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3 Navy men Fifty-nine years after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the ashes of three survivors of the infamous Dec. 7, 1941 raid will join their shipmates at sea.
to be buried at
Pearl Harbor
The ashes of the Dec. 7 survivors
will be placed at sea with
their shipmates59th anniversary of
Pearl Harbor Day on Dec. 7By Gregg K. Kakesako
Star-BulletinIn private ceremonies next Thursday, Dec. 7, the ashes of Photographer's Mate 1st Class Lewis Robinson, of Salano Beach, Calif., will join the 945 sailors entombed in the 608-foot battleship USS Arizona at the bottom of Pearl Harbor.
The ashes of two other sailors who also survived the attack will be scattered over the waters of Pearl Harbor in a separate private burial that day.
The Navy will conduct the burial-at-sea ceremony for Lt. Cmdr. Joseph Dilloway and Chief Gunner's Mate Clarence J. Miller.
Robinson's ashes will be placed near 15 other Pearl Harbor survivors who chose to be laid to rest near their shipmates. The ashes will be taken by three National Park Service divers, including park superintendent Kathy Billings, and placed in gun turret four near the stern of the battleship.
His name will be added to a special bench that lies beneath the marble panel in the USS Arizona Memorial's shrine room. The panel in the 184-foot alabaster memorial lists the 1,177 sailors and Marines killed on the Arizona in 1941.
Three hundred thirty-four crew members survived the attack. Only those who were assigned to the Arizona during that time can be interred in the hull of the battleship.
Robinson was on shore waiting for a boat to take him back to the Arizona when the first Japanese planes struck.
By the time the shore boat reached the Arizona, berthed in Battleship Row, its crew had been ordered to abandon ship. Robinson and other sailors in the boat were diverted to the USS Maryland, which was tied up alongside the USS Oklahoma in Battleship Row, at Ford Island.
On the Maryland, Robinson manned the starboard anti-aircraft guns -- his normal battle station on the Arizona.
Dilloway, meanwhile, was an enlisted sailor on the USS Castor -- a cargo ship that was berthed in Southeast Loch, near the submarine base, during the attack and was not bombed.
Miller was assigned to the minesweeper USS Ramsay, anchored in Middle Loch in a cluster of four ships near the Pearl City peninsula's Pan American Clipper landing. It was not damaged on Dec. 7, 1941.
Their ashes will be the ninth and 10th scattering over Pearl Harbor this year.
In all, more than 2,400 military personnel and civilians were killed, 10 Navy warships were sunk and 11 others badly damaged in the attack.
A number of events recognize the 59th anniversary of Pearl Harbor Day on Dec. 7: A day that will live in infamy
The Navy will host its annual memorial service on the USS Arizona Memorial near Ford Island at 7:50 a.m. with Adm. Dennis Blair, Pacific Forces commander, scheduled to be the guest speaker.
The service will include prayers, wreath presentations, a 21-gun salute, taps and a flyover of the memorial in the "missing man" formation by Hawaii Air National Guard F-15 jet fighters.
Clark Simmons, a crew member of the USS Utah, will be the keynote speaker at the National Park Service ceremony, which will be held on the lawn of the visitor center in the naval base.
Simmons was a mess attendant on Dec. 7 and escaped through a porthole as the Utah began to roll over. After the war, Simmons became a FBI agent and city prosecutor for Brooklyn, N.Y.