PEARL HARBOUR Elderly survivors return for 74th anniversary

Posted on 12/08/2015

A few dozen elderly men who survived the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour 74 years ago were gathering Monday at the site to remember fellow servicemen who didn't make it. The US Navy and National Park Service hosted a ceremony in remembrance of those killed on Dec. 7, 1941. About 3,000 people were expected to join the survivors.

Robert Irwin, 91, of Cameron Park, California, was in the barracks when the attack began and saw Japanese planes flying overhead. A fellow sailor said to him, “What's the red ball in the wing, Bob?” The seaman first class hopped on a truck that took him to the USS Pennsylvania, where he fed ammunition to the deck of the battleship. “It brings back some lousy memories,” said Irwin, of returning to Pearl Harbour. But he comes to the annual ceremony because the attack was “a big thing in my life.” Irwin served as firefighter in San Francisco after the war and retired in as a lieutenant in 1979.

The event is being held on a Navy pier overlooking the USS Arizona Memorial. It straddles the battleship which sank nine minutes after being hit. It remains a gravesite for many of those killed. The Navy destroyer USS Preble sounded its whistle to start a moment of silence at 7:55 a.m., the minute the attack began 74 years ago. Hawaii Air National Guard F-22s flew overhead to break the moment of silence. Roughly 2,400 sailors, Marines and soldiers were killed at Pearl Harbour and other military installations on the island of Oahu in the Dec. 7, 1941, attack.