On March 19th 1945 the USS Franklin off the Japanese island
of Honshu was attacked by enemy forces.
The Franklin took a major bombing then Kamikaze strikes, but survived.
800 crew were killed 500 wounded 21 missing.
One of the killed in action was my Uncle John Calhoun.
I was born after the war so never met him, and knew little about him. Other than the letters to my Aunt he sent.
Some of which I read many years ago.
My almost father was killed on the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor.
I only know his first name,...William.
He was my mother's boyfriend they intended to marry.
He joined the Navy a year before the attack on the harbor.
As my mom told it he never had a chance.
Negro seaman were bunked in the lowest quarters so when the ship exploded there was no way for them to get out.
Same with Uncle John.
My dad, and other uncles all fought in the various fronts of WW2.
My mom, and aunts were all Colored Rosie the Riveters.
This thanks to FDR.
Navy Hellcat.
He made it law that any company with a war contract could not abide by local Jim Crow segregation employment customs.
So one aunt in Mississippi built P-51 Mustangs, and my mom in New Jersey built Navy Hellcat fighters.
I was thinking about all this so just noted it down for the record.
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During the Vietnam War no one built anything.
Poor Whites poor Blacks, and Hispanics got drafted, and killed in their tens of thousands. Everyone else stayed home smoked dope got laid, and grew up to be republicans.
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All the pointless wars after were fought by volunteers.
Poor Whites poor Blacks, and Hispanics that needed the work.
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Next time it's drones, and robots.
The fire in that video looks ghastly. So glad I wasn't there. Horrible how your mom's fiance and your uncle John died. And what a shitty way to treat people, shutting them up in those windowless steel cells far below deck, like steerage passengers on the Titanic.
ReplyDeleteA great uncle of mine was killed on the night before Pearl Harbor. It seems the Japanese attacked and sank a lot of American commercial shipping in the hours just before the attack on the Navy, and my great uncle was one of the unlucky merchant seamen. I never met him.
I'm sorry for your great uncle.
ReplyDeleteHis name is likely on the Merchant Seaman's Memorial stones in Liberty Park at the tip of Manhattan. Several of my mothers relatives are named there.
The attacks on shipping in the Pacific before during, and after the main Pearl Harbor attack are seldom noted. Over cast by the main attacks. Yet they gave their lives for their country as well.
Bless them all.