Wednesday, December 7, 2011

A Date Which Will Live in Infamy

There are a lot of Pearl Harbor stories out there, so here's mine.

My great uncle (my maternal grandmother's brother) was in the Navy and serving on the Hornet, which at the time was docked in Norfolk. On Dec 7, he was on leave and at home here in mid-Michigan. At the time of the attack, he had gone out with my grandfather (my grandma's boyfriend at the time) to a Sunday matinee. As they exited the theater, they could tell something was up and headed for home, where already a telegram from the Navy was waiting telling him in no uncertain terms, leave cancelled, get your butt back to the ship ASAP. So back he went (by train in those days), and went on to take part in the Doolittle Raid, Midway and Santa Cruz. He ended up a career Navy man.

Closer to home, on the CY6 front, I was informed the Vals and SBDs won't be ready until after Christmas. So I've asked to sub some Sallys. I'd like to start building up some Chinese theater aircraft in addition to the carrier planes. Speaking of which, in addition to the Coral Sea and Midway scenarios, I'm looking closely at some actions in the Aleutians and maybe even, wait for it, Pearl Harbor. CY6 lends itself fairly easily to scenario development.

One final closing thought on Pearl Harbor. For years I have toyed around with writing a screenplay on an event associated with Pearl Harbor. I wrote one (pretty bad) screenplay that I suppose could best be described as romantic comedy, but I've always wanted to do a historical one. This would not be like the Ben Affleck flick at all. For starters, it focuses on a Japanese character, and is on a much more personal level. Thoughts?

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