It’s hard to believe it’s been 73 years since Pearl Harbor, but it has, and the number of survivors of the attack on the USS Arizona has dwindled into the single digits.
More than a dozen Pearl Harbor survivors, each more than 90 years old, gathered in Hawaii this week to share stories as they marked the 73rd anniversary of the Japanese attack that killed 2,400 sailors, Marines and soldiers.
The gathering has been called the last meeting for the USS Arizona Reunion Association – comprised of the remaining nine survivors of the USS Arizona, a battleship that sank in the Dec. 7, 1941, attack.
But Louis Conter isn’t ready to talk about the end.
“I don’t think this is going to be our last. … We’ve still got time to go,” said Conter, 93, of Grass Valley, Calif. “We’ll be back out here no matter whether the rest of the crowd can make it or not.”
I have a friend whose father survived the attack and lived into his 90s, but very few live past that.
I’m sorry to see them go, but I hope they — along with today’s date — will never be forgotten.
Comments
3 responses to “73 years”
Thanks for this. It seems like with every passing year those who remember the lessons dwindle.
Liberty
Justice
For All
And anyone on the Arizona on that day has the right to have their ashes returned to the ship to sleep with their shipmates.
I can remember when the last Civil War veteran died. He had a big funeral. That shows how old I am. In the Civil War, there were drummer boys on both sides who were only 10 or 12 years old when the war ended.