Navy Logbook Found 84 Years After Pearl Harbor Attack

 FOUNDERSCODE.COM...Denise Simon

"We need more feel-good stories than we think we do and here is one for you. History buffs and World War ll historians will love this one…  In full from the Military Times:

"One man’s trash is the National Archives’ treasure.

"After more than 80 years, an old logbook containing the initial descriptions of U.S. vessels after the Japanese attack on Navy Yard Pearl Harbor in 1941 was recovered, the National Archives recently announced. The logbook covers the 16 months before and after the attack that was the catalyst for the U.S. entry into World War II.

"Its whereabouts can be traced back to the moment it was plucked from a trash bin in the 1970s at the old Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino, California, by Oretta Kanady, The Washington Post first reported.

"In an interview with the Post, Kanady’s son, Michael William Bonds, said she found it in the bin while working as a civilian employee and thought it looked interesting. She asked if she could have it, and it remained in her possession until her death in 2000. Bonds then inherited it.

“In the last few years, I’ve moved here, moved there, it’s just been in a box,” Bond’s told The Post. “I hadn’t really looked at it.” . . .

"A fully digitized copy of the logbook is available online.". . . 

Members of the USS Arizona band, known as Navy Band Unit 22, perform on Nov. 22, 1941, in the semifinal round of the Battle of Music at Bloch Arena at Pearl Harbor. They finished second and advanced to a final competition that would never be held. Everyone in the band died onboard the Arizona during the Japanese attack on Dec. 7, 1941.

. . . "The logbook covers the status of vessels in the yard during the period from March 1941 to June 1942, a period of extremely rapid and momentous events. During the time period when the first entries, the U.S. was on a peacetime footing and was in diplomatic talks with Japan; nine months later, Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entered the war; and by the end of the logbook, just seven months further on, the U.S. Navy won strategic victories at the Battle of the Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway, and was gearing up to retake the Solomon Islands.

"It also shows the Pearl Harbor yard’s essential work in repairing Navy warships after the Japanese attack, putting cruisers and destroyers back in the fight after severe damage. Within six months, the yard had taken in and redelivered the damaged battleships Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Tennessee; cruisers Honolulu, Helena, and Raleigh; destroyers Helm and Shaw; and three auxiliaries, all fully repaired or patched up for transit for permanent repairs."   More here. 

Denise hosts her own weekly radio show, "The Denise Simon Experience".  Listen to Denise at  WDDQ - Talk 92.1FM, and other terrestrial and Internet based radio networks. Topics and guests cover issues media either ignores. Also heard daily on WGUL 860 AM, The Answer, The Salem Media Group.