Japanese and American officials gathered Thursday on Ford Island for the annual Japan-U.S. Joint Memorial Ceremony where they reflected on the devastation of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the fighting that followed and how to prevent it from ever happening again. The event comes at the tail end of a series of events commemorating the 81st anniversary of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Oahu by the Japanese navy.
Honolulu’s Japanese Consul General Yataka Aoki told attendees, “Today’s joint ceremony, which had its humble beginnings as a small service at a local Buddhist temple, embraces a simple idea: that while the world may divide people into friends and foes, we are nevertheless all still human.”
The ceremony was held at the former mooring spot of the USS Arizona, looking down at the memorial that now marks the final resting place of crew members who went down with the ship. Of the 2,390 Americans killed in the attack, 1,177 were members of the Arizona’s crew.
Sixty-five Japanese service members also died during the battle, which brought the United States into World War II and turned Pacific island communities into bloody battlegrounds that to this day remain littered with bombs.
“Eighty-one years have passed, and our two nations, who were adversaries in a fierce war, have come to share one of the closest relationships in the world,” said Aoki. “Its existence will play an increasing, pivotal and crucial role as we navigate the scary, unknown waters of the escalating tensions which threaten the very foundation that our two nations spent the last almost eight decades building.”
Hostilities in the Pacific region have increased sharply in recent years. Grievances have mounted between China and its neighbors over navigation rights in the South China Sea. Beijing has built bases on disputed islands and land formations in the sea over its neighbors’ objections and has also been locked in territorial disputes with Japan over an island chain Japan calls the Senkakus.
The U.S. military, for its part, has conducted continuous “freedom of navigation operations,” sending ships and aircraft into disputed territories over China’s objections. Increasing standoffs have militarized the critical waterway, through which one-third of all international trade travels.
Meanwhile, tensions have also escalated on the Korean Peninsula during a historic year of North Korean missile tests — more than any during the rule of current leader Kim Jong Un.
“Today is also a day to reflect,” said Navy Region Hawaii commander Rear Adm. Stephen Barnett. “It’s also a day to inspire respect for the necessity to find peaceful solutions to conflicts.”
Increasing tension in the Taiwan Strait as Beijing vows to one day bring self-ruled Taiwan under its control, by military force if necessary, has increased fears of war breaking out in the Pacific. Japan’s new prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has called for an increased defense budget, and in October told the Financial Times that he “will be fully prepared to respond to any possible scenario in East Asia to protect the lives and livelihoods of our people.”
Barnett told attendees that “the United States and Japan’s interests are intertwined, and our nations are closer than ever before. Indeed, the alliance between the U.S. and Japan is the cornerstone of peace, prosperity and security in the region. And this makes it the most crucial alliance in the world for the 21st century.”
Barnett said that since that war, Japan’s Maritime Self Defense Force has become a frequent presence at Pearl Harbor not as attackers, but as guests for training, and that the two have cooperated in combating high-seas piracy and responding to natural disasters.
“As we all gather this morning at this quiet harbor and honor those we lost, let us always remember all that our two nations have built together, our friends after the war, and make a commitment to continue doing our part to strengthening this friendship,” said Aoki. “May the world someday come to remember Pearl Harbor not just as a place where fierce war began, but as a powerful symbol of the later reconciliation and friendship which ensued, and the limitless potential they hold in our collective quest for peace.”
In the ceremony’s keynote, Pearl Harbor National Memorial Superintendent Tom Leatherman told the crowd that honoring the dead means in part remembering that “war is a costly measure where no one truly wins, and our youth — the future — are the ones who suffer the most.”
“Not only are we recognizing those who lost their lives here at Pearl Harbor on that fateful day, but the many more who were lost on the battlefield and naval engagements during the rest of the war,” he said. “The history books may see those who perished as casualties of war, but we see them as individuals whose lives ended too soon, and we will never know who they could have become or what they might have contributed to this world.”
