when was national pearl harbor remembrance day created

#WHEN WAS NATIONAL PEARL HARBOR REMEMBRANCE DAY CREATED FULL#

He relieved a comrade who had stood watch overnight, and began preparing for a day of signal drills and regular maintenance checks. “I recall it was a beautiful sunny day in Hawaii that morning,” Long said. He arrived early and took a small boat toward the awaiting Catalina flying boat, cruising across the turquoise waters of windward Oahu with Hawaii’s 73-degree air splashing across his face. He was tasked with standing watch aboard a seaplane in the bay across the island from Pearl Harbor. The 20-year-old seaman from Minnesota enrolled in boot camp in March 1941, a “snotty nose kid, fresh off the farm.” That Sunday morning was his first day of operational duty with the squadron he had been assigned to about a month earlier. Long remembers that weekend of the attack as routine, “or so it started out,” he wrote in a 1992 essay that he provided to The Associated Press. Pacific forces during World War II, relit the beacon, beginning a yearly tradition. The beacon, known as the Eye of Diablo, was put out shortly after the attack in 1941. This year, Long plans to visit school children to talk about Pearl Harbor, then will light a beacon atop Mount Diablo in Concord, California. “In the past 20 or so (years), I take part in some kind of activity that I’ll say is appropriate for the day.” “For about 50, 60 years or so, it was a day that rang a little bell to me, but I did not do much,” he said. Long has not always marked the anniversary like he does now. But as you are probably well aware, we were taught to hate those people with all our hearts, and when you’re looking at one down a gun sight, you can’t really feel much love for anyone - that’s for darn sure,” he said. Long no longer harbors ill will against Japan or its people. All three have died, but Long was impressed the consul general had taken the time to find out.

It was probably one of those three,” Long said.

“They did some searching I guess, or told somebody to do it, but within a month or so I got a message from them and the proof is not positive but they sent the information on three Japanese pilots. He asked if they might be able to help him identify the pilot who attacked his plane 77 years ago.

#WHEN WAS NATIONAL PEARL HARBOR REMEMBRANCE DAY CREATED FULL#

“He and his wife were there in full regalia,” Long said. At his table were Japan’s Honolulu-based consul general and his wife. He attended a dinner where survivors were seated at random with dignitaries. “We ended up not in a bunk in the barracks, but in a very nice ocean room at the Hawaiian Hilton.” all the girls with the leis were there with the Hawaiian music,” he remembered. “We came in on a first class United chartered jet. It was a different experience when he flew to Hawaii for the 75th anniversary in 2016, a trip that was paid for by a survivor’s group. “I got off that ship with my sea bag over my shoulder and we threw it on a truck and they carted me over to Kaneohe from Pearl Harbor where we had landed,” Long recalled. Long was fresh out of boot camp when he arrived in Hawaii in 1941. He shared some of his memories this week with The Associated Press: Now 97, Long will remember the 77th anniversary of the attack from his home in Napa, California. When the gunfire finally reached him, setting the aircraft ablaze, he jumped into the water and found himself swimming through fire to safety. The waves of attacking planes reached his military installation on Kaneohe Bay soon after Pearl Harbor was struck, and the young sailor saw buildings and planes start to explode all around him. Don Long was alone on an anchored military seaplane in the middle of a bay across the island from Pearl Harbor when Japanese warplanes started striking Hawaii on December 7, 1941, watching from afar as the bombs and bullets killed and wounded thousands.

When was national pearl harbor remembrance day created