It is a day that we remember, and a day that we should remember. President Franklin Roosevelt pronounced this day “a date which will live in infamy.” On this day sixty-six years ago, at a naval base nestled in the islands of an archipelago some consider the exemplification of “paradise,” a surprise attack by a desperate and hungry empire left over two thousand, three hundred Americans dead and more than a thousand more wounded.

The attack ignited a deep anger in the American people, an anger which burned strongly enough to propel the United States into World War II. That anger, heated to incandescence by four years of war, ultimately exploded in fireballs of nuclear fury over two Japanese cities, marking the first and last time that nuclear arms have been used as weapons of war.

Pearl Harbor today remains an active Pacific Fleet port, home to more than two dozen US Navy ships and submarines. Beneath the waters of that sheltered harbor lie the submerged relics of a day so horrific that few can imagine what it was like to be there. Unlike many of the bloody wars in the storied history of man’s inhumanity to man, this one has survivors, and we don’t have to imagine. We can listen to the stories of those who lived to tell them.

MCPO Al Cory was a fireman on the USS Tennessee, which was tied up next to the USS West Virginia and directly ahead of USS Arizona. He spent 36 hours in the fire room listening to the explosions, the concussions of which would travel down the stacks and blow out the fires in the fireboxes, which he would then have to re-light. He describes wading around the fire room knee-deep in asbestos, the dangers of which were unknown at the time.

Marine Corporal Edwin Knapp, like many, thought he was witnessing a mock attack or a drill when he saw aircraft attacking the air field. Only when a Marine gunner shouted at him to get his rifle and get away from the airfield did he and his comrades realize they were seeing a Japanese attack. He recalls shooting at any plane he saw in the air after that, firing until the planes disappeared. He remembers the second wave strafing barracks, offices, labs, and the mess hall.

CPO Al Bruene was a gun captain on the USS Arizona. He is fortunate to have not been in his turret that morning; the timing of the attack put him on the quarterdeck awaiting relief when the first wave of the attack came in. Minutes later, the ship’s forward ammunition magazine was hit by a bomb, and exploded. More than a thousand men died in an instant, and Bruene was ordered to abandon ship as it rapidly sank beneath the waves.

More than half of the lives lost at Pearl Harbor were aboard the Arizona. Due to the extensive damage to her hull and the number of sailors entombed within her, it was decided that she would be left in place. As a national shrine, the submerged wreck serves as a memorial to those who died aboard her, and as the final resting place of those men. A memorial has been built astride her, and visitors to Pearl Harbor can board a U.S. Navy ferry to visit and remember. Looking down at the war grave of slowly corroding steel, one can still see small droplets of oil rising to the water’s surface. The survivors call them “black tears,” and hold that the oil will continue to leak until the last survivor dies.

I have written here in the past about other military remembrances. Memorial Day and Veterans Day are days to be remembered, and days on which we celebrate our fallen and our surviving heroes. I never fail to recognize these, but I have often been guilty of forgetting Pearl Harbor. In early December, our thoughts are often on the approaching holiday season. We’re busy shopping, planning, preparing, traveling, and anticipating the upcoming celebrations. Let us take a moment, just a minute or two out of our busy hours, to remember the thousands of families for whom Christmas of 1941 was not merry. Let us remember and thank the many heroes, sung and unsung, who gave what Lincoln called “their last full measure of devotion.”

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

— John McCrae