Pearl Harbor

ANNAPOLIS -- Their ranks dwindling, their uniforms retired, some 260 Maryland soldiers and sailors who defended Pearl Harbor against the Japanese received long-due recognition from their country yesterday.They were awarded a congressional commemorative medal -- noting their service and marking the 50th anniversary of the Dec. 7 attack that drew the United States into World War II -- during a special ceremony at the U.S. Naval Academy Chapel."I have not forgotten it," said Nat Lieberman, 70, wiping a tear from his eye. "Veterans remember.

"Pearl Harbor: Legacy of Attack" has as much to tell us about the relationship among media, national memory and the rituals of holiday remembrance in American life today as it does the events of Dec. 7, 1941. The two-hour special that premieres tonight features NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw telling us what happened at Pearl Harbor that day and what it all means. Part of Brokaw's authority, of course, comes from his best-selling books with the men and women who fought World War II, "The Greatest Generation" and "The Greatest Generation Speaks."

PHILADELPHIA -- Early that Tuesday morning, terrorist suicide crews piloting hijacked jetliners killed an estimated 4,000 people from 86 countries. Quickly labeled the Pearl Harbor of 2001, Sept. 11 has been acknowledged as a massive intelligence-gathering failure at the highest levels. On that infamous Sunday morning 60 years ago today, against the Pearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii, Japanese Adm. Chuichi Nagumo's Operation Z carrier task force launched its attack that destroyed nearly 200 American aircraft, sank five battleships, severely damaged three cruisers, three destroyers and three auxiliaries, and killed 2,476 U.S. servicemen and civilians.

The entrance of the United States into World War II was not unexpected. But the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was stunning news. It was late afternoon on that Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, via radio when people in Harford County first heard about the deadly attack in Hawaii. There were men from Harford County stationed there at the time, and the hours and days were long indeed until those loved ones were reported alive and well. Everyone recalls exactly what he or she was doing that afternoon.

Pearl Harbor Betrayed: The True Story of a Man and a Nation Under Attack, by Michael V. Gannon. Henry Holt and Co. 339 pages. $27.50. One of the lingering debates about the Second World War centers on the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Were the two U.S. commanders derelict in their duty or were they scapegoats for a pattern of ineptitude in Washington? Michael Gannon, a naval historian, places the blame on Washington in the title of his new book, and he offers solid proof that the commanders, Adm. Husband E. Kimmel and Army Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short, were treated shabbily.

My father was shooting pool when the war started. My mother was sitting in an apartment in the Bronx with her mother and her 12-year-old brother, and everybody asked, ''What's Pearl Harbor?''''Sure,'' I say to my mother, making a little joke 50 years after the fact, ''a Pearl Schwartz, you might have known. But who knew a Pearl Harbor?''My mother's memory is jarred. Actually, she says, there was a Pearl Schwartz in her apartment building. But, a Pearl Harbor? No, half a century ago they didn't know such a place existed until the moment that dreadful news came over the radio.

About 30 people stood among the soft luminaria that flickered along the steps of the Veterans Memorial Garden in Westminster last night and paid homage to those who died 52 years ago at Pearl Harbor."

William A. Smith, a retired intelligence officer who as a Navy ensign witnessed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, died May 2 of cancer at Bethesda Naval Medical Center. The former Baltimorean was 78.He retired in 1975 as an intelligence officer at the National Security Agency. Earlier, he had worked for the Department of Defense at the Pentagon where he began his career after World War II.Before the war, he had been a member of the Naval Reserves and was called to active duty as an ensign in 1941.

Jerome Zeman, a retired Navy printer who was a witness to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, died Sunday of a stroke at Good Samaritan Hospital. He was 87 and lived in North Baltimore.He joined the Navy in 1926 and was serving as a fleet printer aboard the battleship USS California, a pre-World War II dreadnought, when it was attacked by the Japanese on Dec. 7, 1941."He was at home in his apartment, eating breakfast with his wife, when he heard gunfire and thought that perhaps there were maneuvers taking place," recalled his sister, Louise Taborsky of Baltimore.

Mike Mansfield, an 8th grade dropout, became interested in Asia during Marine duty in the Philippines, with visits to Japan and China, in 1921 and 1922. He returned to his home state of Montana and was admitted to Montana School of Mines as a special student, required to earn high school credits while he took college courses. Eventually, he became a professor of history and political science at University of Montana. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1942 and to the Senate in 1952, where he eventually became majority leader.