Moment of silence at Pearl Harbor

With smoke still billowing from the ruins of the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor, Thomas Griffin’s B-25 group took off from its Oregon base to search for Japanese ships or submarines along the West Coast.

They didn’t find any, but four months later the group flew from the aircraft carrier Hornet and attacked Tokyo. The raid inflicted little damage but boosted U.S. morale and embarrassed the Japanese, Griffin recalled.

“We took them by surprise,” said Griffin, a retired Army Air Corps major and a keynote speaker at a ceremony Sunday commemorating the 67th anniversary of the Japanese attack that marked America’s entry into World War II. He was joined by more than 2,000 World War II veterans and other observers.

Usually, the commemoration focuses on the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on the battleship Arizona, Pearl Harbor and other installations on Oahu. But Sunday’s remembrance focused on the months after the attack and the response that helped America defeat Japan.

A moment of silence was held at 7:55 a.m., the moment when hundreds of Japanese planes began bombing and torpedoing U.S. military ships and planes.

Nearly 2,400 Americans were killed and about 1,180 injured when Japanese fighters bombed and sank 12 naval vessels and heavily damaged nine others. The Arizona lost 1,177 sailors and Marines. About 340 crew members survived.