Pearl Harbor dead remembered on 71st anniversary

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii (AP) — More than 2,000 peo­ple at Pearl Har­bor and many more around the coun­try are mark­ing the 71st anniver­sary of the Japan­ese attack that killed thou­sands of peo­ple and launched the United States into World War II.

The USS Michael Mur­phy, a recently chris­tened ship named after a Pearl Harbor-based Navy SEAL killed in Afghanistan, sounded its ship’s whis­tle Fri­day to start a moment of silence at 7:55 a.m., mark­ing the exact time the bomb­ing began in 1941.

Crew mem­bers lined the edge of the Navy guided-missile destroyer as it passed the USS Ari­zona, a bat­tle­ship that still lies in the har­bor where it sank. Hawaii Air National Guard F-22 fighter jets flew over­head in a spe­cial “miss­ing man” for­ma­tion to break the silence.

Among those gath­ered for the cer­e­mony were about 50 sur­vivors of the attack.

Edwin Schuler, of San Jose, Calif., said he remem­bered going up to the bridge of his ship, the USS Phoenix, to read a book on a bright, sunny Sun­day morn­ing in 1941 when he saw planes drop­ping bombs.

“I thought: ‘Whoa, they’re using big prac­tice bombs,’ I didn’t know,” said Schuler, 91.

Schuler said he’s returned for the annual cer­e­mony about 30 times because it’s impor­tant to spread the mes­sage of remem­ber­ing Pearl Harbor.

Online, Pearl Har­bor became a pop­u­lar topic on Face­book and other social net­works, trend­ing world­wide on Twit­ter and Google Plus as peo­ple marked the anniver­sary with sta­tus updates, per­sonal sto­ries of fam­ily and photos.

The Navy and National Park Ser­vice hosted the cer­e­monies held in remem­brance of the 2,390 ser­vice mem­bers and 49 civil­ians killed in the attack.

Fri­day events also will give spe­cial recog­ni­tion to mem­bers of the Women Air­force Ser­vice Pilots, who flew non­com­bat mis­sions dur­ing World War II, and to Ray Emory, a 91-year-old Pearl Har­bor sur­vivor who has pushed to iden­tify the remains of unknown servicemen.

Admi­ral Cecil Haney, com­man­der of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, gave the keynote address, giv­ing exam­ples of courage and hero­ism of mil­i­tary ser­vice mem­bers that day. The cer­e­mony also includes a Hawai­ian bless­ing, songs played by the U.S. Pacific Fleet band and a rifle salute from the U.S. Marine Corps.

Pres­i­dent Barack Obama marked the day on Thurs­day by issu­ing a pres­i­den­tial procla­ma­tion, call­ing for flags to fly at half-staff on Fri­day and ask­ing all Amer­i­cans to observe the day of remem­brance and honor mil­i­tary ser­vice mem­bers and veterans.

“Today, we pay solemn trib­ute to America’s sons and daugh­ters who made the ulti­mate sac­ri­fice at Oahu,” Obama said in a state­ment. “As we do, let us also reaf­firm that their legacy will always burn bright — whether in the mem­ory of those who knew them, the spirit of ser­vice that guides our men and women in uni­form today, or the heart of the coun­try they kept strong and free.”

Daniel Inouye, Hawaii’s senior U.S. sen­a­tor and a mem­ber of an Army unit of Japanese-Americans who vol­un­teered to fight in World War II, said the Pearl Har­bor attack evoked anger, fierce patri­o­tism and racism.

“Our way of life has always, and will always be, pro­tected and pre­served by vol­un­teers will­ing to give their lives for what we believe in,” the Demo­c­rat said.

The Navy and park ser­vice will resume tak­ing vis­i­tors to the USS Ari­zona Memo­r­ial, which sits atop the sunken bat­tle­ship, after the ceremony.

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Dec 7 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.