'A date which will live in infamy': Marking the 80th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack

QUINCY – Eighty years ago, on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and nearby military installations. In a matter of hours, America was at war.

Shortly before 8 a.m. local time that Sunday, the first of two waves of Japanese aircraft from six aircraft carriers launched their attack on Pearl Harbor, home of the U.S. Navy's Pacific fleet. Within minutes, a bomb struck the forward ammunition magazine of the battleship USS Arizona, causing an explosion that sent the ship to the bottom of the sea. The ship remains there today as a memorial.

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In all, 20 U.S. ships, including five battleships, were sunk or damaged in the attack. Nearly 200 airplanes at three nearby bases were destroyed. Another 150 were damaged.

The attack killed 2,403 people, almost half of them aboard the Arizona. Sixty-eight civilians were among the dead, including three Honolulu firefighters at Hickham Field.

On Tuesday, ceremonies in Quincy, Braintree, Hingham and Marshfield will mark the anniversary of the attacks.

A ceremony at the World War II monument at Mount Wollaston Cemetery in Quincy will start at 10 a.m.

In Braintree, a wreath-laying ceremony will start at 10 a.m. at the War Memorial outside town hall, 1 John F. Kennedy Memorial Drive.

A wreath-laying ceremony at the Hingham Shipyard’s U.S. Navy Memorial will start at 2 p.m.

A short ceremony will start at 7:55 a.m. at Marshfield Veterans Memorial Park, 870 Moraine St.

'We were looking at them to come back'

The late Earnest Wilkins, a longtime Randolph resident, was a cook aboard the minesweeper USS Crossbill when the attack took place.

"They came right over us," Wilkins recalled in a 2001 interview. "They weren't after us. They weren't going to waste a bomb on us." The Crossbill, at 81.5 feet long, was one of the smallest ships in the fleet.

For the rest of the day, he said, he helped retrieve the bodies of the dead and get the wounded to the hospital. All the while, he kept one eye on the sky.

"We were looking at them to come back," he said.

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Wilkins, who died at the age of 91 in 2011, had been transferred from the Arizona four months before the attack. He traveled to Hawaii every year for anniversary observances.

'A date which will live in infamy'

Congress approved a declaration of war the day after the attack after hearing the famous words of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

"Yesterday, December 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan," Roosevelt began.

The speech, written largely by the president himself, lasted only six minutes and was delivered before a joint session of Congress. Roosevelt noted that Pearl Harbor was just one of several attacks the Japanese military carried out in Asia and the Pacific. Others were launched in the Philippines, Malaya, Hong Kong, Guam, Wake and Midway Islands.

"With confidence in our armed forces, with unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph. So help us God," the president said.

Within an hour, both the House and the Senate approved the declaration of war.

Three days later, the nation declared war on Germany and Italy in response to actions by the European powers.

A change on the South Shore

Locally, the transition from peace to war was equally as fast.

"Quincy quickly pulled herself together, squared her shoulders, looked the grim reality in the face and today girded herself in calm determination for whatever the future has in store," the front page of the Quincy Patriot Ledger reported on Dec. 8, 1941.

Below was a photo showing a sailor on sentry duty on a beach near the Squantum Naval Air Station, now the Marina Bay development.

The immediate concern was of an air attack on Quincy and its Fore River shipyard, which was turning out ships at a record pace even as the war began. A report of unidentified planes sweeping down the coast caused a panic, closing down the shipyard and Quincy schools. Police ordered people off the streets.

Local communities formed defense departments, volunteers trained as air raid wardens and the Army set up anti-aircraft batteries around the region.

About 40 South Shore residents were reportedly in Hawaii during the attack. Army Private William Rhodes, of Hingham, was killed at Hickham Field. Private Thomas Ryan, of Weymouth, was wounded at Hickham, the Ledger reported.

In the end, Pearl Harbor failed to deliver the knockout blow Japan had intended. None of the Pacific fleet's three aircraft carriers were in port that day, and all but a couple of ships were repaired to fight another day. The Quincy-built battleship USS Nevada, the only ship able to get underway during the attack, was repaired and served as a flagship off Utah Beach for the D-Day invasion of Normandy in 1944. And since ships and planes were the targets of the attackers, critical support facilities at Pearl Harbor sustained little damage.

Less than four years later, the war in the Pacific was over.

A remembrance ceremony will be held Tuesday in Hawaii, with about 40 Pearl Harbor survivors expected to attend.

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Pearl Harbor attack 80 years ago marked start of World War II for USA