Pearl Harbor

On previous December Sevenths, Thomas Talbott marked the anniversary alongside a group of men who also survived the attack on Pearl Harbor. Yesterday - 67 years after what President Franklin D. Roosevelt called "a date which will live in infamy" - Talbott, 87, was one of just two survivors who made it to a ceremony aboard the Coast Guard cutter Taney in Baltimore's Inner Harbor. As he waited for the program to begin, he sat next to Warren Coligny, also 87. Coligny, who was bundled up and sitting in a wheelchair, has Alzheimer's disease.

Honolulu, on Hawaii's island of Oahu, is a city rich in both history and beauty. Sixty-seven years ago today, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, killing nearly 2,400 people and wounding more than 1,000. Jan. 17 will mark the 115th anniversary of the bloodless coup in which American colonists overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy. And on Jan. 20, more history will be made: The Honolulu-born Barack Obama will be sworn in as the 44th U.S. president. If you want to experience some of Honolulu's beauty, head to Waikiki Beach for white sand and cerulean ocean.

Boy, 11, missing; failed to return from school An 11-year-old boy was reported missing after he did not return home after leaving Golden Ring Middle School on Friday, Baltimore County police said. Mezcal Donta Davis of the 6000 block of Nahant Road in Rosedale is black with a medium complexion, brown eyes and shoulder-length brown hair. He was last seen wearing a gray hooded sweat shirt and tan pants. He stands 4 feet 6 inches tall and weighs about 100 pounds. Anyone with information about the boy is asked to call police at 410-887-5000.

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.

Timothy J. Hynes Jr., a Pearl Harbor survivor and World War II gunnery officer who later was chief of the Maryland Transit Authority Police, died Aug. 17 of a cardiac arrest at his Mays Chapel home. He was 89. Mr. Hynes was born and raised in New York City. After earning a bachelor's degree in business administration from Fordham University in 1941, he was commissioned an officer in the Navy. Mr. Hynes was stationed at Pearl Harbor and was an eyewitness to the Japanese attack on Dec. 7, 1941.

M.F.K. Fisher, who would have turned 100 earlier this month, was one of the first food writers to untangle all that's bound up in eating: the pleasure, the sentiment, the anxiety. Her best-remembered stories describe the magic of tangerines drying on radiators or the fuzz skimmed from her grandmother's strawberry jam. But those are stories for better times. In How to Cook a Wolf - the book she wrote just after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 - the focus was on surviving with "grace and gusto."

Michael K. Yuhas Sr. would occasionally tell his children about his desire to return to Pearl Harbor, expressing regret over missing an earlier opportunity to go. Talking to his daughter in March, the 89-year-old Army veteran and Howard County resident brought it up again. "He said, 'Now it's too late,' " Michele Neugent said. The look on his face caught Neugent off-guard - she thought he had given up on the idea of ever making the trip. "It's not too late," she recalled thinking. On a whim, she visited a Web site she'd recently heard about, where people post their wants and needs, and started typing.

Irving W. Trudell, a World War II Marine who witnessed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, died April 12 at Meadville Medical Center in Meadville, Pa. The former Rosedale and Abingdon resident was 87. Mr. Trudell was born and raised in Iron Mountain, Mich. He joined the Marine Corps in 1940 and was stationed at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. "Although we were aware of the fact that he was present for the attack, it wasn't something he ever spoke of until 1986, when he and my mother visited Hawaii for the 45th anniversary of the attack," said a daughter, Roxane J. Hooper of Sykesville.

The veterans listened intently as the bell tolled again and again. Fifteen times it rang, honoring each of 15 known Pearl Harbor survivors from Maryland who died since the previous remembrance of that day of infamy in 1941. No more than 75 Pearl Harbor survivors remain alive in Maryland -- of those, six attended yesterday's annual event in Annapolis, which marked the 66th anniversary of the day Japan launched a surprise attack on the United States, propelling the country into World War II. Veterans of wars in Korea and Vietnam, though, filed in on a shivering, overcast day to let the few remaining Pearl Harbor survivors know their sacrifice of that fateful day had not been forgotten.

Dec. 7 1941 Japanese forces attacked American and British territories and possessions in the Pacific, including the home base of the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.