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If you have to be told, you'll never understand it.
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Inevitably, the comparison between 7 Dec 41 and 11 Sep 01 is made, as both were "shocks to the system." This thread is not the place for such comparisons.
On an entirely thread-related note, I recently submitted a college paper for review, written about DD139 USS Ward, and her commander, William Outerbridge's actions outside the entrance to Pearl Harbor on the morning of the attack: the first official American shots of the war, and the first US sinking of a hostile submarine of the war, all occurred a little over an hour before the first Japanese aircraft appeared in the Sunday morning skies over Oahu. Turned out that the reviewer on my paper is directly related to an USS O'Brien crewman. For those unfamiliar with the story, Ward was converted to a fast transport for the island-hopping campaign. On the morning of 7 Dec 44, near Ormoc, she was struck by a single kamikaze. Initial reports were optimistic; the damage did not appear to be severe, and there was only one crewman injured by the strike. The fires spread quickly, however, and soon jeopardized the ship's ammo stowage. Ward's skipper gave the abandon ship command, and other destroyers in the area pulled alongside to help evacuate the ship. Once the crew was off, the attending destroyers were given orders to sink the hulk of the Ward. USS O'Brien did the job - ironically under the command of one William Outerbridge. Three years to the day since his first command entered its name into the history books, he was ordered to sink it. Got an A on the paper, too. |
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Glad to share. I knew some of the story before I started, but once I started the real research, it just kept getting more and more interesting. I had to go back and heavily edit the paper for length - it was WAY over the max for the assignment.
It was an honor to work in the paper, though, at least for me. There was a cloud of doubt over Ward's claim of the midget sub for a number of years, but that was finally dispelled in the early 2000's when a team from Hawai'i Underwater Research Lab found the wreck with a 4" hole in the conning tower, just like Outerbridge reported. |
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Let me check and see if I still have the paper. I'd be happy to submit it to the site if anyone cares to read it - if I even still have it.
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can you post it here? thank you:salute: |
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Yes, an excellent story! Thank you for salvaging a tarnished thread! :rock:
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I had to try, Steve.
The paper is resident on my HDD, along with the presentation that was the result of the paper. The presentation needed to be between 5 and 7 minutes, and was videotaped for submission to the grading authority. Sadly, the video was lost in a hard drive failure a few months ago. (whew!) The presentation still exists, as well as the paper. I'll need to convert the presentation over to a PowerPoint Executable; then I'll upload both to my hosting account (if I can figure out which one to use.) Hopefully, I'll be posting links today. Thanks for the interest, guys - I'll admit to being a little surprised. :D |
I agree with Steve entirely. Thank you, Growler. :up:
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But I would have dinged you for misusing the word "ironically". This was a coincidence; it was not an irony. :D I am the grammarian about whom your mother warned you :har: |
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