President  Roosevelt signing the declaration of war on Japan, Dec. 8, 1941.

 
U.S.S. Arizona Memorial, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

The Rohna was a seventeen year old British liner/troopship carrying 2,193
passengers including 1,988 U.S. troops and a crew of 198. It was part of a
convoy travelling east from Oran to the Far East via the Suez Canal. when
the convoy was attacked by about 30 German Heinkel 177 bombers. The
Rohna was hit by a HS 293 ‘glider bomb’ considered to be the world’s first
guided missile. The ship sank in less than 30 minutes taking 1,015 U.S.
troops and 102 crew members to a watery death.

The attack was the largest loss of U.S. troops at sea in a single incident. For 
reasons of national security, details of the tragedy were kept secret for many  
years and were not fully released until 1967 as a result of the Freedom of
Information Act.

 
A Henschel HS 293 glide bomb

    

                        Jiles Perry "J. P." Richardson, Jr.

                     (October 24, 1930 – February 3, 1959)

Richardson was a disc jockey, singer, and songwriter known best for his 1958
recording of “Chantilly Lace”. On Feb. 3, 1959, known as “the day the music died”, Richardson died at age 28 in the crash of a small plane in a field near Clear Lake,
Iowa, that also killed 1950s rock stars Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens.

          Buddy Holly                 The Big Bopper                  Ritchie Valens

The Columbus Day Storm of 1962 began as Typhoon Freda that formed 500 miles
from Wake Island in the central Pacific ocean and became an extratropical cyclone
as it headed towards the west coast of the United States. It was one of the most
intense storms to every strike the Pacific Northwest since 1948. Wind gusts reached
116 mph at Portland’s Morrison Street Bridge. In Salem a wind gust of 90 mph was observed. In less than 12 hours, over 11 billion board feet of timber was blown
down in northern California, Oregon and Washington combined.

The estimated dollar damage was around $280 million for California, Oregon and Washington combined, with nearly $200 million occurring in the state of Oregon
alone.  At least 46 fatalities were attributed to The Columbus Day Storm, more
than for any other wind storm in the Pacific Northwest, and injuries were in the
hundreds. A well-known insurance company called the Columbus Day Storm the
nation’s worst natural disaster of 1962.

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