Mr. Gardner and Mr OpanaPointer have made the statement that the Red Hill Oil Facility could have
been used, and that it's construction could have been hastened.
Wrong. There were over 3900 workers involved in building Red Hill, and after December 7th, they
worked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You simply could not put more men into the construction,
because it was all going on underground. Packing more men into a mine will NOT make the digging
go any faster.
And, with all that work, the first tank was not completed until mid 1942, and because of the way
the facility was constructed, they could not begin filling the tanks until September 1943, when the
facility was officially opened. And, minor construction continued well into 1944, so it would have
been absolutely impossible to get Red Hill into service any faster than they actually did.
As for Mr OpanaPointer's statement about filling ships directly from tankers, THAT HAS BEEN MY
WHOLE POINT ! Imagine, if you can, that you live in a small town that is three hundred miles
from the nearest other town. There is ONE gas station in the town. Every week, a tanker truck
comes in and refills the underground tanks, and everyone fills their cars up all week. The Gas Station
is, in effect, serving as the Fuel Storage Buffer for the town.
Now, imagine that the Gas Station Blows UP ! NO MORE GAS STATION. You have two choices:
You can drive a six hundred mile round trip each week to fill your car. Which burns all the gas
going to and fro. Or, you can wait for that Tanker Truck, which comes in once per week, and
fill directly from the Tanker Truck. Which means that, ALL the cars in town will be lined up,
waiting for that tanker truck to arrive, and all will have to fuel up at the same time. Consider
the nightmarish confusion, the inconvenience, and inefficiency.
Now, replace the Small Town with Hawaii, the Gas Station with the Tank Farm, the Tanker Truck
with the fleet of Oil Tankers, and the automobiles with the Pacific Fleet. That should give
you some idea of why Admiral Chester Nimitz said:
"We had about 4.5 million barrels of oil out there and all of it was vulnerable
to .50-caliber bullets. Had the Japanese destroyed the oil, it would have prolonged
the war another two years..."
- Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Navy Pacific Fleet
Guys, you can argue about it all you want. But both Husband Kimmel and Chester Nimitz had
commanded the U.S. Pacific Fleet - They were the real experts ! They knew what they were
talking about !
Finally a note for Mr. OpanaPointer, who apparently knows little about the history of American Politics:
The GOP was NOT the party of the KKK - the GOP was the party of Abraham Lincoln, who emancipated
the Slaves. The Party of the KKK was the DEMOCRATS , especially the Southern ' Dixie-crats ' often called
' Blue Dog Democrats ', who were the party of Racism and Bigotry. It was Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat,
who re-instituted the Jim Crow Laws in Washington D.C. during his Administration, after nearly 50 years
of our nation's capitol being fully integrated. It was Woodrow Wilson who described the motion picture,
'Birth of a Nation', a racist history of the KKK, as " HIstory Written with Lightening ! " and recomended
that all his friends go to see it !
And it wasn't towns in Indiana, it was towns in the Southern United States, dominated by the Democrats, which had signs saying, " Don't let the sun set on you in this town, N@##%r ! "
George Wallace was a Democrat. Lester Maddox was a Democrat. Strom Thurman and Jesse Helms
were both Southern Democrats. When the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, a higher percentage
of Republicans voted for this landmark bill than Democrats in both the U.S. House (80% vs. 61%) and
U.S. Senate (82% vs 69%). Plus, Southern Democrats led the 74-day Filibuster that opposed this legislation.
Mr. OpanaPointer, it is one thing to study history. It is another to try to re-write it.
Respectfully :
Paul R. Ward