Nearly three-quarters of a century after bombs fell on Oahu, launching America into World War II, war dead and veterans on both sides of the conflict — as well as the reconciliation with Japan that is still ongoing — will be memorialized and highlighted on Dec. 7.
About 35 members of Joe Langdell’s family are coming to Pearl Harbor for the interment of the USS Arizona officer’s ashes in his sunken battleship, the National Park Service said. The 26-year-old Navy ensign was asleep on adjacent Ford Island on that Sunday morning in 1941 when explosions woke him to the horror unfolding nearby.
Langdell, who died at the age of 100 on Feb. 4 in Yuba City, Calif., was the oldest of the now seven remaining USS Arizona survivors.
About seven relatives of Japanese pilot Koreyoshi Toyama, whose dive bomber was shot down near the old Marine Corps Air Station Ewa, and is still believed to be buried there with radioman Hajime Murao, are expected to come from Japan to visit the crash site.
“They are parallels of remembrance,” noted Daniel Martinez, chief historian for the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument, which includes the USS Arizona Memorial.
Increasingly, that remembrance is overlapping. Japan and America began a process of reconciliation shortly after the war’s end, Martinez said. The theme of the 74th commemoration of the Dec. 7, 1941, attacks is “Pathway to Reconciliation: From Engagement to Peace,” and focuses on the rebuilding and solidifying of the friendship between the two countries.
The war “had hardened the perceptions of the participants in such a way that it was almost unimaginable that there could be reconciliation,” Martinez said.
But signs of hope sprang up in 1946, Martinez said. On Pearl Harbor Day that year, Territory of Hawaii Gov. Ingram Stainback said that the “heroic deeds of our citizens of every race should silence for all times those preaching racial intolerance,” Martinez said.
The Honolulu Advertiser ran an editorial stating that “only international understanding would do away with war.”
“So it was like, wow, right here in our backyard within a year (of the war’s end) they are talking about this whole form of reconciling so this won’t happen again,” Martinez said.
THE DEFENDING heroes of Dec. 7 will be honored, but Martinez said the program “brings this focus of what the national day of remembrance at Pearl Harbor really means, (which includes) the extension of that history that not only touched on Dec. 7, but beyond that, and it’s still evident here on Hawaii.”
Between 3,000 and 4,000 people are expected to attend Monday’s Pearl Harbor commemoration, which will be held on the Navy base’s Kilo Pier in a dress rehearsal for next year’s big 75th anniversary and possible attendance by President Barack Obama and other top U.S. and Japanese officials.
As part of this year’s plan, parking will be at Aloha Stadium with free shuttle transportation to Kilo Pier from 6 to 7:15 a.m., with return shuttles to the stadium after the ceremony from 10 a.m. to noon. A photo ID is required.
Japanese aircrews attacked American ships and military installations on Oahu shortly before 8 a.m., sinking or damaging 21 ships of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. American dead totaled 2,403, including 68 civilians, most of whom were killed by anti-aircraft shells landing in Honolulu, the Navy said.
The USS Arizona paid the highest price, with 1,177 dead and 335 survivors. About 900 crew members remain entombed on the battleship memorial.
A MOMENT of silence will be observed at 7:55 a.m., the time when the attack on Pearl Harbor began. The destroyer USS Preble will render pass-in-review honors and a flyover will include F-22 Raptors and a 1944 SNJ.
In addition to the interment of Langdell, a scattering of ashes will be conducted for Don Show, who was aboard the light cruiser USS Phoenix on Dec. 7.
The exact location of the bodies of Japanese aviators Toyama and Murao isn’t known, but Ewa Beach historian John Bond said he believes he has narrowed down the unmarked burial as being near the Hoakalei Country Club clubhouse using military reports and coordinates.
Some 33 Japanese airmen and sailors remain unaccounted for at sea and on land from the Dec. 7, 1941, attacks. Toyama had seven sisters, and his last surviving sister died in October at the age of 98. Nieces and nephews of Toyama are among the group coming out to the crash site to pray for the aviator and other casualties, the Japanese Consulate said.
“It is entirely up to the family as to what they would like to see happen, but at a minimum it would seem appropriate to at least provide a crash site marker with the air crew names on it,” Bond said.
