Let Us Not Forget Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor ceremony marks 72nd anniversary of bombing

Published December 07, 2013

FoxNews.com

Rare and Unseen Pics: After Pearl Harbor

Exactly 72 years ago today, Japan launched more than 350 fighters, bombers, and torpedo planes against the U.S. naval base in Hawaii — a “date which will live in infamy,” in the words of President Franklin Roosevelt. In fact, that Sunday morning is so seared into America’s memory that the tumult of the weeks and months afterward is often overlooked. Here, on the 72nd anniversary of Pearl Harbor, LIFE.com presents rare and unpublished photos from Hawaii and the mainland, chronicling a nation’s answer to an unprecedented act of war. More unseen photos of Pearl Harbor.

Seventy-two years to the day that Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, plunging the United States into World War II, about 50 survivors of the assault paused to honor those killed.

Alvis Taylor, 90, was serving as an Army medic when the attack began. His superiors, who were doctors, rushed to hospitals to care for the wounded and left him in charge. He went to Pearl Harbor, about 18 miles south of his Army post at Schofield Barracks, with dozens of ambulances.

“I remember everything that happened that day,” Taylor said grimly.

A crowd of about 2,500 joined the survivors at Pearl Harbor to honor those killed and those who fired back, rescued the burned and went on to serve during the war. Roughly 2,400 sailors, Marines and soldiers were killed at Pearl Harbor and other military installations on the island of Oahu in the Dec. 7, 1941, attack.

Taylor, who lives in Davenport, Iowa, decided to return to Pearl Harbor for the first time since the war this week because the local chapter of Vietnam Veterans of America paid for him and his wife to make the trip.

Of the tens of thousands of servicemen who survived, about 2,000 to 2,500 are still living.

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