#VeteranOfTheDay Navy Veteran Isaac C. Kidd - VAntage Point

Great history share on this great hero MAJ Dale E. Wilson, Ph.D.

On Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese forces launched a surprise aerial attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. At the time of the attack, Kidd was seen rushing from his cabin toward his station on the bridge of USS Arizona. Soon afterward, a Japanese bomb punctured the ship’s deck and ignited its entire ammunition magazine. The resulting explosion destroyed USS Arizona and killed 1,177 sailors, including Kidd. The fatalities aboard the ship accounted for nearly half of all U.S. military deaths at Pearl Harbor.

The next day, calling Dec. 7 “a date which will live in infamy,” President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a speech asking Congress to authorize a declaration of war against Japan, marking the entry of the U.S. into World War II.

A few days after the attack, Navy divers swam out to investigate the wreckage of USS Arizona. Divers found a Naval Academy ring inscribed with Kidd’s name fused to a bulkhead near where he had been standing. The extreme heat of the explosion had welded it to the steel hull of the ship, forcing the divers to remove it with a chisel.

Kidd was the highest-ranking officer killed at Pearl Harbor, the first flag officer to die in World War II and the first Navy flag officer in American history to die from a foreign enemy attack. The Navy never recovered his body. For his actions during the battle, he posthumously received a Medal of Honor.

Excellent share brother Dale.