A Day that will live with Infamy:
This year’s Pearl Harbor Day Commemoration’s theme, “Above and Beyond the Call”, represents a milestone of its own, as the first December 7 commemoration to follow the nationwide commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the end of WWII. This year’s ceremony will focus on Battlefield O`ahu.
The YouTube video below is the Hollywood re-creation of a scene that happened at Pearl Harbor on that morning, honoring the US Navy Band. Ship musicians of the USS Nevada were playing the “Star-Spangled Banner” on Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, dawned and enemy planes filled the sky. The band completed the National Anthem even as machine gunfire rained down on the deck of the battleship. Even under fire, the musicians completed honoring the flag.
The USS Nevada band crashed into the “Star-Spangled Banner.” A Japanese plane skimmed across the harbor, dropped a torpedo at the USS Arizona ( killing 1,600 plus Navy personnel including all members of the USS Arizona’s Navy Band (#22), and peeled off right over the USS Nevada’s fantail. The rear gunner sprayed the men standing at attention, but he must have been a poor shot. He missed the entire band and Marine guard, lined up in two neat rows. The Japanese pilot did succeed in the shredding of the flag, which was just being raised.
Please enjoy this video of a reenactment of that morning:
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