Pearl Harbor remembered 70th anniversary!

"A date which will live in infamy" is rapidly fading from culture.

Good. While its important to remember the sacrifice of our fathers and grandfathers its also important to put war behind us and not turn a battle into a religious relic, a 70 year old event into the next call to arms.

Roughly contemporaneous to the British V and W class destroyers they were not much liked by their new crews. They were uncomfortable and wet, working badly in a seaway. Their hull lines were rather narrow and 'herring-gutted' which gave them a vicious roll. The officers didn't like the way they handled either, since they had been built with propellors that turned the same way (2-screw ships normally have the shafts turning in opposite directions as the direction of rotation has effects on the rudder and the whole ship when manoeuvring, especially when coming alongside), so these were as awkward to handle as single-screw ships. Their turning circle was enormous, as big as most Royal Navy battleships, making them difficult to use in a submarine hunt which demanded tight manoeuvres, compounded by unreliable "chain and cog" steering gear laid across the main deck.

Queen Wilhelmina, her family and the government evacuated to Britain, but during the Battle of Britain her daughter Princess Juliana and her children proceeded to Ottawa, Canada.

On December 8, 1941, Netherlands declared war on Japan.[10] In January the American-British-Dutch-Australian Command (ABDACOM) was formed to co-ordinate Allied forces in South East Asia, under the commander of General Archibald Wavell[11]. On the night of January 10–11, 1942, the Japanese attacked Menado[12] in Sulawesi. At about the same moment they attacked Tarakan[13], a major oil extraction centre and port in the north east of Borneo. On February 27, the Allied fleet was defeated in the Battle of the Java Sea[14]. From February 28 to March 1, 1942, Japanese troops landed on four places along the northern coast of Java almost undisturbed[15]. On March 8, the Allied forces in Indonesia surrendered. The colonial army was consigned to detention camps and Indonesian soldiers were released. European civilians were interned once Japanese or Indonesian replacements could be found for senior and technical positions.

Figures that Klimmer's GF was a Russian codebreaker.



(they were on our side)