A Soulful Journey

Apologies I was a junior officer aboard USS Wahoo (SS-565)  o n completion of a six week period in Pearl Harbor shipyard. We were preparing to do a post-upkeep shakedown, or rather harbor cruise, to check out our propulsion system and new battery. All that was planned was a short transit around Ford Island and a return to the shipyard. The day before our harbor trials the captain received a phone call from the shipyard commander. He stated that there was a captain from the Japanese Navy in Hawaii studying shipyard techniques. He wondered if it would be possible for that officer to accompany Wahoo on her short trip around Pearl Harbor. Our captain agreed it would be perfectly fine and he was invited aboard the next day.   Some background information. In 1961 the Arizona Memorial, as we now know it, have not been built. Rather there was a small wooden platform attached to a flag pole, which was attached to the sunken hull of the Arizona . Each morning several Marines would ro w ...

A Chinese and Jewish man were eating lunch together.   Without warning, the Jewish guy gets up and punches the Chinese fellow. The Chinese man picks himself up and asks, “What in the world did you do that for?” He replied, “For Pearl Harbor!” “I didn’t have anything to do with Pearl Harbor!” he responded.   “That was the Japanese.” The Jewish man responds, “Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese – they’re all the same.” They both sit down once more and before long the Chinese man jumped out of his chair and hit the Jewish fellow with a hard blow to the jaw. The man picks himself up, rubs his jaw, and yells, “What did you do that for?” “For the Titanic!” “The Titanic?? I had nothing to do with the Titanic.” The Chinese man replies, “Iceberg, Goldberg, Feinberg, they’re all the same to me.” Old joke with constant moral.   Do not blame the whole for what a part does.