Six centennial survivors of the attack on Pearl Harbor were among the thousands in attendance at the Hawaii memorial Wednesday to commemorate the thousands of lives lost 81 years ago.
The ceremony began at 7:30 am Wednesday at the Pearl Harbor National Memorial. An emotional moment occurred 25 minutes later at 7:55 a.m., when more than 2,500 people sat silently in remembrance of the moment the attack began on December 7, 1941.
As part of the ceremony, the USS Daniel Inouye walked past attendees and the USS Arizona Memorial to honor the survivors and lives lost in the attack. Sailors aboard the guided-missile destroyer could be seen along the rails offering a salute as the ship passed.
Ken Stevens, a 100-year-old survivor who was on the USS Whitney on the day of the attack, returned the salute.
THE DEC. 7, 1941, THE ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR KILLS 2,403 AMERICANS AND LAUNCHES US INTO WORLD WAR II
Sailors aboard the USS Daniel Inouye render honors as they pass the USS Arizona Memorial and the sunken battleship USS Arizona during a ceremony Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2022, in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in remembrance of those killed in the attack of 1941.
(AP Photo/Audrey McAvoy)
Approximately 2,403 people, almost all service members, were killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which launched the US into World War II.
The USS Arizona alone, which was stationed at the naval base, lost 1,177 sailors and Marines, nearly half the number killed by the bombing. Most of the fallen remain entombed on the ship, which lies on the harbor floor below today’s memorial.
“Pearl Harbor’s everlasting legacy will be shared on this site forever as we must never forget those who came before us so we can chart a more just and peaceful path for those who follow,” said Tom Leatherman, Superintendent of the National Monument. of Pearl Harbor.
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Only six survivors attended this year’s ceremony, markedly fewer than the dozen or more who have traveled from across the country in recent years. The decline reflects the declining number of survivors, as the youngest active duty military personnel in December 1941 would have been around 17 years of age.
Many of those still alive are at least 100 years old, including the six men who attended Wednesday’s event.
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Ira Schab, 102, right, who survived the attack on Pearl Harbor as a sailor on the USS Dobbin, speaks to reporters while sitting next to his son, the retired Navy major. Karl Schab, Wednesday, December 7, 2022, in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
(AP Photo/Audrey McAvoy)
Ira Schab, 102, who played tuba in the USS Dobbin band, recalled seeing Japanese planes fly overhead before the attack.
“We had nowhere to go and we hoped they would miss us,” he told the Associated Press before the ceremony began.
Schab ended up delivering ammunition to the gunners on the boat, which was not hit in the attack. He now he has attended the remembrance ceremony four times.
“I wouldn’t miss it because I have a lot of friends who are still here and who are buried here. I come back out of respect for them,” he told the AP.
His hope is that people will remember those who served that day.
“Remember what you are here for. Remember and honor those who remain. You did a great job. Those who are still here, dead or alive,” he said.
Schab remained in the Navy during the war. After the war, he studied aerospace engineering and worked on the Apollo program. He now lives in Portland, Oregon.
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Pearl Harbor survivors and other military veterans watch a ceremony Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2022, in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in remembrance of those killed in the 1941 attack.
(AP Photo/Audrey McAvoy)
Herb Elfring, a 100-year-old Army veteran from Jackson, Michigan, told the AP that it was great that so many members of the public showed interest in the commemoration by attending the ceremony.
“Many people don’t even know where Pearl Harbor is or what happened that day,” he said.
Elfring was assigned to the 251st Coastal Artillery, part of the California National Guard, when he heard bomb explosions off the coast of Pearl Harbor. He initially thought he was part of an exercise until he saw a red ball on the fuselage of a Japanese Zero fighter plane as it strafed the ground near his headquarters at Camp Malakole.
“That was a rude awakening,” he said.
A soldier from his unit was wounded by bullets, but no one was killed.
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Robert John Lee, a 20-year-old civilian at the time of the attack, lived with his parents at the naval base where his father ran the water pumping station. His home was about a mile across the harbor from where the USS Arizona was moored in the battleship row.
Lee said the first explosions woke him up before 8 a.m. by what he thought was a door slamming shut in the wind. As he got up to yell for someone to close the door, he saw Japanese planes launching torpedoes from the sky.
He then saw the hull of the USS Arizona turn a deep orange-red after it was hit by an aerial bomb. She said that she still remembers the hiss of the fire.
FILE – In this photo provided by the US Navy, the battleship USS Arizona is raised as it sinks during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. The US Navy and the National Park Service will organize a remembrance ceremony. at Pearl Harbor in December 2022, the 81st anniversary of the 1941 Japanese bombing raid.
(Photo/AP File)
“Within a few seconds, that explosion went out with huge tongues of fire directly over the ship, but hundreds of feet up,” Lee told the AP in an interview after a boat tour of the harbor.
Lee said many of the sailors who jumped into the water to escape the burning ships swam through the oil-covered harbor to the jetty near his home. He and his mother used Fels-Naptha soap to help wash the sailors.
Those sailors who could board small boats that took them back to their boats. Lee said that he thought they were “very heroic.”
FILE – In this photo released by the US Navy, the destroyer USS Shaw explodes after being hit by bombs during the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. Some centenarians are expected to survive from the attack on Pearl Harbor Gather at the Japanese bombing site on Wednesday, December 7, 2022 to remember those who perished 81 years ago.
(US Navy via AP)
He joined the Hawaiian Land Guard the next day and eventually the US Navy. He worked for Pan American World Airways for 30 years after the war.
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The US Department of Veterans Affairs does not have statistics on how many Pearl Harbor survivors are still living, but department data shows that of the 16 million who served in World War II, only about 240,000 were alive in August and about 230 die each. day.
There were around 87,000 servicemen on Oahu at the time of the attack, according to a rough estimate compiled by military historian J. Michael Wenger.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
