COVID-compliant 'Day of Infamy' commemorations held without WWII Pearl Harbor veterans

Events commemorating the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor will be closed this year to the public, and an annual peace ritual between American and Japanese delegates will not be held, according to organizers in Hawaii.

"This year's commemoration will only consist of the one main ceremony on Monday, December 7th," a National Park Service official told Just the News.

The dwindling and aging corps of World War II veterans who experienced the attack will not be on hand as per usual to see their fellows honored.

"Out of an abundance of caution, we will not have World War Two veterans at the ceremony but are ensuring they all have the information to view it virtually," said Lydia Robertson, a spokesperson for Navy Region Hawaii. 

The ceremonies for decades have been a mainstay on the island of Oahu, honoring the courage and sacrifice of American service members during the Dec. 7, 1941 surprise attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. During the attack, 2,403 Americans died. Another 1,178 were injured. Eight Navy battleships were damaged, and two — the USS Arizona and the USS Utah — were permanently sunk.  

In a Dec. 8, 1941 address to Congress, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt termed Dec. 7 "a date which will live in infamy." The attack spurred the United States to enter World War II. 

This year, on the 79th anniversary of the assault, commemorative events will proceed without the usual public audience. 

One recurring reconciliation tribute, the annual Blackened Canteen ceremony, will not be held, a park service official told Just the News.

According to the Navy, the canteen ritual began as a Buddhist monk's long-ago secret ceremony to honor two American airmen he pulled from a downed B-29 in Japan in 1945. The airmen soon died. In that same wreckage, the monk found a crumpled, blackened canteen. It appeared to bear the seared-in imprints from a human hand. In order to honor the dead Americans, the monk surreptitiously erected a cross. Each year on the June 20 crash anniversary, he poured whiskey from the blackened canteen onto the cross. Eventually the aging monk gave the canteen to a local man, who 28 years ago brought the ceremony to Pearl Harbor.

As part of the ritual, American and Japanese delegates pour whiskey from the fire-charred canteen into the waters above the sunken USS Arizona. The delegates also sprinkle flower petals to represent lives lost.

"It's very touching and meaningful," said Kathleen Lowe, an American who attended Pearl Harbor ceremonies last year. "It's solemn, and lovely. It's all about reconciliation."

This year's coronavirus-compliant main ceremony will focus on what the National Park Service terms Battlefield O'ahu. Though the Japanese Empire focused on destroying the Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor, the Park Service notes, the assault was directed at targets throughout the entire island, to include Army and Marine bases.

The 2020 observance will feature wreaths being presented at various significant sites, along with a tribute video narrated by Lou Conter, who was aboard the USS Arizona during the Dec. 7 attack.

The ceremony can be viewed on the Facebook page for U.S. Navy Region Hawaii and at the website for Pearl Harbor events.

Events begin at 7:45 a.m. Hawaii time.