For 26 years a U.S canteen blackened and battered in the midair collision of two B-29 bombers in Japan during World War II — a symbol of the horror of war — has been an instrument of peace and reconciliation at Pearl Harbor.

On Thursday morning Japanese and American officials poured whiskey from the partly crushed canteen into the still waters of the harbor near the USS Arizona Memorial in remembrance of the 23 fallen Americans and nearly 2,000 citizens of Shizuoka, Japan, who were targeted in the night bombing raid.

“Every year I pray that this ceremony brings us one more step toward worldwide peace,” Dr. Hiroya Sugano, who as a 12-year-old witnessed one of the bomber crash sites, said before the Navy launch ride to the site.

The nation today will observe the 77th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor — recognizing that Japan has become one of America’s staunchest allies.

Two former World War II “Zero” fighter pilots, Shiro Wakita, 91, and longtime Honolulu resident Hitoo Washio, 95, attended Thursday’s observance along with retired Air Force Col. Jack DeTour, 95, who flew B-25 bomber missions in the war.

The annual “Blackened Canteen” ceremony at Pearl Harbor grew out of a humanitarian effort in June 1945 by Shizuoka city councilman Fukumatsu Itoh, a devout Buddhist who buried the downed American flyers.

A private ceremony was held each year on June 20 — the date of the crash — to honor the civilian casualties and American aviators, with Itoh using the recovered canteen to pour whiskey on a makeshift cross.

The respect for the dead eventually included formal memorials for the local residents and Americans, but it would take many more years — and a prompting from President George H.W. Bush — for the humanitarianism represented by the blackened canteen to be embraced at Pearl Harbor.

“The road to reconciliation was not easy … because the wounds of war were so open,” Daniel Martinez, chief historian for the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument, which includes the USS Arizona Memorial, said Thursday.

Bush, who attended the 50th anniversary of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack in 1991, “was aware as president at the time of those feelings — knowing that Japan was one of our closest allies,” Martinez said.

Some veterans were still angry. Some wanted another apology from Japan.

The speech Bush gave “sent us down that road to reconciliation,” Martinez said. In it Bush, a World War II combat pilot, said, “I have no rancor in my heart toward Germany or Japan — none at all. And I hope, in spite of the loss, that you have none in yours. This is not the time for recrimination.”

Itoh, who was 53 in 1945, passed on the responsibility for the blackened canteen and ceremony to Sugano, who has carried on the tradition since 1972.

Both came to the attention of Honolulu Pearl Harbor historian John Di Virgilio in 1991 on a trip he made to Japan to interview veterans.

“Dr. Sugano — I didn’t know who he was — showed up at my hotel telling me that there were events already in place in Japan to help healing between veterans,” Di Virgilio said, referencing the ceremony there.

Sugano first came to Pearl Harbor with the canteen, which has the imprint of what’s believed to be an American aviator’s hand on it, in 1992, Di Virgilio said.

“We weren’t even allowed to use liquor. Had to pour water — and quietly do it,” he said.

On Thursday, DeTour, the former U.S. bomber pilot, sat next to his friend Wakita, the former Zero pilot, as the Blackened Canteen ceremony was discussed in the theater at the Arizona Memorial visitor center.

More than 100 officials and guests, including student groups and the American and Japanese World War II veterans, were on the boat for the ceremony, which included a floral tribute and taps.

Both Zero pilots, who had received indications of suicide missions during flight training then, are welcome guests at the Arizona Memorial now.

Washio has lived in Honolulu since 1955, working in a family hotel business in town — and living a thoroughly American life for more than half a century.

“Retired already. I get the Social Security,” he said after the ceremony.