Observances Honor Victims of Pearl Harbor

Forty-four years after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, America remains determined that it “will not again be caught unready,” a Navy admiral said Saturday at a ceremony marking the anniversary.

Two hundred people gathered at the battleship Arizona memorial park in remembrance of the day that President Franklin D. Roosevelt said would “live in infamy.” After the attack, the United States formally entered World War II, declaring war on Japan and its ally, Germany.

The Dec. 7, 1941, submarine and bomber assault killed more than 2,300 U.S. servicemen and 68 civilians around the Pearl Harbor naval base and Hickam, Wheeler and Bellows air bases. Eighteen ships were sunk, beached or damaged in the early morning attack.

1,177 Died on Ship

The worst damage was the sinking of the Arizona, which remains in the harbor as the grave marker for 1,177 sailors and Marines who died aboard the battleship and as the centerpiece of the memorial park.

The lesson of Pearl Harbor is “to send a clear signal to potential enemies that America will not again be caught unready,” Vice Adm. Kendall E. Moranville, the 3rd Fleet commander, said at the park ceremony.

Representatives of several veterans’, patriotic and civic organizations picked one flower each from a dozen floral wreaths and dropped them one by one into the harbor’s placid waters, glimmering in the morning sun.

The flowers floated lazily through a small slick of oil that still seeps from the Arizona.

Similar ceremonies were held at other military installations on the island of Oahu.

Whistle Sounded

At 7:55 a.m., the time the Japanese attack began, Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard’s whistle sounded to mark the start of a minute of silence in honor of those killed.

Four Hawaii Air National Guard jets then flew in a “missing man” formation over Pearl Harbor, headquarters of the Pacific Fleet.

The observance closed with a Marine Corps gun salute and the sounding of “Taps.”

Meanwhile, in New York, 49 survivors of the attack stood at attention on the deck of the Intrepid, a ship converted to a floating museum, and saluted their fallen comrades.