More than 80 years after Pearl Harbor, veterans and families honor the memory at USS Midway

More than 80 years after the attack on Naval Station Pearl Harbor — the catalyst for the United States’ entrance into World War II — veterans, families and community members are still honoring the legacy of the lives lost.

About 150 people, including family members of World War II veterans, gathered at the USS Midway Museum on Saturday morning for a remembrance ceremony for the 84th anniversary of the attack on Dec. 7, 1941, when Japanese forces ambushed the naval base in Hawaii.

But most veterans who were stationed at Pearl Harbor and survived the attack are no longer alive, with estimates of fewer than 20 service members remaining.

“Although nearly 85 years have passed, we still feel that it is critically important to take a few moments each year to pay tribute to all of those who fought for freedom that day, especially those who paid the ultimate sacrifice,” said David Koons, the director of marketing at the USS Midway Museum.

For Patrick and Bob Schenkelberg, whose father, Clayton, was stationed at Pearl Harbor during the attack, preserving the memory of the historical event is important.

Their father passed away three years ago, at the age of 103, and talking about him and his life is emotional for his two sons.

“People are forgetting,” Patrick said. “I still come every year to honor Dad and to honor everybody.”

Described as “a date which will live in infamy” by then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt, more than 2,400 military personnel and civilians died in the attack, with more than 1,000 wounded. Dozens of U.S. Navy ships were sunk or damaged and nearly 200 aircraft were destroyed.

The following day, Congress declared war on Japan and entered the global conflict.

“This may be the most important moment in U.S. history in the 20th century,” said Seth Mallios, professor of anthropology and history at San Diego State University, who delivered a speech at Saturday’s ceremony.

The U.S. became a global superpower after World War II and was critical to the establishment of the United Nations in 1945.

Saturday morning’s event included a wreath-laying, a two-bell ceremony and a ceremonial missing man flyover, along with music from the Pomerado Community Band.

Patrick Schenkelberg said that his father didn’t speak much about the attack until the release of the 2001 film “Pearl Harbor” and he started to open up more. His father, who grew up on an Iowa farm, told stories of the Japanese airplanes that flew so low above the base that he “could have thrown a potato” and hit them.

He also volunteered to help search for the people aboard the USS Nevada, including his own brother, after the ship ran aground during the attack.

He was 24 years old at the time, one of the young lives impacted by the event and subsequent years of war.

Mallios, the SDSU professor, said that the attack on Pearl Harbor changed many young people’s minds about U.S. involvement in the war. Prior to the attack, anti-war and isolationist sentiment was strong, with college students rallying behind the phrase, “scholarships, not battleships.”

But the events at Pearl Harbor unified the nation, with hundreds of thousands of people enlisting in military service in the first month after the attack. At SDSU, more than 3,500 students, faculty and staff served in the war. The school only had about 2,000 students enrolled in 1941, Mallios said.

Students at home stayed connected with those who enlisted through a monthly campus newsletter that published letters from service members at war abroad. The 5,000 letters are a part of the university’s archival collections.

“Some of these were so fun and silly because these are 20-year-olds who have never been to the South Pacific or Tunisia,” Mallios said. “And then some of them were so tragic. There are a few where it’s the last thing they ever wrote.”

Mallios says that the letters help current students better understand the responsibility that was given to young people during the war.

Events such as Saturday’s ceremony at the USS Midway Museum continue to bring that history to the generations that followed.

For Dennis Fipps, a 26-year Navy veteran who performed the two-bell ceremony during the event, gatherings like this can help show how history is relevant today.

“Looking forward, there’s still lessons to be learned from what happened back then,” he said.