001our Police Department our fire department and also our fire fire Union Local 1893 for sponsoring today's lunch and now I'm going to turn it over to our town manager Michael Herbert thanks for your patience and thank you for being here um again my name is Michael Herbert um I'm the town manager here and it's always an honor to come here and uh break bread with you and celebrate this fine day um before I get started uh I'd like to recognize uh some of our officials in the room um you've met candy but um in addition we have uh three of our select board members here I believe uh Yolanda Greaves um Claudia Bennett oh there's Claudia Claudia's over here and Joe manani thank you for being here um I'd also like to recognize our assistant
002Town manager Jen ball as well as uh our police chief and our fire chief chief Roby and uh Chief Rossi and their departments thank you very much for being [Applause] here so um today as We Gather to Mark Veterans Day we stand together to honor the brave men and women who have served our nation with both courage and Valor this day it's not just a date on the calendar it's a solemn reminder of the sacrifices made by countless individuals and their families who have dawned the uniform to protect our freedoms and our way of life Veterans Day emerged From the Ashes of the first world war originally known as armus day Comm commemorating the end of a conflict that was hoped to be the war to end all wars and sadly as we know history
003would take a different course but the spirit of that first commemoration has endured and involved into what we know today a day to honor all of those who served in times of war and in peace because our veterans represent the best of America they embody courage commitment and the spirit of sacrifice they come from all walks of life but they all share a common Bond a willingness to stand In Harm's Way to protect others they have stood guard in the desolate deserts navigated the dangerous seas and patrolled the skies in defense of our nation their dedication ensures our safety and it also upholds our values but honoring our veterans is about more than just recognition it's about commitment just like veterans employ a sense of duty to protect our nation it's our duty to support
004them as they transition back to civilian life and to provide them with the resources and the respect that they deserve It's Our obligation to remember not only their service but also their sacrifices of their families who have endured long absences and the anxiety of uncertainty today we also remember those who never returned their ultimate sacrifice that forms the Bedrock of the freedom that we enjoy we must ensure their legacies are not forgotten and their stories not lost in the annals of history and so as we reflect on the significance of this day we renew our pledge to support our veterans to uphold the values that they fought for and to work tirelessly for a future worthy of their sacrifice let us remember that every day is an opportunity to express our gratitude not just with
005words but with actions in closing let us all carry forward the message of Veterans Day it's a message of gratitude respect and unwavering support for those who have served to our veterans some of which are here today we owe a debt we can never fully repay but we can start by saying from the bottom of our hearts thank you thank you and now I would like to ask select board member Joe manani if he would please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank [Music] you can you see by the dawn early so proud We the Twilight stripes and bright stars through the or
006the ramps we watch were so G streaming and the rocket Rock [Applause] through the night that our flag was still there for [Music] starle for the of the of the and the home of the [Music] [Applause] while the storm clouds gather for across the sea let us wear alance to a land that's free let us all be grateful for a land so f as we raise our voices in a Solem prayer God Bless America that I love stand beside her and guide her through the night with the light from above from the Mountain through the pr to the o with God bless America my home sweet God bless America my home [Music] sweet above the fruited America am God shed his gra on the and ground th good with Brotherhood from sea to shining sea
007give me your time your PO your mass to be free theed ref of homeless to me I lift my lamp beside the golden door this is my country of my birth this is my country Grand on Earth I BL my Al America the for [Music] this country to have and to hold [Applause] last [Music] one storm clouds gather all around SK Thunder now we must but after the rain comes the rainbow I know in my heart my heart we meet again don't know where don't know when but I know we'll meet again some sunny [Music] day don't keep smiling through just like you always do the BL SK Drive the dark CL far away so will you please say h f they'll I sing again don't know where don't know when but I know we'll
008meet again some sunny day somay we meet again someday [Music] [Applause] again [Music] good she was the best example of a new weapon system the American Navy could come up with for the uh conflict in the Pacific at the beginning of the war America had eight aircraft carriers Japan had 10 during the war America would build 141 Japan would only build 20 you w signed any ship her overall size was comparable to a sky graper if rockapella centa were lying on her deck the deck would be 23 ft longer at the water line 820 ft long the flight deck 147 ft long the deck on the flight consisted of Steel 1/5 of an inch thick and 4 in teak platforms there are three uh there are three elevators on board let's see one here one
009here and one here and these elevators could bring a plane up from the hanger deck to the flight deck in 11 seconds she carried 12 5 in guns for any aircraft protection 68 40 mm guns and 50 2 20 mm guns and the guns were placed near the bow in the stern she had two engine rooms four and a half with two engines in each room four boilers prop propelled her top speed 32.7 knots nuclear power she carried about 104 aircraft here's a picture of her launching she was built in the quinsey yard by the way December 7 December 7th 1942 here she is in root and that just gives you a scale idea of how many planes she could carry her total aircraft compliment was 104 planes about 30 Hellcat hell diver dive bombers
01050 Fighters and 20 torpedo planes and they were stored below decks on the hanger deck official Navy photograph The Hanger deck is below the main deck it extends just about the whole area this section here this is the island and this is basically the brains this is where uh all the orders all the command structure is house both Navy and Aviation groups I I didn't realize this until I started reading the research but the pilots the pilots and the air Crews on this carrier did not report to the ship's Captain they reported to the Admiral's Air Group and each plane had an air group and this was Air Group 84 here the planes are all forward these are pictures of are just in various stages early in the war here's Admiral Burke and Admiral Mitch
011mitcher these these two Admirals were in charge of all aspects of the aviation here's plane warming up you have the the aircraft crew you have men along the side this is one of the planes these at uh dive bombers torpedo planes these are planes returning from a flight so here's a picture of the hanger deck it is below the the main deck 25t High ceilings these men are loading ammunition and bombs on planes these men back here sitting watching a movie for for entertainment she's going through the Panama Canal 1943 headed for the Pacific for some of the research for this talk I was very fortunate in that my wife's uncle was a pilot on board the Bunker Hill that day he was a highly decorated flyer two distinguished flying crosses a number of a
012number of uh medals and acknowledgements he was also an excellent artist he went to Yale Yale College of Art so that talking with him in some of his memorabilia is really a great addition to this talk I also refer to his mother my wife's grandmother's diary which she started in the war and I'll just read the first line I'm going to write an account of Al's part in the war and the events taking place both at home and in his life I hope I do not not forget anything in February of this year Al started flying lessons this was in 1942 and she goes on and and there are a number of highlights that I can [Music] mention this plane is a cors it just shows you this plane was developed more for land use
013initially than from a carrier and one of the problems they had when these planes were take off the Corsair the the aerodynamics or or there there were features about it that a lot of the pilots were not used to and sometimes it would take off and it wouldn't have enough lift and would just drop right in front of the carrier there were a tremendous amount of accidents not necessarily from combat but flight accidents I mean these these were this was a dangerous way to spend a day here are some of the antiaircraft guns that they would use this is a picture of an aircraft carrier that would just missed just missed uh getting hit by a comicazi another picture these are taken in 1944 and up this is the Franklin she was hit by kamakazi
014in March and the crew members are all headed forward most of the time the damage would be midship to aft if you could get forward chances are you could survive picture of the kamakazi plane I don't know if you can make it out but it's right there it's that close to this [Music] Battleship before the attack on Pearl Harbor the Japanese figured they had to have a decisive strike which would neutralize the us while Japan focused on other targets the Philippines the East Indies Malaya Wake Island their leader yamam he he was very very uh an oddent supporter of the concept of aircraft carriers he felt that the aircraft carrier would replace the battleship as the Primal Prime weapon but he cautioned the military leaders in Japan that if she does attack Pearl Harbor it's
015only going to take six months for the American economy to kick into gear and from that point on Japan would lose any advantage she had December the 7th 353 Japanese planes take off from carriers at the end of the day most of America's battle Pacific Fleet is on fire and lying in the mud four of her eight battleships were sunk fortunately no American carriers were in Port the Japanese sent two radio messages as they departed to toe meaning attack commenced and raah ra meaning surprise achieved to a listener these two messages sounded like Torah Torah Torah 3 days later Japanese planes would attack and they would syn two primary British battleships with negligible losses for six months the Japanese would run wild the Philippines the Dutch East Indies Malaya Guam and one of the problems
016the Japanese discovered was treating Allied prisoners they had no provision they had no uh forethought regarding the amount of prisoners they were going to take and the concept of surrender to a Japanese military man is absolutely unacceptable it it is a reflection of the samurai code the Bushido code the warrior code and I I never realized how much influence the emperor has on every facet of Japanese life controlled everything the emperor is well the emperor's God if you're fighting for the emperor therefore you're fighting on the right side and everything was uh subject to the emperor's philosophy or his Desires in addition in the 30s the Japanese government shifted from being relatively open to a very very militaristic uh society and so the military leaders uh just they had a free hand in developing everything
017for the Japanese if you surrender that was total shame upon your family the Japanese Field Manual in 1941 for the average enlisted man said clearly being captured would bring shame upon the Japanese Army never alive except the shame of capture die so as not to leave the disgrace of such an offense the Yamato was correct from Pearl Harbor until June the Pacific it was Japanese but at the Battle of Midway Japan lost four aircraft carriers 3,000 men and 40% of her Navy's best air Crews and flight technicians they would never completely replace those losses 1943 May 24th the Bunker Hill would be ready to head to the Pacific she leaves on September 4th she goes through the Panama Canal room the ready room was where the pilots relaxed where they congregated and talked they got
018their briefing for the mission they were about ready to go on to and the ready rooms were suspended from the flight deck so you have the flight deck and then attached to the bottom of the flight deck were the ready rooms and they were they were galleries SL and and the thing is you wanted your Pilots as close to the planes as possible once the order Pilots man your planes came in they had their own chairs they had ashtrays it was just officer country so when I talked to Al I said what happened on the 4th on the 14th of May and he said I just taking pictures of okanawa she The Bunker Hill and a lot of other ships were stationed around Oklahoma uh okanawa and they were they were protecting okanawa from further
019Japanese attacks from the southern part of Japan and okanawa was was where the birth it's where the kamakazi actually became a very very fulltime used Weapon by the Japanese the first com kazis came in in like October of 44 by March April and May 45 that was the only that was the only weapon they really had success with so I said to Al once once the uh plane was struck the ship was struck I said what happened and he said I just landed I had some photos some Recon photos at okanawa and I I thought well I'm going to get a cup of coffee in the ready room and talk to my buddies and see swap notes then he said no I'm going I'm going to bring them down and give him develop so he
020went out of the one of the uh ready rooms instead of going down the passageway this way he went that way he walked about 20 steps he said and then he heard a huge Bang and he turned around and everything was black except a ball of fire was racing down towards him he managed to get topside and I'll explain more here's a picture of some pilots in a ready room this is a painting of one of Uncle Al's wingmen he did he did this painting of a this was a he was a pilot from uh can it I mean these are not old men these are young guys this is a painting Alid of his Squadron bombing Tokyo I have one here that I can show you after the talk you can look at it
021closer so the kamakazi how do you convince perfectly healthy guy to get into an airplane that has only enough gas to make a one-way trip and you want him to dive and hit a ship aircraft carriers were a big threat to okanawa because the planes could go from the carriers and bomb okanawa so the more carriers you could take out the more relief you You' give okanawa the emperor absolute control everything they did was for him this is typical kamakazi plane a z rooll playing another shot of it here's an actual plane and the the fellow who took this picture was killed shortly but this is this plane actually hit another aircraft carrier the first kamakazi were organized in October of 1944 the guy that came up with the idea of having them was guy
022named Admiral onishi onishi was ruthless he was a samurai in the sense of the old Samurai the old traditions and he was a talented calligrapher and to inspire the members of the group he writes the wild cherry blossom Falls without regret after it scatters its perfume in the light of the Rising Sun he's addressing 27 Pilots each one has a plane with a 250 kg bomb each one is to crash into an enemy aircraft carrier at the end of his briefing he says to the pilots if you're going to die anyway it is good to make maximum effect on the enemy maximum effect of your life what do you think on she referred to these Pilots you are already Gods without Earthly desires his poem in Blossom today then scattered life is so like a
023delicate flower how can one expect the fragrant to last forever so that was the beginning that was the origin of the kamakazi and that was in an October of 44 in January of 1945 The Bunker Hill heads for the Pacific over 5,000 men replacement PLS she's going to join the other past carriers this fellow is kayoshi oawa he's born in 1922 he's the one first of five kids simple existence school and work on the farm raised in a militaristic society with complete reverence and obedience to the emperor all facets of Life education jobs society and the Press were influenced by the military the Japanese Fe of the empire the Emperor as a god kayoshi graduates from University he is a resered flight training program on completion he becomes an enen and then he becomes a
024pilot all of the volunteers had to complete the survey and the survey had you had to fill out three fors first form do you wish earnestly wish to be a a kamakazi pilot do you not wish to be involved in kamakazi attacks or do you do you care do you are you willing to try it enthusiasm or give it a shot or you not want to uh there's no proof that even if he said you didn't want it anything to do with it you would be left out as a pilot they didn't have much VI he didn't learn how to fly combat he taxis out circled and landed over and over no more than a half an hour a day FL flying four days of practice formation flying the average pilot had less than two
025days practicing takeoff they had difficulty flying in formation they had difficulty flying in bad weather at 2 a.m. May 11th admal Yuki's Scout Plains discover the Bunker Hill she's 60 mil off the coast of okan the day before the Bunker Hill was resupplied with 90% fuel capacity she now has 1,870 3,000 gallons of fuel and she has 2,500 gallons of aviation fuel at about 9:45 in the morning the flight deck a is filled with fresh planes they're stacked Wing Towing fully loaded with bombs fuels shells rockets and naom Below them on the hanger deck were another 48 planes waiting to be raised in the sky returning from a mission a 20 airplanes low on fuel low on ammunition and they're waiting for permission to land among them 1500 ft were a couple members of the
026combat Air Patrol they were coming into to land also at 10:02 in the morning Colonel sweat observes two kamakazi diving out of the clouds at 6 to 7,000 ft and headed directly toward the Bunker Hill he he radios there two kamakazi ding on you within 10 or 15 seconds the first comicazi releases its bom the plane was piloted by Yori seio he's firing all his guns as he St scrapes The Plight deck filled with aircraft he releases his bomb the bomb's 550 lbs it bounces ahead of the plane it blows through the flight deck just after number three elevator it tears a hole through the deck rips a passageway in the gallery deck where the ready rooms are and then blows through the heade de ceiling blows out the port side and explodes it had
027a timer R so all of this tra traveling is doing and she still hasn't explored them Gunners Manning guns on the port side where the bomb came out were torn apart his crash his plane crashed into the planes on the F section within 30 seconds most of the ab section of the flight deck is a blaz his plane cut through aircraft whose propellers were already turned it ripped open their fuel tanks setting fires blazing and throwing straple in all directions 1500 ft above sweat in his plane he says he just cleaned house God it was a terrible mess in the second kamakazi kayoshi oawa radios his base at 958 I found the enemy vessels then I see an enemy plane in his final message at 10:02 his last words were now I am no diving
028into the ship his plane was spotted by Gunners everybody is shooting at him he's taking several hits It's not slowing to CL him down he releases his bomb at the right moment if falled right ahead of the plane and explodes instantly crashing through the flight deck it hits the side of the island ripping away the capwalk he misses killing both Admirals by less than 20 ft fires are burning everywhere the gallery deck has disappeared machinery for the 16,000 lb elevator is melted twisted and broken fires block the catwalks smoke and poison air fill the whole area cutting off at visibility exits within moments of his crash crew members s to fight the fire tend the wounded gather the dead and Implement damage control steps in the water destroyers are picking up men who either been
029blown overboard or jumped simply to avoid the fire alongside of the ship is a rer trying to put fires out in the boiler rooms men are having difficulty breathing the toxic air Sears their lungs Burns their throats and scratches their eyes soon carbon monoxide appears causes the men to get tired and they want to sleep normally ambient temperature in the engine room 110° at last check it was 139° there was no Escape they had to keep the engines running these men knew it and they stayed at their post there was a marine captain of a 20 mm in aircraft gun tops side and he took a grievous wound in his stomach and they tried to stop the bleeding with shirts and rags to no avail and he said get me an American flag and they
030got him the colors and he gave him the flag and he died holding the flag in the boiler rooms Commander K Michael's men were ordered to keep the boilers running at all cost they were ordered not to leave their Post in essence this was a death sentence there was a case of men pounding and screaming behind their secured water typ door denied in spite of their screams do not open the door on the flight deck men are trying to rescue Pilots that they think are in the ready rooms below them they had a lumber jaacks on board he cut a small hole in the circle with an axe again it's only one 1/8 of 1/5 of an inch thick steel and 4 in planks and the plag most of them burnt off any so they
031cut this hole and the petty officer ordered Jerry Hansen to be lowered into the black hole and the hole is just big enough for him to be lowered head first and it's black it smells horrible fuel oil gasoline burned Rubber and the stench of burned flesh and as he getting lower further and further and he has minimal light he suddenly looks at a blurred jumble and then he realizes it was a tangle of dead men they died in Blackness and confusion he screams get me out of here all these are dead later Hansen said it was like how you would imagine uh hell would be I guess these are fellow kazis this is what it looked like before they hit again Oka and the carriers and the escort ships are all close to okanawa at
032the Battle of okanawa more men in the Navy were killed than the Marines because of the kamakazi and these are all ships that were damaged by kazis these are the killed the wounded it was just it was just a Slaughter the plane the first plane landed over here this is where that Marine Captain was the two Admirals were right here they were they were missed by 20 ft this is the uh the flight deck and and then below you have the gallery yet it's just a thin line here and then you have all of the planes below this is the fire and the fire if you were could get forward you you stood a chance of being uh of surviving so Uncle Al got forward and he came across a young guy and he said
033the guy his face was terribly burnt he didn't know him and Al said can I do anything to help you and he said the kid says yeah can you light me a cigarette and Al said I never smoked again after that here she is C this is from a distance so here's water these are all Indi aircraft guns a lot of them were wiped out by the explosions his water from the fire fire has being dis funneling overboard here's a cruiser and they're accepting wounded in these baskets from the carrier she got very very close and she would also help with the fires up but if you look at the size of the carrier compared to the cruiser I mean the carrier wasn't huge here's a fellow who is wounded and he's being transferred from
034The Bunker Hill to uh to the cruiser he actually was from Massachusetts and he uh survived the war listed his missing three months uh ultimately went to work in Boston at New England Baptist Hospital he died in 2017 this is the flight deck trying to put out the FES here's one of the holes one of the bombs made here they are cut cutting the hole in the flight deck I mean it's just a small circle this is below decks this is AF looking forward I mean everything is just totally ruined attending some wounded men and these men are all dead is the Japanese plan beinge pushed overboard they dead so we got another minute at 12:03 on Saturday M May 12 the captain ordered the flag to be brought to half staff for the burial
035of 350 two officers crew Airmen and the Admiral staff this service would be would last until sunset it would be the largest Burial at Sea in the history of the US Navy before each burial each body was placed on the sheet of navy blue canvas two 55b projectiles were positioned to weight The Body Canvas is folded over the body tied securely with 40 foot lengths of rope with half hit every 18 in they would do six burials at a time honor God straight an American flag over each body a priest a minister and a rabbi presided at each burial if the deceased was unknown all three would speak by the end of the day these chaplain could hardly utor the praise that was they saved the ship they she made it back but they took
036her out of the war forever and that's the story of uh of the buker Hill