A major moment in American history happened 69 years ago Tuesday. The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in what is still one of the deadlist attacks ever on U.S. soil.
At the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, people paused at the exact time in Texas when the Japanese bombed Hawaii. Two World War II-era planes flew overhead.
Nearly 70 years later, survivors can still recall that Sunday morning. Joe Berry was aboard the U.S.S. Helena and eating breakfast when he heard the attack.
The ship never sank, but two compartments flooded and 20 people lost their lives. One of them was Berry’s friend. “It is so hard to describe,” Berry said. “You get a sense of how temporary life is when you see people die.”
First-hand accounts such as Berry’s are becoming less common each year. There are now less than 3,000 living survivors of Pearl Harbor.
Richard Cunningham is among them. At 20 years of age, he helped perform a series of heroic rescues aboard a lifeboat.
“When you are that age you are invincible,” Cunningham said. “Nothing is going to stop you and you do what you have to do.”
Cunningham says he cannot remember the number of trips he took or even the number of lives he saved. “You do these things because you have to do it,” he said.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt described the Pearl Harbor attack as a day that would live on in infamy. At the same time, it is becoming less a part of living memory due to fewer survivors who are left to describe it.
