Internet provides means for memory of date of infamy

THE ISSUE The Pearl Harbor Memorial Fund has launched a Web site sharing stories told by Dec. 7, 1941, survivors.

AS the nation prepared to pay respect to victims on the fifth anniversary of 9/11, remembrance of an earlier infamous day gained an important notch on the Internet. Stories shared by survivors and their loved ones about the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor should extend honor to their bravery for future generations.

The Pearl Harbor Survivor Project's Web site -- www.pearlharborstories.org -- was launched by the Pearl Harbor Memorial Fund. The site includes photos, letters and videotaped recollections of both military and civilian survivors. Visitors to the site are asked to submit their own memories of that day and to make donations to the Pearl Harbor Memorial Fund.

Several videotaped remarks include those of sailor Ansil L. "Sandy" Saunders, who saw bombs sink the USS Arizona and the USS Utah. "A big hangar on Ford Island just raised up in the air," he said. "You could see daylight underneath it, and it just sat back down, just barely off the original foundation."

Saunders died in May at age 87, a portent that time is running out to capture the stories of that day. "There's an hourglass that's dropping sand every day," said Daniel Martinez, chief historian at the USS Arizona Memorial Park. "Our youngest survivors are now in the 80s, and fewer and fewer return to Pearl Harbor each year."

Martinez said the National Park Service already has gathered audio and video recordings of about 450 survivors, and he hopes that number will grow into the thousands.

Pearl Harbor often is referenced in regard to 9/11. Frank Mack, a Pearl Harbor survivor, told the Associated Press that both attacks "unified the country" and served as a wake-up call. Walt Himmelberg, wounded at Pearl Harbor, recalled 9/11: "You see planes, you don't know what's happening. One crashes and you think, 'Oh my god, an accident.' You see another one and you suddenly realize, 'Man, are we starting another Pearl Harbor?'"

The major difference, of course, was that civilians were the target of 9/11. "The casualties at Pearl were nearly all service members, whereas these poor people on 9/11 had nothing or little to do with the military," said John Eck, an Army dental technician who watched the 1941 attack from a hospital window.

Martinez urges historians and survivors' children, spouses and grandchildren to pull out their scrapbooks and offer photos and stories about Dec. 7. "We must honor their commitment and dedication to preserving freedom before it's too late."