Tributes Mark Pearl Harbor Remembrance

America must resolve to never again become vulnerable to the type of attack that plunged the country into war 52 years ago, the commander of the Pearl Harbor Naval Base said Tuesday.

“When I visit this memorial, I feel the chill of regret being nudged aside by a feeling of resolve that such a tragedy never happen again,” Rear Adm. William A. Retz said aboard the Arizona Memorial on the anniversary of the Japanese attack in 1941.

A minute of silence was observed throughout the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard at 7:55 a.m., the time the attack began. The quiet was broken by a Hawaii Air National Guard unit flying with an empty spot in a “missing man” formation.

Aboard the memorial, representatives of veteran, patriotic and civic organizations dropped flowers into the water over the sunken battleship Arizona, where 1,102 crewmen remain entombed.

“The attack lasted only three hours but its impact has lasted a lifetime,” Retz said. “The bitter truth of that Sunday 52 years ago is that we had retracted from reality. We appeared vulnerable and instead of choosing our battles, we let others choose for us.”

Later, the ashes of a survivor of the attack on the Arizona were to be entombed with his crew mates by divers. Grady Lee Nelson Jr. of Houston, who spent 30 years in the Navy before retiring in 1971, died last June.

In a somber ceremony in Washington, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jesse Brown laid a wreath at the Navy Memorial to honor those who died at Pearl Harbor.

“These heroes are not unknown to us,” Brown said. “They are known to us for their spirit, they are known to us for their greatness, they are known to us for their sacrifice . . . we love and honor them.”

Brown placed a wreath at the foot of the Lone Sailor statue, a bronze work of a sailor in a pea coat and sailor’s cap standing in a stiff breeze with a duffel sack at his feet.