Remember Pearl

Let's remember Pearl Harbor as we go to meet the foe;Let's remember Pearl Harbor as we did the Alamo.We will always remember how they died for liberty.Let's remember Pearl Harbor and go on to victory.DTC SINCE the average age of Americans today is 32, most of us don't "remember Pearl Harbor," as the instant war song once urged. But not only do I remember the event; it is the earliest memory I have to which I can now assign a sure calendar date.I was a 12-year-old Baltimorean. I had taken my little sister, Mary Jo, to the York Theater on Greenmount Avenue to see a Sunday afternoon screening of Deanna Durbin in "It Started with Eve."

Good morning it's December 7th and, yes, it's still a day that will live in infamy. Seventy-one years later, Pearl Harbor is attracting a fair amount of search traffic on the Internet. Things should pick up photo wise as remembrances get under way in Hawaii later this morning.  We're mostly relying on Twitter today because Google is being a bit stingy this week with the trends. The search giant hasn't updated its hot trends data since Tuesday. I know we all love the Victoria Secret Fashion Show , but I'm thinking America has finally moved on to something else.

Congress has passed a bill, signed by President Clinton, designating Thursday as Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.The bill requires that the U.S. flag be flown at half-mast that day.Veterans of Foreign Wars Counties Four Post 10076 Commander Steve Cone is asking the community to remember Pearl Harbor Day appropriately.FireMount Airy: Mount Airy firefighters responded to a chimney fire at 5:35 p.m. Thursday in the 12000 block of Fingerboard Road. Units returned in 36 minutes.Winfield: Winfield, New Windsor and Mount Airy firefighters responded to a house fire at 8:17 p.m. Thursday in the 2400 block of Braddock Road.

Seventy years ago today, Japan launched a surprise attack on America's Pacific fleet in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, drawing the United States into the second World War. More than 2,400 Americans were killed in the attack, including four Marylanders, all of whom were serving aboard the U.S.S. Arizona: Fireman 1st Class Howard T. Anderson; Boatswain's Mate 1st Class Clyde J. Rawson; Yeoman 2nd Class Jack M. Restivo; and Shipfitter 3rd Class Victor C. Tambolleo. The war that followed would take a terrible toll - including 770 from Maryland killed, 928 wounded and 18 missing in action.

PEARL HARBOR is much more than a place. The words ring through the American consciousness with horrific outrage and prideful response.The Japanese surprise attack on the American naval base brought this giant of a nation into the most giant of the world's wars. Perhaps that involvement was inevitable, but the attack allows us to pinpoint a moment in time as a fulcrum for the lever that would forever alter the history of the planet.Two of the three networks are weighing in with special remembrances of that event in honor of its 50th anniversary, proving that they still have documentary departments, though carefully scheduling their efforts on evenings when few ratings points are at risk.

It was all so simple in the words of the old song: "Let's remember Pearl Harbor as we go to meet the foe; let's remember Pearl Harbor as we did the Alamo." So simple to remember American boys dying, to remember a demonized foe, to remember the humiliation of defeat and the unifying vengeance that was in time to bring victory.But like the Alamo and the Maine, the circumstances that led to war in 1941 were complicated by diplomatic maneuverings and deeply embedded American notions of superiority.

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.

About 60 survivors of the Pearl Harbor attack gathered on the Coast Guard cutter Roger B. Taney yesterday for the annual remembrance of one of the most tumultuous and wrenching days in American history.Some wore their service uniforms and decorations. All wore a white hat with black lettering that read, "Pearl Harbor Survivors."The Taney is also a survivor -- one of two surviving vessels that were at Pearl during the attack Dec. 7, 1941, that began shortly before 8 a.m. on a Sunday.The Japanese attack sank or damaged 19 ships, killed 2,403 servicemen and civilians and wounded 1,178.

New York. -- Remember Pearl Harbor! The American battle cry of World War II has become a question in the 1990s: Remember Pearl Harbor? And the correct answer is: Not me.''A date which will live in infamy!'' said President Franklin D. Roosevelt of December 7, 1941, 50 years ago. There are many now who would prefer that the 50th anniversary of the sneak attack on Hawaii be a day that lives in anonymity.There is trouble right here in Media City about the anniversary. Publishers and television executives have got a problem they can only whisper about, first looking around to make sure no one will overhear them: The Japanese did it.It was the Japanese, our friends and co-owners, whose planes came roaring out of the sunrise that Sunday morning to sink a major portion of the Pacific fleet of the U.S. Navy.

When West Point cadets and Annapolis midshipmen stand to "Remember Pearl Harbor" at today's Army-Navy football game in Philadelphia, the nation's future military leaders will be marking an historical event.But another group of men and women will board the Coast Guard cutter Roger B. Taney in Baltimore's Inner Harbor this morning with living memories of Dec. 7, 1941, when Japan's sneak attack on Hawaii hurled the United States into the furnace of World War II.For the first time, Joseph L. Alsop, 75, of Towson will be among them -- a new member of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association (PHSA)

It happened 68 years ago today, but Clarence J.M. Davis can still clearly remember the noise, confusion, frenzied activity and deadliness of the attack that propelled the United States into World War II. The St. Mary's County resident, now 86, is one of a few dozen known survivors of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor who are still alive and living in Maryland. He plans to mark the day, and remember the dead, at a ceremony scheduled for 12:30 p.m. at Maryland's World War II Memorial, beside Route 450 near Annapolis.

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.

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.

Today at noon, the old vets will lay a wreath in Annapolis in remembrance of Pearl Harbor. They'll read the names of comrades who survived the attack 66 years ago, but not the ever quickening march of time since last they gathered. At 15, the number of Pearl Harbor survivors in the state who have died in the past year might well exceed the number able to attend the ceremony. So it goes these days, as the World War II generation ages and exits, taking with it a direct link to an era that grows even more distant with their passing.

Because he has done it before, and because there are not many others able to do it, 84-year-old Bob Van Druff will read the names of this year's dead at tomorrow's Pearl Harbor anniversary service in Annapolis. Five years ago, 18,000 Americans who survived the Dec. 7, 1941, bombing were living members of the national Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. The number has dropped to 6,060 today. In Maryland, only 128 remain, and the youngest among them will soon turn 80. There will not be enough time at tomorrow's ceremony for Van Druff, a Pearl Harbor survivor, to say much about the nine men whose names he will read.

Aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Taney for yesterday's Pearl Harbor memorial ceremony, speakers said the attack 61 years ago is even more relevant today since the United States is again fighting foreign enemies after last year's Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Pearl Harbor survivors and others said there are lessons to learn from Dec. 7, 1941, when 2,403 Americans died in the Japanese attack on U.S. forces in Hawaii. "We gather here to remember that day, to remember those who made sacrifices on that day," said Alan Walden, master of ceremonies and co-chairman of the Baltimore Maritime Museum, of which the Taney is part.

About 60 survivors of the Pearl Harbor attack gathered on the Coast Guard cutter Roger B. Taney yesterday for the annual remembrance of one of the most tumultuous and wrenching days in American history.Some wore their service uniforms and decorations. All wore a white hat with black lettering that read, "Pearl Harbor Survivors."The Taney is also a survivor -- one of two surviving vessels that were at Pearl during the attack Dec. 7, 1941, that began shortly before 8 a.m. on a Sunday.The Japanese attack sank or damaged 19 ships, killed 2,403 servicemen and civilians and wounded 1,178.

When West Point cadets and Annapolis midshipmen stand to "Remember Pearl Harbor" at today's Army-Navy football game in Philadelphia, the nation's future military leaders will be marking an historical event.But another group of men and women will board the Coast Guard cutter Roger B. Taney in Baltimore's Inner Harbor this morning with living memories of Dec. 7, 1941, when Japan's sneak attack on Hawaii hurled the United States into the furnace of World War II.For the first time, Joseph L. Alsop, 75, of Towson will be among them -- a new member of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association (PHSA)