FRIDAY FOTO Extra (Dec. 9. 2011)

The Boys of ’41, 70 Years On

U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Daniel Barker

Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2011 marked the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. We thought we’d do something special to note the somber occasion.

Above is a color photo of some of the survivors of the attack by the Japanese Imperial Navy. It was the day Second World War came uninvited to the United States. These gentlemen were really just boys then, 17, 18, 19-years-old. Now they are very old men who have seen amazing things in their lifetime: the atomic age, jet air travel, television, 3D movies, mini skirts, men walking on the Moon, cell phones, laptop computers, 3D movies again and, unfortunately, several more wars. But nothing like the one that dropped in on them that sleepy Sunday morning seven decades ago on the island of Oahu when more than 2,400 people died.

Below is a black and white archival photo from that awful day. To see more photos from 1941, click here. To see more color photos of the 70th anniversary photos in Hawaii, click here.

U.S. Navy photo, National Archives collection

This photo show sailors rescuing a survivor from the water alongside the sunken battleship USS West Virginia during the Japanese air attack on the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard.When the bombing and firing ceased, four U.S. battleships (the West Virginia, Arizona, Oklahoma and California) had been sunk, three more (Tennessee, Maryland and Pennsylvania) were damaged and another, the Nevada, was run aground. Two destroyers and one other ship were sunk. Three cruisers were damaged and another destroyer and 188 aircraft were destroyed. More than 100 others were damaged.

Military casualties were 2,402 killed (more than 1,100 of them on the Arizona) and 1,247 wounded. Fifty-seven civilians also were killed and 35 were wounded.

To read a poignant story about a 90-year-old Army Air Corps veteran who barely survived that day and then went on fly in a B-17 and get shot down during the Battle of Midway, click here.

If you want to read all the stories and see the photos from the Pearl Harbor commemoration ceremonies in Hawaii and elsewhere, click here.

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