By

POSTED: Wednesday, December 03, 2008
                       

This story has been corrected. See below.

Six crew members of the USS Arizona, one of eight Pacific Fleet battleships bombed during the attack on Pearl Harbor 67 years ago, returned yesterday to pay homage to their lost comrades.

Two have requested that after they die, their remains join the more than 1,000 Arizona sailors killed on Dec. 7, 1941, and who never left the ship.

Five of the sailors - Ed Wentzlaff, Glenn Lane, Lauren Bruner, Joe Langdell and Milton Hurst - were assigned to the 608-foot battleship when the bombs and torpedoes hit.

The sixth - Tom Traylor - left the Arizona before the early-morning Japanese attack.

“;We're no heroes,”; said Lane, who fought in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, and retired as a command master chief petty officer with 30 years of service.

“;The heroes are still out there,”; Lane said, pointing to the sunken battleship.

Lane and Hurst, 88, led the delegation of veterans yesterday to the USS Arizona Memorial Visitor Center, saluting an honor guard of 28 sailors and one Marine. Langdell, a retired lieutenant commander, wore his dress Navy whites, as he has on previous visits.

When the veterans reached the visitor center, they were greeted by applause from the crowd.

Hurst, of Jacksonville, Fla., was an aviation machinist's mate on the quarterdeck of the Arizona “;waiting to play tennis”; on the fateful day.

“;I looked over the rail and saw huge bellows of smoke on Ford Island,”; said Hurst, then a 19-year-old sailor.

The retired lieutenant commander recalled “;seeing aircraft flying overhead ... and few bodies lying around.”;

Lane was 23 in 1941 and holds the distinction of being the only sailor to serve on two battleships during the Japanese attack. He has requested that his remains be interred in the battleship, a privilege granted only to those who were assigned to the Arizona during the attack.

One of the explosions blew him off the stern.

“;I swam to the (battleship) Nevada and manned a machine gun,”; Lane said. The Nevada was moored behind the Arizona on Battleship Row at Ford Island.

The Nevada was the only battleship able to get underway during the attack, but the damage caused by enemy aircraft was so severe that it was deliberately run aground in West Loch to avoid the risk of sinking and blocking the only entrance to Pearl Harbor.

“;I was injured on two battleships in two hours, if that is any claim to fame,”; Lane said.

Langdell, 94, was a newly commissioned ensign living on Ford Island on Dec. 7. His duty station was Arizona's No. 2 gun, which was hit by a bomb.

“;If I had been aboard, I would have been killed,”; said Langdell, who also has requested entombment in the battleship.

The Arizona lost 1,177 of its crewmen in the attack. The USS Arizona Reunion Association said there are no records of how many of the 335 sailors who survived are still living.

Ruth Campbell, coordinator for the reunion association, said that her group, which has held a Honolulu reunion every five years since 1978, can account for 24.

“;We just lost one on Saturday,”; she added.

On Sunday afternoon following the commemorative ceremony at Pearl Harbor's Kilo Pier, the ashes of another Arizona survivor - Charles William Guerin - will be laid inside the hull of the sunken battleship. So far, 31 Arizona survivors have had their ashes interred in the well of gun turret 4 near the stern.

Other Pearl Harbor survivors can have their ashes scattered over the waters of Pearl Harbor Naval Station.

More than 2,000 people are expected to attend the joint ceremony by the National Park Service and the Navy on Sunday. The theme of the program is “;Pacific War Memories: The Heroic Response to Pearl Harbor.”;

Thomas C. Griffin, who took part in the Doolittle Raid on Japan in April 1942, and Adm. Robert Willard, commander of the Pacific Fleet, will serve as keynote speakers. 

Pearl Harbor 67th Anniversary Events

Friday

» 7 p.m., USS Arizona Memorial Visitor Center. Thomas Griffin - one of nine of the Doolittle Raider veterans still alive - will join Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle's daughter, Jonna Doolittle Hoppes, in an audience participation session. In April 1942, Doolittle led a flight of bombers off the aircraft carrier USS Hornet in a sneak attack against Japan. It was America's first strike against Japan after the attack on Oahu.

Saturday

» 3:30 p.m., Barbers Point Golf Course clubhouse. A special flag-raising ceremony, hosted by the Barbers Point Navy League and the National Park Service, will be held at the site, which was once part of Ewa Marine Corps Air Station and was hit before Pearl Harbor. The ceremony will include a rifle salute by Marines, taps and a floral tribute.

Sunday

» 7:40 a.m. Anniversary commemorative ceremony, Kilo Pier, Pearl Harbor. Access via shuttle boats beginning at 6:20 a.m. at USS Arizona Memorial Visitor Center.

» 10 a.m. The ashes of Pearl Harbor survivor Lt. Wayne Maxwell will be scattered at the USS Utah Memorial on Ford Island.

» 4 p.m. Ashes of USS Arizona survivor Charles William Guerin will be laid inside the hull of the sunken battleship.

 

               

     

 

 

CORRECTION         The first image in the photo gallery for this article shows Glenn Lane, 90, Lauren Bruner, 88, and Milton Hurst, 88, saluting as the three USS Arizona survivors arrived at the USS Arizona Memorial Visitors Center Tuesday. The original caption was incorrect.