PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii — In wheelchairs and on walkers, the old veterans came Wednesday to remember the day 70 years ago when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. But FDR’s “date that will live in infamy” is becoming a more distant memory.
Fewer and fewer veterans who experienced the attack on Dec. 7, 1941, are alive to mark the anniversaries, and most of them are in their 90s, many prevented by health problems from traveling to Hawaii.
The 2,390 Americans who died in the attacks are not forgotten. And ceremonies are held elsewhere.
At the annual ceremony in Phoenix, the goal is to draw 1,177 people — the number who died on the USS Arizona — but organizers don’t come close to that anymore.
Just 45 people showed up last year. On Wednesday, about 300 people gathered for a mile-long remembrance walk, carrying miniature U.S. flags and tags bearing the names of Pearl Harbor casualties.
“As time goes by, it might actually fade. This may be the last significant anniversary when we could thank a survivor. Get out there. Get your chance to thank them,” event chairman Ben Ernyei said.
At Pearl Harbor, a snafu marred a crucial moment during the ceremony, when there is a moment of silence to start with the sounding of a ship’s whistle. The quiet is broken when military aircraft fly over the USS Arizona Memorial in missing-man formation.
The event is timed so that the silence begins exactly at 7:55 a.m. — the moment Japanese planes began bombing the harbor. On Wednesday, emcee Leslie Wilcox was speaking at 7:55 a.m., even as the Hawaii Air National Guard’s F-22s roared overhead on schedule.
The moment of silence was held a few minutes late, just before 8 a.m.
Those veterans who made it to Pearl Harbor were treated to a hero’s reception. The 5,000 spectators whistled, shouted and applauded loudly as the 120 or so survivors stood to be recognized, and others asked for autographs and took photos with them.
President Barack Obama hailed the veterans in a statement proclaiming Wednesday as “National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.”
“Their tenacity helped define the Greatest Generation and their valor fortified all who served during World War II,” he said. “As a nation, we look to Dec. 7, 1941, to draw strength from the example set by these patriots and to honor all who have sacrificed for our freedoms.”
Carissa Westfall traveled to Hawaii to mark the anniversary as part of a college program that paired students and veterans traveling to important battle sites. The veteran she was with, Guy Piper, was brushing his teeth on Ford Island when he saw bombs falling from Japanese planes.
“Honestly, before this trip, I never realized, I didn’t know — I didn’t think that there were guys my age and younger watching their friends die right next to them,” said Westfall, a sophomore at the College of the Ozarks in Missouri.
Also this week, ash-scattering and interment ceremonies are being held for five survivors whose cremated remains are returning to Pearl Harbor after their deaths.
On Tuesday, an urn containing the ashes of Lee Soucy was placed on his battleship, the USS Utah. The ashes of Vernon Olsen, who was on the Arizona, were to be placed on his ship later Wednesday.
The U.S. lost 12 vessels that day, but the Arizona and the Utah are the only ones still sitting in the harbor.
The ashes of three other survivors will be scattered in the water in separate ceremonies this week.
USS Utah survivor Gilbert Meyer said he comes back each year to see his shipmates entombed in the battleship, which rests not far from where it sank off Ford Island.
Meyer, 88, recalled his ship rolling over after being hit by a torpedo and seeing Japanese planes dropping bombs. When the planes began showering his ship with machine-gun fire, he knew it was time to move.
“That really got my attention, so I got in the water and swam ashore,” he said.
In Phoenix, Kristy Henderson of Glendale, Ariz., whose two grandfathers served in World War II, did the walk with her mother and two children, ages 2 and 1.
She said the youngest are the most likely to forget Pearl Harbor.
“As time goes on,” Henderson said, “I don’t think it’s brought up as much.”
