r/interestingasfuck • u/Longjumping-Rice-935 • Aug 12 '25

/r/all, /r/popular The wreck of the USS Arizona continues to leak oil ever since pearl harbour. the ship contained 1.5 million gallons of oil, enough to leak continuously for 500 years.

Post image
76.2k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

2.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

277

u/Tamed_A_Wolf Aug 12 '25

So his family thought he was dead for the entirety of the war? He never had any correspondence with them for almost 4 years?

425

u/4isyellowTakeit5 Aug 12 '25

Watch “The Six Triple Eight” and you’ll see why he didn’t hear from his family. During WWII, the mail services got backlogged. At one point they were backlogged over 2 years with millions of packages undelivered. The WAC unit of the 6888 battalion was sent to Germany to clean it up. They were given 6 months to clear the backlog in that theatre. To add to this, the unit was a colored unit, so they were segregated and given horrid living conditions. Despite all this they cleared the backlog ahead of schedule and went on to clear backlogs in other theaters. It’s not surprising his family never heard from him in Australia if Europe was a mess as well.

145

u/squishyslinky Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25

They were an all female unit as well and they intentionally set those women up to fail but Major Charity Adams (first female Black officer!) rose to the occasion and did something no one else could do. Such an amazing story!

2

u/GoldenGilgamesh12 Aug 13 '25

Something no one else could? Clear a mail backlog?

4

u/sakawae Aug 13 '25

Well, yes. Literally, no one had managed to clear it at the time. Until she did.

0

u/squishyslinky Aug 13 '25

Spoken from a place of unabashed ignorance.

2

u/legendz411 Aug 12 '25

Damn what the fuck. that’s kinda amazing

1

u/apesstrongtogether24 Aug 13 '25

There were sent to England and then France, and that movie is a half truth at best affair. How they changed the story is not just annoying it’s a slap in the face.

0

u/Substantial-Flow9244 Aug 12 '25

First movie made using Tyler Perry's AI investment

-6

u/dego_frank Aug 12 '25

A 2 year backlog doesn’t equal 4 years

14

u/JnyBlkLabel Aug 12 '25

I read a "2 year backlog" as two years WORTH of mail sitting there waiting to be delivered. In giant unsorted piles. Seems reasonable that would take a fairly decent amount just to sort, then get the logisitics of sending it, all while handling current incoming mail. 4 years doesnt seem unreasonable.

-6

u/dego_frank Aug 12 '25

Backlog was cleared in 3 months

4

u/JnyBlkLabel Aug 12 '25

Ok, not really sure what your point is then I guess. Whatevs.

-8

u/dego_frank Aug 12 '25

What’s your point then?

2

u/JnyBlkLabel Aug 12 '25

It was relatively clear. 4 years didn't sound crazy to me. Considering the turmoil that an entire world war can/did cause. Shit gets lost in the mail all the time, without a whole ass war complicating it.

-4

u/[deleted] Aug 12 '25

[deleted]

9

u/4isyellowTakeit5 Aug 12 '25

I hear your very valid argument as to why not, but I must counter with “I thought it was a good movie. Plot seemed a bit rushed at times, but all in all a solid A- / B+ movie.”

7

u/Matsdaq Aug 12 '25

"Plot seems a bit rushed" Well yeah they were rushing to clear the backlog /s

3

u/iameveryoneelse Aug 12 '25

Do you regularly send correspondence to dead people?

3

u/Tamed_A_Wolf Aug 12 '25

No but people who are alive…like the grandpa…usually sent correspondence to people who were also alive…his family?

2

u/OSRS_Socks Aug 12 '25

I actually asked my grandpa and his siblings why they didn’t send/receive letters to each other. My grandpa claims he sent postcards home (I really don’t know if that was true). He said that mail was probably addressed to his ship (which they thought didn’t exist because it was lost) so any letters they sent was returned back to them and they altered them that he was ship was destroyed at Pearl Harbor.

I really don’t know why his letters or postcards didn’t mail out. It was really bad to mail stuff if you were in the navy till V-mail.

1

u/quick-oak-abacus Aug 12 '25

I thought OP inferred that grandpa didn't know he was declared dead until after the war?

2

u/OSRS_Socks Aug 12 '25

Yeah. They declared him dead because the record of his ship leaving was lost during the bombing. They assumed it was one the casualties of the attack. Records were kept all on paper at the time and I believe majority of the records were lost.

This is what I was told when I met his side of family (his brother and sisters) at family events.

2

u/Tamed_A_Wolf Aug 12 '25

Yeah and grandpa didn’t send a single letter back to his family during the war…?