Pearl Harbor Survivors Visit Battleship Arizona Memorial
Survivors of the battleship Arizona arrived Tuesday at the memorial to their shipmates who have been entombed since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor 60 years ago.
Approximately 900 people died aboard the Arizona. Twenty Arizona shipmates, along with survivors from other warships and about 250 family members and friends, were saluted by sailors in dress whites as they entered the USS Arizona Memorial visitors center. Tourists greeted them with applause.
Later, two boats took the survivors, most in their 80s, for a trip into the harbor. There, they visited the memorial, which straddles the sunken battleship.
There was no service or speaker, and news media were not invited. “We just went out and looked,” said survivor Clyde Combs, 81, of Pompano Beach, Fla.
Their visit is part of a week of observances at Pearl Harbor in memory of the 60th anniversary of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack, which killed 2,390 and plunged America into World War II.
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