. He was 102.

Cale’s son, Sterling Ventula Cale, remembered him as “a humble leader.”

“He is the reason I am the man I am. Growing up with my father gave me that foundation. He taught me all the things that later on I would use in my military career for 23 years, and beyond.”

“My mother used to get so mad at him because he’d give me a loaded .45 (pistol) to hold, or he’d show me how protective masking worked, but when I became an NBC NCO (Nuclear Biological Chemical warfare Non-Commissioned Office) I was one of only two guys in the entire platoon who know how to react going through a (simulated) chemical battlefield. Those are the things that I remember him for, and they did well for me, and then for me and my troops later in life.”

Sterling Robert Cale was born and raised on a farm in Illinois. He enlisted in the Navy after high school and scored so high while training as a pharmacist mate that he was given his choice of duty station.

Cale chose Hawaii.

On the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, Cale had just gone off duty after an overnight shift as a hospital corpsman at the Pearl Harbor dispensary when he heard gunfire and saw puffs of smoke. At first he thought it was surprise training exercise, then he realized that the aircraft overhead were Japanese and the attack was for real. On his own initiative, Cale broke into an arms locker to get rifles for himself and several other sailors, an unauthorized act for which he was initially told he’d be court-martialed but was later commended for. 

Cale also distinguished himself by commandeering a small boat and leading two other sailors in pulling survivors — and the dead and dying — from among the patches of burning oil in the harbor. Cale’s training as a diver then got him assigned to the team that spent several days removing human remains from the sunken wreck of the USS Arizona.

Pearl Harbor was only the start of Cale’s wartime serv­ice." .......

Requiescat in pace

More: Lou Conter, Last Survivor of the USS Arizona, Passes at Age 102 (legalinsurrection.com):

"Conter recalled how one bomb penetrated steel decks 13 minutes into the battle and set off more than 1 million pounds of gunpowder stored below.

The explosion lifted the battleship 30 to 40 feet out of the water, he said during a 2008 oral history interview stored at the Library of Congress. Everything was on fire from the mainmast forward, he said.

“Guys were running out of the fire and trying to jump over the sides,” Conter said. “Oil all over the sea was burning.”

His autobiography “The Lou Conter Story” recounts how he joined other survivors in tending to the injured, many of them blinded and badly burned. The sailors only abandoned ship when their senior surviving officer was sure they had rescued all those still alive." .......

"What we never considered was a long, slow war, a conflict that burned and sputtered, skittered from one spot on the map to the other. The old wars were simple: the other side had accents, uniforms, nations, cruel habits and urbane sneers. The old wars took years. The old wars were in black and white. The old wars were monophonic, scored by Max Steiner, released by Warner Brothers, and the only proof they really happened at all was the small battered box in the back of Dad’s sock drawer, the box that held some oddly colored metal bars."--James Lileks

"Most writers have looked to the ashes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; to find answers for the use of those atomic weapons. The real answers lay in thousands of graves from Pearl Harbor around the world to Normandy and back again. The actual use of the weapons as ordered by the President of the United States was believed to be the quickest and least costly (in terms of lives lost) way to stop the killing. I carried out those orders with the loyal support of the men of the 509th Composite Bomb Group and the United States military at large. Our job was to serve. Our sworn duty was to God, country and victory."--Brig. Gen. Paul W. Tibbets, pilot and commander of the Enola Gay mission

8 Tales of Pearl Harbor Heroics | HISTORY:

3. George Welch and Kenneth Taylor

TAYLOR (LEFT) AND WELCH.

Army Air Corps pilots George Welch and Kenneth Taylor spent the evening before the Pearl Harbor attack attending a formal dance and playing poker until the wee hours of the morning. They were still sleeping off their night of partying when they were awakened around 8 a.m. by the sound of exploding bombs and machine gun fire.

Not wanting to miss out on a fight, the pair threw on their tuxedo pants and sped to Haleiwa airfield in Taylor’s Buick, dodging strafing Japanese planes along the way. Just minutes later, they became the first American pilots to get airborne after they took off in their P-40 fighters.
 
Welch and Taylor went on to wage a lonely battle against hundreds of enemy planes. They even landed at Wheeler airfield at one point and had their ammunition replenished before rejoining the fray. By the time the attack ended, the second lieutenants had shot down at least six fighters and bombers between them. Both were awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for their high-flying exploits, and Taylor was given a Purple Heart for a shrapnel wound he received when his P-40 was struck by machine gun fire.

4. Doris Miller

Doris Miller’s skin color usually relegated him to the role of cook and laundry attendant aboard USS West Virginia, but when the ship was struck by multiple bombs and torpedoes on December 7, he became one of its most vital crewmembers. Miller had rushed to his battle station amidships as soon as the shooting started. Finding it destroyed, the amateur boxer sprinted to the quarterdeck and used his hulking frame to help move the injured. Miller was among the men who carried the ship’s mortally wounded skipper to safety, and he then helped pass ammunition to the crews of two .50 caliber machine guns. 

Despite having no weapons training, he eventually manned one of the weapons himself and began blasting away at the Japanese fighters swarming around the ship. “It wasn’t hard,” he later remembered. “I just pulled the trigger and she worked fine…I think I got one of those Jap planes. They were diving pretty close to us.”
 
Miller continued to operate the gun for some 15 minutes until ordered to abandon ship. His actions earned him the Navy Cross—the first ever presented to an African American—and he was widely hailed as a war hero in the black press. He later toured the country promoting war bonds before being reassigned to the escort carrier Liscome Bay. Sadly, Miller was among the 646 crewmen killed when the ship was later torpedoed and sunk in 1943.” …….

I miss those guys. They were a special breed and we were blessed to have them.

Today, all our Pearl Harbors are Sneak Attacks on the American People by our own wicked Government of Occupation. 

They were the Pearls before swine.

Proverbs 24:19-20

 
Do not fret because of evil men,
    nor be envious of the wicked;

for there will be no reward to the evil man;
    the candle of the wicked will be put out.

Yes, Lord, Amen and Amen.