Remembering Pearl

From the Stars and Stripes:

"With five USS Arizona crewmembers remaining, it’s ‘twilight’ for Pearl Harbor survivors"

It’s extra noteworthy that Everett Hyland, who was aboard the USS Pennsylvania during Japan’s Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, will return the salute of a passing Navy warship at Friday’s anniversary of the attack. Hyland, 95, will do so on behalf of all Pearl Harbor survivors and World War II veterans as the ship sails by the sunken USS Arizona. That salute will be extra poignant because there are fewer and fewer survivors to render it themselves. For the first time in many years, not a single USS Arizona survivor will be present for the 7:50 a.m. 77th commemoration on the back lawn of the Arizona Memorial visitor center. In total, 1,177 men were killed and more than 900 remained entombed in the battleship. Just five crewmembers are still alive: Lauren Bruner, 98, Lonnie Cook, 98, Ken Potts, 97, Lou Conter, 97, and Don Stratton, 96. Old age and failing health prevented even a single Arizona survivor from making the lengthy trip to Oahu this year. Daniel Martinez, chief historian for the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument, which includes the Arizona Memorial, called it a “twilight” for the Pearl Harbor generation. “We’re lucky to have five Arizona survivors left,” Martinez said. “At their age of 95-plus, it’s remarkable that they’ve had that longevity, and it keeps us still secured to the idea that someone could tell us what happened — because they witnessed it.” But those eyewitnesses are “fading right before our eyes,” he said. Longtime Honolulu resident Ray Emory, who fired back at attacking Japanese planes with a .50-caliber machine gun from the USS Hono­lulu, and who spent decades trying to identify Dec. 7 casualties buried as “unknowns” at Punchbowl cemetery on Oahu, died in August at age 97.

^ It doesn't matter how many years pass, the attack on Pearl Harbor will always be the start of modern US and world history - since the US entered the war against Japan and Germany  after the attack and when we won the war the US became one of the two Super Powers for 46 years (1945-1991) and then the only Super Power from 1991 to the present day (27 years so far.) With that said it's really important to remember the 2,335 American soldiers killed during the attack on Pearl Harbor as well as the 1,143 American soldiers wounded and the 68 American civilians killed and the 35 American civilians wounded. ^

https://www.stripes.com/news/veterans/with-five-uss-arizona-crewmembers-remaining-it-s-twilight-for-pearl-harbor-survivors-1.559207