By Audrey McAvoy,
PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii — Pearl Harbor survivors paid what for many might be their final tribute to fallen comrades in a dockside ceremony Thursday marking the 65th anniversary of the Japanese attack, as historians vowed to keep memory of the day alive for years to come.
"Will all Pearl Harbor survivors please stand as able,” implored Capt. Taylor Skardon, commander of Naval Station Pearl Harbor, at the end of the ceremony.
The veterans, most in Hawaiian aloha shirts and Pearl Harbor survivor caps, were honored with prolonged applause at the solemn ceremony near where some of the sunken ships remain rusting and moss-covered under the water.
"It is because of you and people like you that we have the freedoms we enjoy today,” Taylor told the standing veterans.
"It’s getting hard to do this. Age is starting to creep up on us,” said Bob Jensen, 82, of Sun City, Ariz., who was aboard the USS Maryland on Dec. 7, 1941. He and his family had attended the 25th, the 45th, the 55th and the 60th anniversaries.
Asked if he’ll make the 70th, Jensen said, "I don’t think so. We’re getting up to that age where we live a day at a time.”
More than 3,500 people assembled on Kilo Pier, overlooking the shining white Arizona Memorial that sits atop the sunken USS Arizona, a grave to most of the 1,177 who died aboard the ship in the attack.
In all, 2,390 Americans died in the attack.
At the conclusion of the ceremonies, one by one, aging survivors from ships hit in the harbor placed wreaths under life preserver rings honoring each ship.
Nearly 500 survivors bowed their heads at 7:55 a.m., the minute planes began bombing the harbor in the surprise attack that thrust the United States into World War II.
"America in an instant became the land of the indivisible,” said former NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw, the author of "The Greatest Generation” who delivered the keynote address at shoreside ceremonies. "There are so many lessons from that time for our time, none greater than the idea of one nation greater than the sum of its parts.”
