Tears and ‘Taps’ on Anniversary of Pearl Harbor : World War II: Services are held at Hawaii memorial. Peace stressed by admiral in speech.

A moment of silence, the roar of jets, the playing of “Taps” and the tears of survivors marked Thursday’s 48th anniversary of the surprise Japanese attack that hurled the United States into World War II.

Several hundred military leaders, veterans and dignitaries attended a ceremony aboard the Arizona Memorial, a gleaming white monument that spans the sunken hull of the battleship in Pearl Harbor.

Adm. Huntington Hardisty, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, spoke at the ceremony and alluded to the new peace initiatives between the East and West blocs.

“As the opportunity arises to reduce tensions and the potential for open conflict, we should seize it and support it,” he said. But he said that Americans “must continue to speak out” against perceived threats to the nation’s security.

An additional 3,000 people attended a ceremony held on shore nearby to mark the anniversary of the attack, in which 2,409 people were killed and 18 ships of the U.S. Pacific fleet were sunk or heavily damaged.

“It is something that will live with you till your dying day,” Edward Gehring, a member of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Assn., said of the attack. “It was a pitiful thing.

“Even pictures don’t depict the fire around the battleships here, the black smoke pouring up . . . the flames, and then men trying to get out, coming up, parting the fire on the water to get out--and death. Pitiful.”

President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed a joint session of Congress the day after the raid, saying that Dec. 7, 1941, would “live in infamy” and asking for a declaration of war.

The anniversary was marked on the mainland also. Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley joined Navy officers in laying a wreath at the city’s veterans’ memorial Thursday.

In Hawaii, the destroyer Left-wich glided through the placid waters of Pearl Harbor past the Arizona Memorial as the sun rose above the hills overlooking Honolulu. The ship’s crew lined the decks in dress whites, standing at attention and saluting.

The ship blew one long blast of its whistle at 7:55 a.m. to mark the exact moment the attack began 48 years earlier. All over the harbor, work ceased for a full minute in honor of those lost in the attack.

Four Hawaii Air National Guard jets then roared over the open-air memorial, one of them veering off in the “missing man” formation.

A 45-minute service concluded with the playing of “Taps,” with one bugler playing in the enclosed shrine of the memorial and his notes being echoed by a second bugler on the dock behind the memorial.

Bill Speer, a Honolulu resident, recalled that he had just taken a shower when bombs started falling on his light cruiser as the attack began.

“I hope I never go to hell, but I think I was in the middle of it that morning,” he said.