Minisub to stay in Texas
January 2nd, 2009 From
>Date: Tue, 30 Dec 1997 00:41:15 -0500
>From: Brooks A Rowlett
>Organization: None whatsoever
>X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01-C-MACOS8 (Macintosh; I; PPC)
>To: MARHST
>CC: Mahan Naval History Mailing List
> SubWar list ,
> Steve Hendricks
> “C. Patrick Hreachmack”
> Andrew Toppan
>Subject: Minisub to stay in Texas
>Precendence: bulk
>Sender: mahan-owner@microworks.net
>Reply-To: mahan@microworks.net
>
>The following appeared on the WWII mailing list:
>
>Subject:
> Midget Submarine
> Date:
> Tue, 30 Dec 1997 02:13:34 -0600
> From:
> Arnold L Gladson
>
>
>[ from the Austin-American Statesman]
>
> Midget sub a big
> coup for Nimitz museum
> Fredericksburg museum glories in its victory after 7-year battle
>for
>the Pearl Harbor artifact.
> Off the coast of Oahu, Japanese pilots rained bombs on the water
>below. Black smoke bellowed from battleships ripped in half. U.S.
>sailors ran for cover, shielding their ears from the thunderous sounds
>of
>war.
> The Japanese had surprised the U.S. Navy at Pearl Harbor.
> Beneath the surface of the ocean, a midget submarine silently
>sliced through the cold, dark water. Two men moved along the sub’s dim,
>narrow passageways shouting in Japanese, preparing torpedoes for launch.
> But the attack didn’t happen. The Haramaki lost its way and
>became beached off the coast of Oahu. One of its two operators, Ensign
>Kazuo Sakamaki, would live on in shame as the first Japanese prisoner of
>World War II.
> Fifty-six years later, the 80-foot long steel submarine, now
>undergoing restoration, sits in the dank belly of a defunct H-E-B
>grocery
>store off Main Street in Fredericksburg, Texas. And in Fredericksburg
>it
>will stay.
> A seven-year struggle over where the sub would be displayed
>ended
>Tuesday, when the U.S. Navy agreed to keep the historic vessel in
>Fredericksburg, at the Admiral Nimitz Museum of the Pacific War. Hawaii
>officials wanted it returned to the attack site at Pearl Harbor, home of
>the USS Arizona Memorial and a separate display of World War II-era
>ships
>and weapons.
> ”That decision may have averted another sneak attack on Pearl
>Harbor,” said retired U.S. Representative Jake Pickle of Austin. ”We
>would have moved heaven and earth before we’d moved that thing.”
> At the memorial, the midget sub would be just one more artifact.
>At the Nimitz, it will be the centerpiece—a tool for educating new
>generations about the attack. ”The Nimitz appreciates it more than any
>other museum,” said U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith of San Antonio.
> Smith sent a letter to President Clinton, signed by all Texas
>members of Congress, asking to keep the sub in Fredricksburg. ”It’s
>taken longer to get official permission to keep the sub here than the
>war
>lasted,” Smith said.
> This is more than just a dusty remembrance of a World War II
>battle. It breathes life into the ghosts of Pearl Harbor, reminding
>visitors that war is tragic, not romantic. ”Nothing tells the story of
>the war more powerfully,” said Bruce Smith, director of the Nimitz
>Museum.
> Fredericksburg is the birthplace of Admiral Chester W. Nimitz,
>who commanded the Pacific Fleet in World War II. The sub will rest in
>the museum’s new George Bush Gallery of the Pacific War, which will open
>in about a year
>
>Arnold Lloyd Gladson
>USMC-Class of 1942