Pearl Harbor, Hawaii – This will be their last visit to this watery grave to share stories, exchange smiles, find peace and salute their fallen friends.
This, they say, will be their final farewell.
With their number quickly dwindling, survivors of Pearl Harbor will gather today one last time to honor those killed by the Japanese 65 years ago, and to mark a day that lives in infamy.
“This will be one to remember,” said Mal Middlesworth, president of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. “It’s going to be something that we’ll cherish forever.”
The survivors have met here every five years for four decades, but they’re now in their 80s or 90s and are not counting on a 70-year reunion. They have made every effort to report for one final roll call.
“We’re like the dodo bird. We’re almost extinct,” said Middlesworth, now an 83-year-old retiree from Upland, Calif., but – on Dec. 7, 1941 – an 18-year-old Marine on the USS San Francisco.
Nearly 500 survivors from across the nation were expected to make the trip to Hawaii, bringing with them 1,300 family members, numerous wheelchairs and too many haunting memories: memories of a shocking, two-hour aerial raid that destroyed or heavily damaged 21 ships and 320 aircraft, that killed 2,390 people and wounded 1,178 others, that plunged the United States into World War II and set in motion the events that led to atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Everett Hyland doesn’t know how he stayed alive that day when almost everyone around him didn’t. He was radioman aboard the USS Pennsylvania, which was in Dry Dock No. 1, and was helping transport ammunition to the anti-aircraft gun when a bomb exploded.
Badly burned, Hyland regained consciousness 18 days later, Christmas night. During that time, his older brother visited.
“The only way he knew it was me was the tag on my toe,” Hyland said. “He (later) told me we looked like roast turkeys lined up.”
