Owego pays tribute to victims and survivors of Pearl Harbor attack

This was 96-year-old Nelson Mitchell’s first time back in Hawaii since serving in the Navy on that day decades ago when Japanese military aircraft attacked Pearl Harbor.

Mr. Taylor is one of two known Pearl Harbor survivors in the Quad-Cities area.

The attack thrust the USA into World War II, a conflict many Americans were hoping to avoid. President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “We will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God”. Valerio, a U.S. Army veteran, manned a seacoast gun battery during the Japanese bombing. “It was a bad day”.

Jim Reftis, the Memorial Day Chairman with VFW Post 1371, said Owego – and all of Tioga County – has a lot of respect for its veterans.

As of two years ago some 2,000 to 2,500 Pearl Harbor survivors were believed to be still alive, according to Eileen Martinez, chief of interpretation for the USS Arizona Memorial. “I enjoyed being here, thinking about them, thinking about the past, thinking about Pearl Harbor, because that’s always on my mind”, says Morris.

“We’re talking about a generation that left us a country I think we can all be proud of”, Montesano said.

Along with remembering those lives lost, the ceremony brought back memories of serving during World War II.

“We’re all Americans, not Arab or Irish or anything else”, he said.

“Very emotional”, said Stu Hedley, Pearl Harbor survivor.

More than 2,400 Americans were killed.

“Since I was an officer in there and I had men under me, and some of those young fellas didn’t have much money, so I loaned them some money”, Langdell said.

The remains of numerous 1,177 US military personnel who died aboard the Arizona are still inside the submerged wreck.

“The soldiers that went over there and some of them gave their lives”, says Reverend Clark.

Doyle also recalls the gunners who, while under withering attack, took to their anti-aircraft weapons and tried to take out as many Japanese pilots as they could.