![]() ![]() The historian for the 23rd Bomb Squadron Association called base headquarters in Minot, North Dakota, for an explanation. He had dodged Japanese bombs at Hickam Field.Īfter learning that the annual B-52 bomber flyover of Hawaii was being canceled for Dec. Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day 2019: What happened during fateful attack 78 years ago?ī-17 gunner/radio operator Jim Fulton was only half joking when he reamed me out for driving up to his home in Cocoa Beach in a Toyota. ![]() He abandoned ship when the battlewagon’s ammo magazine blew and killed 1,177 in a flash. 50-caliber gun station aboard the Arizona, only to find it unloaded. With Japanese warplanes ripping apart the Pacific Fleet, Olsen had scrambled to his. Some, like Vernon Olsen of Port Charlotte, Florida, were perplexed over the popular translations. And while many shared their stories out of a sense of duty, it was truly impossible to make outsiders smell and hear the carnage that left 2,335 sailors, soldiers and airmen dead and 1,143 wounded. Their stories had been mythologized long before I’d reached adulthood, in big-screen dramatizations like “Tora! Tora! Tora!” and “From Here To Eternity.” And even as mortality began thinning them out, their Hollywoodized narratives surged into the 21st century with computer-generated pizzazz.Īll had been flung, randomly, literally, into each other, into history, from every corner of America, from farms and inner cities and everything in between. To me, they had always been old men, with their Hawaiian shirts and floral leis and PHSA baseball caps and white slacks and white shoes. It seemed as if they would always be there, converging at its submerged tomb within two weeks after Thanksgiving, on the front end of the Christmas shopping rush, offering a glimpse of sobriety amid the commercial cacophony. “Only a few hundred Pearl Harbor survivors remain,” she stated in an email.įor well over half a century, their annual pilgrimages to the sunken wreck of the Arizona were as much a seasonal as a cultural tradition. This weekend, the National Park Service expects to host 35 World War II survivors in Hawaii, according to a spokesperson, just 15 of whom saw the sneak attack unfold. And with just seven members remaining, the San Diego chapter of the PHSA – perhaps once the nation’s largest, with 586 men – finally called it quits in September. In fact, the PHSA held its last formal gathering at the USS Arizona Memorial in 2010, then officially folded in 2011. Sources: Veterans Affairs, The National WWII Museum New Orleans, Military.Today, with the youngest eligible members approximately 96 years old, PHSA survivors are now as rare as Civil War veterans in the nuclear age. About 294 died each day in 2018, on average, and approximately 10% reside in California, the most of any state. In 2019, according to Veterans Affairs statistics, there are about 390,000 WWII veterans alive of the more than 16 million that served. ![]() Department of Veterans Affairs as of Sept. Pearl Harbor Memorial Parade and CeremonyDecember 7 4:30 pm – 7:30 pm USS Oklahoma Memorial CeremonyDecember 7 1:30 pm – 2:30 pm National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day CommemorationDecember 7 7:50 am – 9:15 amPearl Harbor Visitor Center, 1 Arizona Memorial Place USS Utah Memorial Sunset CeremonyDecember 6 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm The National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day Commemoration and the USS Oklahoma Memorial Ceremony will be streamed live at /broadcast ![]() After the band won a trophy, it dedicated and gave it to Potts in thanks for his service. The band took up a collection to bring Potts as a guest of honor. In 2011, a high school band from Provo was invited to perform on the 70th anniversary of the attack. He has returned to the memorial service in Hawaii several times. After the war he returned home to Provo, Utah, and a career in construction and selling used cars. Potts spent the rest of the war in Navy intelligence on Oahu. He was ordered off the Arizona just before a bomb hit and sent it to the bottom in minutes. He and many other sailors found a ride to the harbor and helped rescue men from the ships. He was in Honolulu when the planes swooped in over Oahu. Ken Potts was 20 during the surprise attack. He retired as a lieutenant commander in 1967 and became a successful real estate developer in Palm Springs. He served with the Navy through the Korean War, during which he flew 29 missions. In 1943 his plane went down in shark-infested enemy waters and all 10 of the crew made it out alive. It wasn’t until January 1942 that an admiral found out about the orders and straightened things out.Ĭonter got his wings in 1942 and flew bombing missions in the South Pacific. After the bombs stuck the Arizona, he tried to save as many men as possible, and his orders sank with the ship. He was an enlisted man who had recently been accepted to flight school. ![]()
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