Survivors gather to honor Pearl Harbor victims

updated 7:54 p.m. ET Dec. 7, 2006

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii - Nearly 500 survivors of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor were here Thursday to honor those who died in the surprise attack 65 years ago.

Many veterans were treating the gathering as their last, uncertain whether they would be alive or healthy enough to travel to Hawaii for the next big memoria, the 70th anniversary, in five years.

“Sixty-five years later, there’s not too many of us left,” said Don Stratton, a seaman 1st class who was aboard the USS Arizona on Dec. 7, 1941. “In another five years I’ll be 89. The good Lord willing, I might be able to make it. If so, I’ll probably be here. I might not even be around. Who knows. Only the good Lord knows.”

Survivors, family members and others gathered for the commemoration were to observe a moment of silence at 7:55 a.m. local time, the minute planes began bombing Pearl Harbor 65 years ago.

A priest was to give a Hawaiian blessing and Marines will perform a rifle salute.

Stratton and other survivors were to board a boat to the white memorial straddling the sunken hull of the Arizona, where they will lay wreaths and lei in honor of the dead.

The Arizona sank in less than nine minutes after a 1,760 pound armor-piercing bomb struck the battleship’s deck and hit its ammunition magazine, igniting flames that engulfed the ship.

Attack sank twelve ships
More people died on the Arizona than any other ship as 1,177 servicemen, or about 80 percent of its crew, perished.

Altogether, the surprise attack killed 2,390 Americans and injured 1,178.

Twelve ships sank and nine vessels were heavily damaged. Over 320 U.S. aircraft were destroyed or heavily damaged by the time the invading planes were done sweeping over military bases from Wheeler Field to Kaneohe Naval Air Station.

Japanese veterans who participated in the attack as navigators and pilots will also pay their respects, offering flowers at the Arizona memorial for the American and Japanese who died.

Some Japanese veterans and American survivors have reconciled in the decades since.

Japanese dive bomber pilot Zenji Abe has apologized to American survivors for the sudden attack, ashamed his government failed to deliver a declaration of war in time for the assault.

The Japanese aviators who carried out the attack thought the declaration had already been made by the time they started bombing, Abe has said.

Memories fresh after 65 years
The attack may have occurred 65 years ago, but survivors say they can still hear the explosions, smell the burning flesh, taste the sea water and hear the cries.

PEARL HARBOR Click here for an interactive look at the attack

"The younger ones were crying, 'Mom! Mom! Mom!'" said Edward Chun, who witnessed the attack from the Ten-Ten dock, just a couple hundred yards away from Battleship Row.

Chun, 83, had just begun his workday as a civilian pipe fitter when he was thrust into assisting in everything from spraying water on the ships to aiding casualties.

"From the time the first bomb dropped and for the next 15 minutes, it was complete chaos," he said. "Nobody knew what was going on. Everybody was running around like a chicken with their head cut off."

Chun saw the Oklahoma and West Virginia torpedoed by Japanese aircraft. He heard the tapping of sailors trapped in the hulls of sunken ships. He escaped death when Ten-Ten was strafed, leaving behind dead and wounded.

"How I never got hit, I don't know," said Chun, who was later drafted and served in the Korean and Vietnam wars. "I'll tell you a secret: When your number comes up, you're going to go. Well, every morning I get up, I change my number."

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