Pearl harbor day remembrance8/7/2023 He saw the hull of the USS Arizona turn a deep orange-red after an aerial bomb hit it. He got up to yell for someone to shut the door only to look out the window at Japanese planes dropping torpedo bombs from the sky. woke him up, making him think a door was slamming in the wind. The home was just about 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) across the harbor from where the USS Arizona was moored on battleship row. Robert John Lee recalls being a 20-year-old civilian living at his parent’s home on the naval base where his father ran the water pumping station. ![]() One soldier in his unit was injured by the bullets, but no one died, he said. He remembers hearing bombs explode a few miles down the coast at Pearl Harbor but thought it was part of an exercise.īut then he saw a red ball on the fuselage of a Japanese Zero fighter plane when it strafed the ground alongside him near his barracks at Camp Malakole. “So many people don’t even know where Pearl Harbor is or what happened on that day,” he said.Įlfring was in the Army, assigned to the 251st Coast Artillery, part of the California National Guard. Herb Elfring, 100, or Jackson, Michigan, said was great that many members of the public showed interest in the commemoration and attended the ceremony. Many of those still alive are at least 100. 7, 1941, would have been about 17, making them 98 today. The youngest active-duty military personnel on Dec. Part of the decline reflects the dwindling number of survivors as they age. Only six survivors attended, fewer than the dozen or more who have traveled to Hawaii from across the country for the annual remembrance ceremony in recent years. Those who are still here, dead or alive,” he said. He wants people to remember those who served that day. After the war, he studied aerospace engineering and worked on the Apollo program. I come back out of respect for them,” he said. “I wouldn’t miss it because I got an awful lot of friends that are still here that are buried here. He’s now attended the remembrance ceremony four times. He fed ammunition to machine gunners on the vessel, which wasn’t hit. “We had no place to go and hoped they’d miss us,” he said before the ceremony began. He recalls seeing Japanese planes flying overhead and wondering what to do. Ira Schab, 102, was on the USS Dobbin as a tuba player in the ship’s band. Most of the Arizona’s fallen remained entombed in the ship, which sits on the harbor floor. The USS Arizona alone lost 1,177 sailors and Marines, nearly half the death toll. “The ever-lasting legacy of Pearl Harbor will be shared at this site for all time, as we must never forget those who came before us so that we can chart a more just and peaceful path for those who follow,” said Tom Leatherman, superintendent of the Pearl Harbor National Memorial.Ībout 2,400 servicemen were killed in the bombing, which launched the U.S. Ken Stevens, a 100-year-old survivor from the USS Whitney, returned the salute. ![]() Sailors aboard the USS Daniel Inouye stood along the rails of the guided missile destroyer while it passed both by the grassy shoreline where the ceremony was held and the USS Arizona Memorial to honor the survivors and those killed in the attack. The audience sat quietly during a moment of silence at 7:55 a.m., the same time the attack began on Dec. ![]() NOW THEREFORE I, GAVIN NEWSOM, Governor of the State of California, do hereby proclaim Decem, as “Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.”IN WITNESS WHEREOF I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Great Seal of the State of California to be affixed this 7th day of December 2022.PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii (AP) - A handful of centenarian survivors of the attack on Pearl Harbor joined about 2,500 members of the public at the scene of the Japanese bombing on Wednesday to commemorate those who perished 81 years ago. ![]() On Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, let us reflect on the meaning of sacrifice and heroism and pay solemn tribute to the American heroes who gave their lives to make the world more safe, free and just. Each year, we are reminded of these immense sacrifices and all that we owe our service members who fight to defend the freedoms we cherish. This attack led President Roosevelt to call on Congress to declare an act of war the next day, stating Decemwould be a “date which will live in infamy.”Īs we mourn the lives of those we lost that fateful day, we remember those who defended Pearl Harbor – and all the courageous individuals who signed up to serve our country in battlefields across the globe. On this day 81 years ago, Imperial Japan launched an unprovoked attack on the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, killing more than 2,400 American service members and civilians and destroying much of our nation’s Pacific Fleet.
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