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Stop everything, it's December 7th!!!

morgansforevermorgansforever Posts: 8,477 ✭✭✭✭✭
edited December 7, 2019 1:24PM in U.S. Coin Forum

I can't believe that I went through this much of the day before realizing it's December 7th. Post of coin from 1941, share a story or anything relevant. This past veterans day I had the privilege of eating and rubbing elbows with a WWII vet at my local VFW. Nothing quite like it, not many of these guys left. This is the best I could muster up a beat up 41S Walker.

My grandfather's bayonet and Kbar found in a trunk of personal items.

My grandfather aboard the USCGC STORIS, flushing out Nazis taking refuge in Newfoundland and Greenland.

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Comments

  • JimnightJimnight Posts: 10,846 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited December 7, 2019 2:13PM

    I can never forget this day in history .

  • Moxie15Moxie15 Posts: 318 ✭✭✭

    I know that this is 'Pearl Harbor Day' to the rest of the world, but in my house this is the fourteenth anniversary of my wife falling at work and destroying her ankle and damaging the nerves so that every single day is a new adventure in pain. So not a day for looking back around here.

  • JBKJBK Posts: 16,411 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @DNADave said:

    Is that an unissued WWII .45? How does stuff like that even exist? Any idea on ballpark value?

  • PTVETTERPTVETTER Posts: 6,024 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Truly a day to remember!

    Pat Vetter,Mercury Dime registry set,1938 Proof set registry,Pat & BJ Coins:724-325-7211


  • BuffaloIronTailBuffaloIronTail Posts: 7,546 ✭✭✭✭✭

    The "fanfare" that this date that will live in infamy is noted for sadly seems less and less remembered as the years wind on.

    Pete

    "I tell them there's no problems.....only solutions" - John Lennon
  • NSPNSP Posts: 322 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @bolivarshagnasty said:
    First thing this morning, I viewed some photos that were taken the day of the attack on Pearl. Japan is fortunate we only nuked two cities.

    Especially when you consider the atrocities Japan committed against millions of innocent civilians across Eastern Asia (particularly in China).

  • topstuftopstuf Posts: 14,803 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited December 7, 2019 3:43PM

    My folks got this.

    Shows varying frontlines and gun emplacements.

  • DNADaveDNADave Posts: 7,303 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @JBK said:

    @DNADave said:

    >

    Is that an unissued WWII .45? How does stuff like that even exist? Any idea on ballpark value?

    I think it is. I purchased it from a young coworker of my mother. This lady’s grandfather had passed and left her this, a S&W revolver, and a junk .22 Valor. she said she “didn’t want guns in the house”. So I’m happy to honor her grandfather’s service by keeping it. It has two original mags that came with two 1944 headstamped cartridges in one of them.

    It was a tough offer to make too. I had to be high enough for her not to shop it around more, which for me was 1600 at the time. I could just hear someone else saying “well I’ll give you 1650.”

    As far as value today. I think 2k easy and wish for the sky.

  • DIMEMANDIMEMAN Posts: 22,403 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @bolivarshagnasty said:
    First thing this morning, I viewed some photos that were taken the day of the attack on Pearl. Japan is fortunate we only nuked two cities.

    What made it truly despicable is that they were in Washington talking peace at the time!!!!!

  • HydrantHydrant Posts: 7,773 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited December 7, 2019 4:27PM

    I need to add this; The women in the family taught us the songs. The tradition. We all knew by heart the Marine Corps Hymn. And Up, up into the Wild Blue Yonder, The Cassions Go Rolling Along. They were tough girls. They made us tough. I love them all. They're all gone now. We could use more like them. They suffered, they persevered. God bless them. GOD BLESS OUR NATION.

  • HydrantHydrant Posts: 7,773 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Penny Lady, what a handsome man your father was. Oh, youth! So much responsibility. So young. We are the beneficiaries. He was a HERO. I am sure of that.

  • fox9487fox9487 Posts: 311 ✭✭✭

    @DIMEMAN said:

    @bolivarshagnasty said:
    First thing this morning, I viewed some photos that were taken the day of the attack on Pearl. Japan is fortunate we only nuked two cities.

    What made it truly despicable is that they were in Washington talking peace at the time!!!!!

    Kinda like "fire and fury" and "love letters".

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  • fox9487fox9487 Posts: 311 ✭✭✭

    @mustangmanbob said:
    My dad being released from POW camp in Yugoslavia. He was captured while riding a German horse, and when he was released, they had not eaten that horse yet.

    He was captured? Oh my! What kind of warrior is that? A hero in my opinion!!

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  • JBKJBK Posts: 16,411 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @DNADave said:

    @JBK said:

    @DNADave said:

    >
    It was a tough offer to make too. I had to be high enough for her not to shop it around more, which for me was 1600 at the time. I could just hear someone else saying “well I’ll give you 1650.”

    As far as value today. I think 2k easy and wish for the sky.

    I think a new one might cost that at retail these days. A WWII one in that shape would be a bargain in my mind.

    Hearing the story hurts almost as much as missing out on the 2019S RP SE.

  • SiriusBlackSiriusBlack Posts: 1,120 ✭✭✭✭✭

    At my mom’s first job after high school in 1963, the older ladies in the office were discussing Pearl Harbor on the anniversary. They couldn’t believe my mom didn’t know what it was and one of the ladies decided she was going to call my mom every December 7th to remind her. For the rest of her coworkers life, every December 7th, she would call to remind my mom. From the time I was old enough to understand, I knew what Pearl Harbor was because of those phone calls.

    She called my mom for around 50 years with out fail to remind her.

    Because of her, and my neighbor who was a P-38 pilot in the Pacific, I don’t remember ever not knowing about WWII or the sacrifices made.

    Collector of randomness. Photographer at PCGS. Lover of Harry Potter.

  • HydrantHydrant Posts: 7,773 ✭✭✭✭✭

    __> @mustangmanbob said:

    My dad being released from POW camp in Yugoslavia. He was captured while riding a German horse, and when he was released, they had not eaten that horse yet.

    Your dad looks about 15 years old.

  • JBKJBK Posts: 16,411 ✭✭✭✭✭

    The nightly news and the newspapers used to remind us every Dec 7th but I am not sure they do that anymore.

    The refrain in 1898 and for many years thereafter was "Remember The Maine" in honor of the battleship USS Maine which blew up in Havana Harbor. Now, of course, that is a footnote to history to most people.

    I can't imagine the same thing happening with Dec. 7th but as time goes by who knows.

  • HydrantHydrant Posts: 7,773 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @RockyMtnProspector said:

    InHonorOf Tech 5 Salomon Torrez, my great uncle, KIA 1/26/45 Battle of Bulge--one of "The Besieged Bastards of Bastogne":

    A special thanks to those who have served, including the man seen here, Tech 5 (Corporal) Salomon J. Torrez, my great uncle. Salomon enlisted in 1942, and was killed on January 26, 1945. As a member of the 705th Tank Destroyer Battalion, Salomon and the members of his company were attached to the 101st Airborne Division, and spent the Battle of the Bulge in Bastogne, alongside members of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment--known to us as the "Band of Brothers." A survivor of the Battle, Salomon (posthumously) and members of the 705th were awarded the Presidential Unit Citation, which I've attached below, along with a poem from one of the members of his unit, describing their engagement at Bastogne.

    My friend, the late, Eddie Martinez was also a BASTARD. Perhaps he and your uncle knew each other. Who knows? Edwardo told us kids that the cold was bad. All his friends got killed. The grenades were the worst. And......We were lucky! Nice man. Everyone loved him.

  • HydrantHydrant Posts: 7,773 ✭✭✭✭✭

    It all seems like so long ago. But it really isn't.

  • RockyMtnProspectorRockyMtnProspector Posts: 754 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @Hydrant According to the personnel roster here, the only Martinez and my great uncle were both in C company, second platoon.

    https://tankdestroyer.net/images/stories/ArticlePDFs/705th_Personnel_Assignments-Pt._2-29_pages.pdf

    GSAs, OBW rolls, Seated, Walkers. Anything old and Colorado-focused, CO nationals.



    Gonna get me a $50 Octagonal someday. Some. Day.
  • WalkerfanWalkerfan Posts: 9,742 ✭✭✭✭✭

    My favorite 1941 Walker in a PCGS 2.1.

    Sometimes, it’s better to be LUCKY than good. 🍀 🍺👍

    My Full Walker Registry Set (1916-1947):

    https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/16292/

  • RWMRWM Posts: 206 ✭✭✭

    @RockyMtnProspector said:

    InHonorOf Tech 5 Salomon Torrez, my great uncle, KIA 1/26/45 Battle of Bulge--one of "The Besieged Bastards of Bastogne":

    Don't know if you have this. Your Uncle is top row third from the right.

  • RWMRWM Posts: 206 ✭✭✭

    Source says second row fourth from the left.

  • DIMEMANDIMEMAN Posts: 22,403 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @Hydrant said:
    Yes, it is December 7. Yesterday, I asked everyone at the shop if they knew what December 7 was. No one knew the significance of the date. People aged 50+-25. Nobody knew nobody cared. What's Pearl Harbor? Never heard of it. What's World War II? They don't know and they don't care.

    When I was a boy a classmate told me a story. His father was there. He said that his dad saw a man thrown through the air against a metal ladder on the battleship. The man was impressed into the ladder. Cut into square pieces. I think of that every Dec. 7. And other times too.

    We live in the age of ignorance.

    I do remember. And today I remember my Uncle Johnny who I never met. Shot down over Germany. The pride of the family. Killed in action. I remember Uncle Ernie. He told me that the bullets whizzing by his head in the Philippines sounded like buggy whips and that he wanted to just go home....to Kansas. I remember Uncle Curly. The burning and smoking palm trees on some Pacific island impressed him the most and that he was afraid that the incoming shells from the battleships would hit him instead of the Japanese. He didn't use the word "Japanese." I remember the twins. Uncle's Lloyd and Floyd. They served together . 82nd. Airborne I think. North Africa, Italy, and the invasion over France on D-Day. Kansas farm boys. They both committed suicide around 1964. My mother said it was because of the terrible things that they saw in the war. They were happy boys when they left but they were changed when they came back. Heavy drinkers. I remember my Uncle Bob. My favorite. As I was his. U.S. Marine Corps. 1942-65. Saw action on Roi Namor, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and in Korea. Oh, did he have stories! But the one that always sticks with me is this one; He told me that on Iwo an artillery shell came down and landed right next to him. Buried in the black sand. It was glowing red and orange. He reached over and touched it. Why? Burned his hand. And then.....he took two shots to his left side and left leg. They were little purple dots that he would show me, years after, to my amazment. He also told me that while out on maneuvers in Hawaii for the invasion of Japan, word came in that the atomic bomb had dropped. Everyone was called in. HOT CHOW! He was happy because he thought he would get killed during the invasion.

    I do remember. I remember my father. United States Navy. Poor ranch boy. Joined before graduating high school. He was on an aircraft carrier. It was sunk. Guadalcanal I think. He never would say. He survived. Not many did. He lived. He married my mother and now I have 12 grandchildren. Isn't life strange?

    I wanted so badly to follow in their footsteps. In defense of our great nation. I took HELL for it. From them. No regrets

    Lastly, I remember the WOMEN. The GRANDMA. The SISTERS. The WIVES. The TEARS. The sleepless nights that they cried over their lost sons, brothers, husbands. The father of the orphaned children.

    OH, I REMEMBER.

    SEMPER FIDELIS
    NON SIBI SED PATRIAE
    AND THE CASSIONS GO ROLLING ALONG

    It will be that way in 20 years about Vietnam........maybe sooner the way younger people are these days.

  • WalkerfanWalkerfan Posts: 9,742 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Young people don't know and they don't care.... ignorance is rampant.

    Sometimes, it’s better to be LUCKY than good. 🍀 🍺👍

    My Full Walker Registry Set (1916-1947):

    https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/16292/

  • renman95renman95 Posts: 7,037 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Great recounts. May God bless them all. Unfortunately, the shooting a couple of days ago and the Pensacola terrorist shooting Friday morning has greatly distracted from our local remembrance.

  • morgansforevermorgansforever Posts: 8,477 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @renman95 said:
    Great recounts. May God bless them all. Unfortunately, the shooting a couple of days ago and the Pensacola terrorist shooting Friday morning has greatly distracted from our local remembrance.

    I know it's sad, a shooting at Pearl Harbor and Pensacola, it's becoming all to common. Thanks to all those that contributed, God bless us all.

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  • SaorAlbaSaorAlba Posts: 7,593 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Pearl Harbor and the war affected many of us in later generations - my mother and myself might not have been around had my Midwestern born grandfather not been based at the Presidio where he met and married my grandmother before shipping off for duty in Hawaii in 1942. My grandmother could recount where she was in San Francisco when she found out about the attack in Pearl Harbor that Sunday morning.

    Tir nam beann, nan gleann, s'nan gaisgeach ~ Saorstat Albanaich a nis!
  • HemisphericalHemispherical Posts: 9,370 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Thank you to all our servicemen and women!

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