Remembering Pearl Harbor Day. It hits you a little harder when your back door looks across the water at the harbor and Arizona Memorial. Our generation sometimes feels so far removed from that time, that day. If you are a Millennial then you have memories of September 11, where you were, what you were doing. But there are still those who recall Pearl Harbor 7 December 1941. Talk to your relatives who were alive that day. Don’t just remember what they say, write it down. Think about all the events that unfolded following that day, what President Roosevelt sounded like on the radio to your grandparents, great grandparents. The dominoes that fell afterwards affected everyone differently. Japanese Americans were suddenly corralled into internment camps. Young men left their homes and families never to return.

“EXECUTE AGAINST JAPAN UNRESTRICTED AIR AND SUBMARINE WARFARE. CINCAF INFORM BRITISH AND DUTCH. INFORM ARMY.”

• Bowfin Museum, Pearl Harbor, HI

A woman here in Pearl Harbor preserves the memories of the children who lived on Ford Island and Hickam 7 December 1941. They recall the Japanese airplanes flying overhead, pilots motioning for the children to go back into their homes to safety. The children helped treat injured soldiers and civilians in the hospitals after. Then they were shipped to relatives on the mainland for safety, while their parents went to war. Those memories are to be cherished because they built our ancestors, influenced the rest of their lives.

March 2, 1942

Dear Mother: I am droping you a line to let you know I am all right. I hope that you and dad are as well as usual. In your last letter you said dad was feling mutch better than he usually does. How does Eleanor like the cement plant school? Is she going to teach it again next year?

Well I don’t know of anything more that I can write now. I will write you again in about a month. In the mean-time please don’t worry about me.

Love,

Donald E. Danehey

• Letter written while under bombardment on Corregidor, he would became a POW soon after.

• Bowfin Museum, Pearl Harbor, HI

We watched the USS Carl Levin and USS Hawaii circle Ford Island this morning, with a flyover. People lived in our neighborhood just across from Battleship Cove on 7 December 1941 and probably looked out their backyards as well. But at a very different sight, and with so much fear.

USS Carl M. Levin

USS Hawaii

Remembering these events, and our ancestors’ place in that time period is important. Recording and sharing them is vital. Our country wouldn’t be what it is today without all those hardships, traumas, and heroism. We owe it to them to remember.