The plaintive sound of a traditional Japanese flute floated over the still waters of Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial on Friday morning in a ceremony remembering the lives lost by both the United States and Japan 76 years ago in the attack on Dec. 7, 1941.
For the second year in a row, the Consulate General of Japan in Honolulu and U.S. Navy reconciliation ceremony was held one day after the “day of infamy” at a spot on Ford Island overlooking the memorial to the sunken battleship.
In the two-hour attack, about 2,455 men, women and children were killed. The total includes 2,390 American service members and Oahu civilians, 56 Japanese aviators and up to nine Japanese submariners.
Japan now is one of America’s staunchest allies, but reconciliation over Pearl Harbor remains a work in progress — even three-quarters of a century later. The incorporation of Japan’s viewpoint into such an emotional moment in American history still comes cautiously.
The Pacific Fleet band played both the U.S. and Japanese national anthems.
Koichi Ito, the consul general of Japan in Honolulu, recalled in his remarks that it was here that hangars and aircraft were destroyed and battleships bombed.
“It is inevitable that those whose lives were touched by the atrocities of this war are left struggling with intense feelings of anger and hatred toward their adversaries,” Ito told about
125 invited guests, including Navy officials, local residents and more than a dozen priests from Hawaii and Japan. Ito said he could imagine the challenges the Navy had to overcome to host an event that memorializes Japanese — as well as American — casualties at Pearl Harbor.
“To the men and women of the U.S. Navy, to the American people as a whole, words cannot begin to express my gratitude for your benevolence, your compassion and for the respect you have shown to the people of
Japan,” Ito said. “I, as consul general of Japan in Honolulu, humbly offer you my deepest, most heartfelt condolences for those whose lives were lost here at Pearl Harbor
76 years ago and in subsequent battles of the war.”
Ito’s comments were preceded by the ryuteki flute played by the Rev. Chitoku Kawaguchi and a moment of silence.
Ito noted that in December 2016, President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe laid wreaths and shared a moment of silence on the USS Arizona Memorial. In doing so, Abe made the first visit by a sitting
Japanese head of state to the famous shrine.
“He (Abe) strongly asserted that the United States and Japan are allies who will face the many global challenges together,” Ito said. Last month President Donald Trump said the United States and Japan share a long-lasting bond, Ito also noted.
Rear Adm. Matthew Carter, deputy commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet, said Thursday, Dec. 7, was a day to remember what happened in Pearl Harbor 76 years ago and honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice on that day and in World War II.
Friday, though, was a day “for us to reflect and consider how much the world has changed since 1941, embrace the friendship of our two great nations and the respect for each other, and recognize the strength of our alliance,” Carter said.
The Dec. 8 reconciliation ceremonies over the last two years (this was the first the media was invited to attend) were preceded by a joint Navy-National Park Service Pearl Harbor commemoration in 2015 titled “Pathway to Reconciliation: From Engagement to Peace” which focused on rebuilding the friendship between the two countries.
And before that was the lengthy friendship between Pearl Harbor attacker Zenji Abe and Pearl Harbor defender Richard Fiske.
Indeed, reconciliation started in postwar Japan, noted Ed Hawkins, executive director of the Honolulu Office of Economic Development and former president of the Japan-America Society of Hawaii.
“America’s greatest generation who answered the call to arms won the war, but we should remember just as importantly, they won the peace” as a compassionate occupation force, Hawkins said. “They helped rebuild both Europe and Japan, allowing democratic institutions to develop and flourish.”
