Pearl Harbor 66 years later

Their ranks thinned by age, Pearl Harbor veterans today are commemorating the 66th anniversary of the Japanese attack and wondering whether Americans will remember one of the most defining moments in history after they die.

“When we’re gone, we’re gone,” said 87-year-old Jack Ray Hammett. “We’re already just a paragraph in the history books. Will even that disappear when the last one of us dies?”

World War II veteran John Iantorno remembers the sound of banging on the hull of the USS Oklahoma, from sailors trapped inside the capsized battleship following the Pearl Harbor attack.

And Iantorno, then a National Guardsman from Barbers Point helping with the recovery effort, remembers how the banging stopped after a few days when rescue workers weren’t able to reach the sailors in time.

Remembrances from Iantorno and other Pearl Harbor survivors at a luncheon yesterday are the kind of living history that drew 100 middle school and high school teachers from across the country for a weeklong education workshop, “Remembering Pearl Harbor: History, Memory, and Memorial.”

“Underneath history are the feelings of the people,” said Ernest “Tito” Craige, a ninth- and 12th-grade world history teacher. He plans to bring the survivors’ stories back to his students at East Chapel Hill High School in Chapel Hill, N.C. “That level of history is what children like,” he said.

“Many survivors are no longer alive, so what a special privilege it is to speak with them,” Craige said. “It’s really nice to see that this base and park (USS Arizona Memorial National Park) have found a way to involve them.”

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a pre-emptive military strike on the United States Pacific Fleet base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii by the Empire of Japan’s Imperial Japanese Navy, on the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941 that made the United States enter World War II. Two aerial attack waves, totalling 350 aircraft, were launched from six aircraft carriers with the intent to destroy the United States Pacific Fleet.

The attack wrecked two U.S. Navy battleships, one minelayer, and two destroyers beyond repair, and destroyed 188 aircraft; personnel losses were 2,333 killed and 1,139 wounded. Damaged warships included three cruisers, a destroyer, and six battleships (one deliberately grounded, later refloated and repaired; two sunk at their berths, later raised, repaired, and restored to Fleet service late in the war). Vital fuel storage, shipyards, and submarine facilities were not hit. Japanese losses were minimal, at 29 aircraft and five midget submarines, with 65 servicemen killed or wounded.

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