HOME | DD

Description
A birthday drawing for my brother, who was born on December 7, the same day as the Pearl Harbor attacks.

The inscription on the bomb, readable top to bottom, right to left, is the Japanese equivalent of "Happy Birthday".

Before anyone gets upset at my apparent lack of respect for those killed during this battle, let me point it out that messages scribbled on projectiles are commonplace during times of warfare, and, as far as this time-honored tradition goes, "Happy Birthday" has been used before and it's pretty benign by comparison: datacide.c8.com/bomb-graffiti/

On the other hand, linking our respective birth dates with various calamities is a cherished tradition amid my siblings and I, with my little brother currently holding the record - not only does his birth date coincide with the Attack on Pearl Harbor, but also with the Spitak Earthquake that killed over 25,000 people in Armenia, on the very day he was born - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spitak_E… .

Then again, my own birthday can be linked to the 1991 Bangladesh cyclone whose victims numbered at least 138,000...

Moving back to the drawing, the ships are recognizable as the USS Arizona alongside the repair ship USS Vestal. The bomb is a standard Japanese Type 99 armor piercing (no it bloody isn't, look at the "later edit" below), and it's not the the cause of the cataclysmic explosion that ripped through the forward part of the ship at 8:06, but the earlier 8:00 AM hit near the #4 turret, that caused minimal damage.

I chose not to draw any people in this piece because I wanted to make a connection to the event, not the actual loss of life.

LATER EDIT: I just realized that on December 7, Arizona was moored the other way around in relation to the Vestal, that is to say with her bow facing to the right of this picture. Oh well...

EVEN LATER EDIT, January 2016: It now appears the reference I used for the bomb was also wrong - the bomb I drew is in fact the 250kg "Type 98 No.25 Land Bomb" which was used in the attack, but by the planes bombing the airfields, not the ones attacking Battleship Row.
For comparison purposes, here is what an actual 800kg "Type 99 Number 80 Mark 5 Bomb" looks like.

Welp, it's official. Nothing about this drawing is remotely correct. Maybe I should redo it?

Description
A birthday drawing for my brother, who was born on December 7, the same day as the Pearl Harbor attacks.

The inscription on the bomb, readable top to bottom, right to left, is the Japanese equivalent of "Happy Birthday".

Before anyone gets upset at my apparent lack of respect for those killed during this battle, let me point it out that messages scribbled on projectiles are commonplace during times of warfare, and, as far as this time-honored tradition goes, "Happy Birthday" has been used before and it's pretty benign by comparison: datacide.c8.com/bomb-graffiti/

On the other hand, linking our respective birth dates with various calamities is a cherished tradition amid my siblings and I, with my little brother currently holding the record - not only does his birth date coincide with the Attack on Pearl Harbor, but also with the Spitak Earthquake that killed over 25,000 people in Armenia, on the very day he was born - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spitak_E… .

Then again, my own birthday can be linked to the 1991 Bangladesh cyclone whose victims numbered at least 138,000...

Moving back to the drawing, the ships are recognizable as the USS Arizona alongside the repair ship USS Vestal. The bomb is a standard Japanese Type 99 armor piercing (no it bloody isn't, look at the "later edit" below), and it's not the the cause of the cataclysmic explosion that ripped through the forward part of the ship at 8:06, but the earlier 8:00 AM hit near the #4 turret, that caused minimal damage.

I chose not to draw any people in this piece because I wanted to make a connection to the event, not the actual loss of life.

LATER EDIT: I just realized that on December 7, Arizona was moored the other way around in relation to the Vestal, that is to say with her bow facing to the right of this picture. Oh well...

EVEN LATER EDIT, January 2016: It now appears the reference I used for the bomb was also wrong - the bomb I drew is in fact the 250kg "Type 98 No.25 Land Bomb" which was used in the attack, but by the planes bombing the airfields, not the ones attacking Battleship Row.
For comparison purposes, here is what an actual 800kg "Type 99 Number 80 Mark 5 Bomb" looks like.

Welp, it's official. Nothing about this drawing is remotely correct. Maybe I should redo it?