Holes in the Stairs

[doubleh]

I fly my flag on those days also unless the wind is high. That results in a flag wound around my angled pole.

Growing up on the south plains of Texas I remember mostly the scarcity of goods and ration books. My father and his older brother were farmers and the draft wouldn't accept them telling them they were more important to the war effort at home than toting a rife. The older one was already 40 years old and my dad was 38 when Pearl was bombed. Next younger was a carpenter and away he went to wear an army uniform but was never sent over seas. The youngest had his draft notice awaiting when he graduated high school, He got in on the tail end of finishing off Germany and returned with a purple heart which he poo-pooed saying it was nothing but a scratch from a mortar fragment. My wife has 2 uncles, both B-17 pilots, that are buried in France.

 

[hps1]

I was 5, fishing w/my dad on the Brownsville ship channel when we heard about Pearl Harbor. Several days prior to the 7th, a Japanese freighter had sailed with a load of scrap iron.

 

[74man]

When I took a tour to the Schofield Barracks, I made the comment that the Japanese Pilots were very bad shots and I was asked why I said that, so I replied " They didn't break one window and there were bullet marks and holes in the walls" Most on the tour laughed but it wasn't accepted well by the Tour Guide.

 

[luv2safari]

That was USS Yorktown CV-10, which earned 11 battle stars in WW2 and another 5 in Vietnam. She is the centerpiece of the Patriots Point Maritime Museum, an absolutely fantastic destination if someone is interested in such things.

I was fortunate that I was able to visit the NS Savannah during her time there- the first nuclear powered hybrid merchant/ passenger vessel. Unfortunately, she has since been removed and may not return or even be preserved at all.

My dad served on Yorktown II in WWII as an Ensign JG, decoding messages from CINCPAC. He was getting ready for Yorktown's support of the invasion of Japan. He loved The Bomb and toasted it every August 6th. The whole fleet knew there would be a sky full of Kamikazes to meet them.

 

[WestKentucky]

I’m pretty sure I saw that same set of stairs on a tv show this week. I’ve been sick and have been watching a lot of ww2 shows so I don’t recall exactly which one but I can figure it out easily because I remember that whole point of that series. They did a lidar scan of the stairs in one segment and talked about the building being hit as part of the attack. They also showed an IJN minisub likely sunk by American deck gun fire several hours before the air raids took place on Pearl Harbor. Really an amazing and fresh look at the history that was never really known or publicly accepted.

Buried Secrets of WW2. Season 1 episode 1 Pearl Harbor. I tried to screenshot the clip showing the stairs but the phone somehow blacks out the image on screen when the screen shot is taken. I can’t recommend this show enough because it’s just very very well done. Each episode is incredible in its own way.

 

[I6turbo]

. By the way one of my anglers about 15 years ago, was a retired sub skipper (he ran a "boomer" the boats that carried nukes..). In a passing conversation about 911, etc. he quietly said "the next time we get hit - we'll lose a city..." Must admit that stuck with me.

I think he's wrong, far underestimating the potential for damage, and the resulting devastation will be hundreds of times worse. Next time we get hit with something bigger than a building or some such, they'll take down the entire power grid for months. It is well documented that it would be relatively easy to do, and far more devastating than the localized blast of a nuclear bomb. Almost the entire country is on what amounts to life support in the form of the electrical grid.

Task Force on National and Homeland Security » Saving lives by saving our grid.

emptaskforce.us

"The Task Force on National and Homeland Security is concerned about the vulnerability of our electrical grid and other critical infrastructures and the danger that it poses to our children and families. Our members include citizens, engineers, field experts, and others, all united in our concern for the American people.The threat of the U.S. power grid crashing is a very real but preventable problem but the average American has no idea of the severity of vulnerability under which we live. Experts say our power grid can be destroyed and, when that happens, 70-90% of the U.S. population will die within the first year. Experts also say it is not a mere possibility but a near certainty that the grid will be hit and it could happen at any time. Six Congressional Blue Ribbon Commissions and several independent research organizations agree with those statements. There are relatively inexpensive solutions to address the vulnerabilities of our electric grid and other critical infrastructures. Our website seeks to educate the American people regarding what is facing us and what can be done.The Task Force on National and Homeland Security is an official Congressional Advisory Board recognized as such by the Ethics Committee under the name “The Task Force on National and Homeland Security” and as a Virginia based, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization under the name “EMP Task Force on National and Homeland Security”. As such, Task Force on National and Homeland Security receives no Congressional funding and operates solely on donations."

 

[WestKentucky]

So in the show I referenced earlier, the stairs shown have several bullet holes still in them. What is on screen here is the LIDAR image of those stairs which is essentially a huge and complex grid of laser measured distances mixed with a color selected to closely match that minute area of the grid which when viewed as a whole is very close to being a photorealistic 3d image of the area scanned. What makes this technology even more incredible is that after the scan is completed at point A then another scan can be completed at point B which overlaps some data points from A and the modeling software recognizes this and overlays the data into one dataset and can very accurately model anything. Now, to take it even a step further, provided the right hardware is used in the imaging process there are filters which can essentially look through certain strata like foliage and see the floor of a forest, or through silt and see fine detail on a shipwreck that is not visible by any other methods.

The technology has so many easily seen potential uses in documenting things like wrecks, crime scenes, natural disasters, fires (especially when using hardware which picks up thermal data and chemical composition data)… it’s just totally mind blowing. The technology has advanced so fast that handheld easily affordable versions are already quite popular. I’m using an iPhone 14 Pro to type this and it has basic lidar technology in it. The newer phones have more advanced tech in them and are at or under a grand in purchase price.

Techno-geek rant over. I’m thankful that tech like this is being used to document things such as significant historical sites. As fast as we are losing a lot of our history, especially world war and civil war battle sites, I hope that at a minimum people can scan and thoroughly document things slated for destruction before we lose them forever.

 

[hutch51]

Been there, briefing tour.
PACAF HQ still has the divots from shrapnel and bullet hits. The story I got was the damage is left in place as a reminder.