Ceremonies Across Nation Recall Attack : Memorials: Pearl Harbor victims are honored with wreaths, moments of silence. Some veterans use the day to share remembrances.

Thousands of miles from Pearl Harbor, at the Liberty Bell and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Americans on Saturday remembered the Japanese attack that sent shock waves around the world, changing the lives of millions who had never before heard of the Hawaiian port.

In Indianapolis, the bell of the cruiser named for the city tolled 2,403 times to honor each of those killed at Pearl Harbor.

The cruiser itself was sunk after delivering parts for the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, hastening the end of World War II.

Around the nation Saturday, at stamp shows, football games and military bases, Americans paused to commemorate the Dec. 7, 1941, attack that drew the nation into the war.

Memorial wreaths were tossed into waters from the decks of battleships in New York City, Buffalo, N.Y.; Pittsburgh, Pa.; Charleston, S.C., and Portland, Ore.

Commemorative medals were handed out to survivors or their families in New York; Buffalo, N.Y.; Camden, N.J., and Fredricksburg, Tex.

“Fifty years have passed, and we should forgive and forget,” said Joseph Berry, a survivor who attended a ceremony in the Garden of Peace at the Admiral Nimitz Museum in Fredricksburg.

Outside Washington, about 1,500 people attended a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery.

After Deputy Defense Secretary Donald J. Atwood laid the wreath, representatives of 38 veterans organizations placed a single red rose near the tomb.

The playing of taps was followed by a moment of silence.

In Philadelphia, a group gathered at the Liberty Bell for a moment of silence and laid a wreath honoring those who died in the attack.

Elsewhere in the city, a special halftime ceremony at the Army-Navy football game commemorated the attack. The program centered on a 24-foot stage that replicated the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor.

Radio broadcasts, newsreels and slides from Dec. 7, 1941, were dusted off for presentation at the National Archives in Washington. War movies were shown at the Hoover Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch, Iowa.

In Charleston, S.C., a veteran read President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” address to a crowd of about 1,500 people gathered on the deck of the aircraft carrier Yorktown.

The U.S. Postal Service offered a special postmark commemorating Pearl Harbor at the New York-New Jersey Stamp Expo in Parsippany, N.J.

World War II veterans used the day to speak of their rememberances and their feelings toward today’s Japan. Some criticized the Japanese, while others said it was time for both sides to apologize.

In Conyers, Ga., World War II veteran Bob Mensinger burned a Japanese battle flag in a barbecue grill in the back of his pickup at 7:55 a.m., the time at which the first bombs fell on Pearl Harbor.

There was a smattering of applause, but most of the 50 onlookers were silent.

Mensinger said he was not trying to offend the Japanese, but that it was his way of remembering those who died.

In Baltimore, U.S. Rep. Helen Delich Bentley, a Maryland Republican and outspoken critic of Japan, used a ceremony aboard the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Taney to accuse Japan of illegally pursuing American technology.

She said her criticism was “guarding the flame.”

In Macon, Ga., Cecil Butterworth, 72, who witnessed both the beginning and end of America’s part in World War II, remembered how it changed his life.

“It woke me up. It made a man out of me,” he said. “After the war, I didn’t want to see anyone hurt anymore.”

He was aboard the battleship Pennsylvania at Pearl Harbor and also was on the first ship in Tokyo Bay when the war ended on Aug. 14, 1945.