Originally Posted by
Castle-Bravo354
susan....your responses are in bold....mine are not.
I don't know when the Pentagon was built... so I'll take your word for it, that the Pentagon was built AFTER Pearl Harbor... so I may be mistaken as to WHEN my mother worked at the Pentagon, as I do not have a listing of employment dates and addresses.
Yes construction began in September 1941 and was completed in early 1943
My mother worked for at least four separate classified agencies of our US Government, for over 20 years
I am truelly thankful her service as I am with any one who serves their country.
I know that she was working in Washington DC with the General before WWII started, and within months after the war, she was transferred to Aircraft Crash Investigations. She said it was the General who "handed her her Airforce pilot wings.
Then she was working in DC before MacArthur left for the Phillipines in 1937. Then it was likely he would have given her the wings sometime in 1951. In that interum time he was in the Phillipines, Australia then back to the Phillipine, then to Japan and finally Korea. He didn't return until early 1951 after he got relieved by Truman in early 1951.
WHENever my mother spoke of Pearl Harbor... it was with genuine distaste.
I don't remember the exact words she used..
but I remember she said General MacArthur had agreed [with whom, I do not know]
to ALLOW the Japanese planes to bomb Pearl Harbor.
Then she would have been discussing it with him in the early 1950s. I do wonder what MacArthur heard to make him believe that.
I remember feeling totally shocked, at both the scene and her anger.
I remember saying, "why ... why would he allow so many people to die ?"
She answered that it was because it was the only way to get the American citizens involved in the war...... to stop the atrocities of Hilter's mass killings.
But then they realized the attack was coming its likely more people would have died. But then as angry as I might have been if this was the case by the time she was telling you about it I likely would have accepted a bit easier. Even the 900,000 people killed at Treblinka would have been worth 2,403 lost at Pearl Harbor.
But then I'd really like to know what the general said. I do remember finding Arthur and his moms graves.