Today, Dec. 7, as has happened yearly for seven decades, survivors of the attack on Pearl Harbor and dedicated others were to gather at dawn to mark the calamitous event that plunged America into World War II. "Taps" wafts over the hushed assemblage at the USS Arizona Memorial, made more poignant by the knowledge that directly below, 1,177 servicemen remain in the ship’s watery grave, forever entombed by Japan’s aerial attack just after dawn.
Four of the last nine survivors of that Dec. 7, 1941, raid have traveled to Hawaii for this morning’s ceremony to remember this "date of infamy" and their fallen comrades. Gathering for what might well be a final official reunion are John Anderson, 97, Lauren Bruner, 94, Lou Conter, 93, and Don Stratton, 92.
Today, in honor of this occasion, we share an abridged version of the address, "Preserving the Memory," presented at today’s Pearl Harbor Day event by chief historian Daniel A. Martinez; as well as a bit of history about the four WWII survivors who are at Pearl Harbor today — just as they were 73 years ago.
John Delmar Anderson
BM2 (Boatswain’s Mate Second Class):
Anderson and his brother, Delbert, were the only set of twins on the USS Arizona during the attack. John survived; Delbert did not. As the Arizona tilted and sank, John Anderson was ordered onto a barge taking wounded men to safety. "I can’t go, my brother’s up there," refused Anderson as he was shoved onto the barge and taken to Ford Island. But after landing, John muscled his way back to the barge, ignoring the calls of "You’ll get killed out there!" and set out toward the sinking, smoking, flaming Arizona.
Lauren Fay Bruner
F3c (Fire Controlman Third Class):
Bruner was the second to last man to leave his blazing battle station above the bridge. When the USS Arizona alarm sounded, Bruner scrambled to his battle station, 87 feet above deck. The enemy planes had "already started dropping the bombs," Bruner has said.
About 8:10 a.m., "a high-density, armor-piercing bomb … went right through the three decks and exploded directly in the ammunition magazine where (another man) was stationed. That’s when the ship blew up, and everything blew sky high," he recalled. "And a million pounds of black powder just blew the whole bow of the ship right off."
"We were trapped up there" in the resulting inferno, Bruner said. A repair ship, the Vestal, was moored nearby, "and we got a line thrown over," he said. Tying off the ropes, six men "got across the line hand over hand."
Bruner and boatswain’s mate 2nd class Alvin Dvorak, who followed him, were burned over more than 70 percent of their bodies.
Louis A. Conter
QM3 (Quartermaster Third Class):
Conter was a young sailor standing watch on the quarterdeck of the USS Arizona when Japanese bombers swarmed the skies overhead and attacked the Pearl Harbor fleet. Conter was among the 335 survivors of the battleship Arizona, which crumpled and sank at its berth, killing 1,177. "We look at the ones still aboard the ship out there as the heroes," Conter has said. "We’re the lucky ones. We came home and got married and had kids and now grandkids. And they’re still there."
Donald Gay Stratton
S1c (Seaman First Class):
Stratton was just 19 when the USS Arizona was bombed, burning 65 percent of his body. In an online narrative, he recalled in part: "The ship was hit with something that shook the ship very badly, could have been a 2,000-lb. bomb that hit the starboard-side right aft of the No. 2 turret, or could have been a torpedo, as I saw, from my vantage point two torpedo wakes headed right for the Arizona. Only the good Lord knows where they wound up. Then the horrendous explosion that blew about 110 feet of the bow off, with a fire ball that went 400-500 feet in the air, which engulfed the whole forward half of the ship."
Much more history and survivor accounts are online at http://www.ussarizona.org/website/stories. As Stratton notes: "(Our flag) duty, honor, and courage, and the people who made the supreme sacrifices for our freedom, shall always be remembered. Keep America alert, so that something like this does not happen again, or else all these sacrifices were for naught."
