The 83rd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor will be commemorated Saturday during a ceremony in Norco, featuring patriotic music and recollections from that "Day of Infamy," which prompted the United States to go from neutral to Allied leader in World War II.
The Lake Norconian Club Foundation is hosting the commemoration, which is free and open to the public, getting underway at 10 a.m. in Veterans Memorial Plaza at the George Ingalls Equestrian Event Center.
The event is intended to honor all service branches, not only the U.S. Navy, which will have representatives from the nearby Corona Naval Surface Warfare Center, part of U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command, on hand. The Warfare Center's commander, Capt. Joseph Burgon, is slated to speak, along with Lake Norconian Club Foundation President Su Bacon and others.
Burgon will recount how the events of Dec. 7, 1941, impacted the Navy and the lessons learned from the sneak attack.
Attendees will pay homage to those who made the ultimate sacrifice that day.
More than 2,400 U.S. soldiers, sailors and Marines died defending the Hawaiian naval base from Imperial Japanese attackers in a two-hour air assault. The following day, Dec. 8, 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared war on Japan, which led to the Axis powers uniformly declaring war on the U.S., marking the nation's official entry into World War II.
Just before 8 a.m. on Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese torpedo bombers, dive bombers and fighters -- altogether numbering more than 350 aircraft -- arrived in two waves, permanently sinking two battleships, the USS Arizona and Utah at Pearl.
The Arizona's losses totaled 1,177 -- the highest of any ship in the harbor. Most of the military vessels that went down in the surprise attack were resurrected and deployed to fight again.
Bellows, Hickam and Wheeler airfields were also bombed, as were the installations at Ewa, Ford Island and Kaneohe Bay, sustaining major damage.
Imperial Japan carried out the attack in an attempt to cripple the U.S. Pacific Fleet as it sought domination over much of Asia.