Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro will be the keynote speaker for the 80th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, a milestone that is planned to include a large number of aged survivors and World War II veterans — 151 total — despite the relentlessness of COVID-19.
The Navy said 32 Pearl Harbor survivors and 119 other World War II veterans are expected on Oahu to remember the surprise Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack that initially brought despair but quickly became a battle cry for an America that knew the country’s fate was at stake.
The nonprofit Best Defense Foundation in California said it is bringing to Hawaii 63 wartime veterans from across the country for National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.
“The mindset is, they want to go. This is the 80th, and they all want to be there,” said the group’s founder, Donnie Edwards. “I can’t tell you how many veterans have been just counting the days, and actually, to be quite honest, we’ve actually inspired veterans to keep living, to keep going, because with COVID it’s been hard mentally, physically.”
One 101-year-old veteran sent Edwards a video of himself doing pushups — five, to be exact — to demonstrate his preparedness to go.
The oldest coming in is 104, Edwards said. The youngest is 96. Best Defense Foundation also is paying for a caretaker for each veteran to make the trip to Oahu and Pearl Harbor.
“They are ready. They are so excited. So many of them have their bags packed already. It’s just so special to be part of the 80th commemoration,” Edwards said in a phone interview. “You talk about ultimate closure — back with your comrades, your brothers and sisters.”
Several of those veterans are women who served in the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) and WACs (Women’s Army Corps), he said.
Japan sought to cripple the U.S. Pacific Fleet in Hawaii as it pursued conquests in Southeast Asia. In the tragedy that was Pearl Harbor, about 2,455 men, women and children were killed in the attack.
The total included about 2,390 American service members and Oahu civilians, 56 Japanese aviators and up to nine Japanese submariners. A total of 1,177 men died on the battleship USS Arizona alone.
On Tuesday the commemoration ceremony will be held on and livestreamed from Pearl Harbor’s Kilo Pier, across from the Arizona Memorial, at 7:45 a.m.
The National Park Service, which coordinates the annual event with the Navy, previously said access to Kilo Pier on the secure Navy base would be by invitation only “for the health and safety of attending veterans.”
Approximately 1,200 are expected to attend.
“The majority of attendees will be the veterans, plus one caretaker who will sit with them (as well as) families of the veterans in attendance and families of deceased veterans,” said Navy Region Hawaii historian Jim Neuman.
Some of the veterans are flying in courtesy of a variety of organizations, he said.
Also expected to be in attendance are several groups of wounded warriors, representatives from local and national veterans organizations and local, state and federal officials, according to Neuman.
For the 75th anniversary in 2016, about 3,800 chairs were arrayed on Kilo Pier, and all were filled. Another 2,300 seats were set up for livestream viewing at the USS Arizona Memorial visitor center, along with space for 2,700 more people to stand.
With COVID-19 still a big concern, the park service said it will have 800 chairs set up at the visitor center that already have been reserved via lottery. Large screens will be staged around the grounds for the livestreamed event at nearby Kilo Pier.
“The health and safety of the veterans is our primary concern,” Neuman said in an email. “We will be using various COVID mitigation measures, primarily by ensuring that the veterans remain socially distanced from one another and from other guests.”
The Best Defense Foundation said all the survivors and World War II veterans it is flying in have been vaccinated. “We’re doing our part to be safe,” Edwards said. “We have a full COVID protocol.”
He also added, “When you are 95-plus years old, you understand what life’s about and what’s important.” In 2020 “there were so many veterans that wanted to go. We had to cancel our end-of-World War II program in Hawaii last year like a week out, actually. We had 27 veterans coming out for that, and unfortunately, it didn’t happen.”
This year some of the valor and stories from Dec. 7, 1941, and the larger world war that was waged will again be represented at Pearl Harbor in person, in the face of COVID-19.
Frank Emond, who is 103 and served on the USS Pennsylvania, is coming in from Pensacola, Fla. Emond played the French horn and was in a ship “Battle of Music” the night of Dec. 6, 1941. He remembers the line of planes arriving that Dec. 7 and saw one drop a torpedo.
“The man in the aft cockpit of the torpedo plane had a machine gun that looked like he was firing at us. You could see the red flashes of the machine gun,” Emond recalled in a 2018 interview.
Ralph Matsumoto, a McKinley High School graduate, was helping a friend clean a pool room when the attack occurred. At one point the windows were blown out. Matsumoto, who is coming in from California, was later drafted into the Army and served in the Military Intelligence Service.
Jack Holder, who was in the Navy, was on Ford Island when bombs blasted aircraft and they caught fire. For three days he and others manned a machine gun emplacement surrounded by sandbags.
Elsie “Kitty” Rippin, now 97, enlisted in the WAVES program in 1944, and is also coming to Pearl Harbor. The aviation machinist mate worked at air stations in Indiana and Illinois.
The veterans are part of a rapidly dwindling Greatest Generation. Stu Hedley, who was aboard the USS West Virginia in Pearl Harbor, died Aug. 4 at age 99, a victim of COVID-19. Don Long, who manned a PBY Catalina flying boat in Kaneohe Bay at the time of the attack, died Aug. 16 at age 100.
View online
The Dec. 7 observance and other events, including USS Nevada, USS Utah and USS Oklahoma ceremonies, can be watched virtually:
>> nps.gov/perl
>> facebook.com/PearlHarborNPS
>> facebook.com/NavyRegionHawaii
>> pearlharborevents.com
