H-Gram Special Edition: "No Higher Honor"

Wow! Thanks for sharing Sir!

An aspect of a Naval Battle lost on the American public is the horror of the shredded bodies, screaming death and what sailors have to do to restore equipment and clean spaces of the grisly aftermath from blast and fire. No, all the public sees is the film of a burial at sea of a shrouded weighted body slipping out from under the Stars and Stripes and buried a sea. The site of carnage returns to its pristine natural state as.bodies and ships slip beneath the surface. The Navy Hymn.

We who have sailed through those areas see not a sign.

There was a report, the only one that I know of, regarding U.S.S Cole’s aftermath of her bombing which described the scenes faced by the surviving heroic crew who kept her afloat. A head jammed up amongst pipes, limbs shredded and splattered with decks awash with blood. Public never saw the pictures. The men and women aboard her will never forget their scenes.

The Air Force is nearly the same as the skies clear in less than a few hours as the smoke dissipates and the mighty aircrafts and crews litter the countryside far and wide. Any bodies within are usually incinerated.

The National Park Service has (had?) an Underwater Cultural Resource Unit which maintains not only the Arizona and others but also areas in the Western Pacific. One of which is in and around Palau where a number of ships and airplanes lay. All of them deep below the waters surrounding the resort.

The Army and Marines have their hallowed ground.

There are no remnants of Taffy 3’s valiant and heroic feat. The commanding officers of such feats receive the accolades and few enlisted. It’s the enlisted standing at their stations surrounded by hot steel, explosions and shipmates dead, dying or wounded who sustain the ships.

A neighbor of mine from years ago recounted his 2 years at sea on a destroyer in WW-II Pacific. As he manned the throttle board down in the engine spaces, a Japanese aircraft made a strafing run and a 20 MM round blew apart a shipmate standing next to him. Imagine the chaos topside. The ship was later scrapped—we say “turned into razor blades.”

Pearl Harbor represents all our hallowed Seas.