Pearl Harbor event to commemorate local connection
Three Wilmington residents were among the 2,403 people killed in the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor including one man stationed on the USS Arizona, pictured here. (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service)
A Dec. 7 event at the Hannah Block Historic USO/Community Arts Center will commemorate the local experience of the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.
The annual event, which is free and open to the public, begins at 1:25 p.m., the local time of the first wave of Japanese attacks on the U.S. naval base on Oahu Island in Hawaii. Event organizer Wilbur Jones, chairman of the World War II Wilmington Home Front Heritage Coalition, said he hopes the commemoration helps people remember a pivotal moment in American history, one famously described by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as “a date which will live in infamy.”
“It was the single most defining event of the 20th century that reshaped the world and made the United States the dominant power in the world, economically and militarily and diplomatically,” Jones said.
Jones is one of the speakers slated for the event, along with keynote speaker Army Brig. Gen. Robert S. Cooley Jr. Jones’ presentation was created to take attendees back to Wilmington on that day in 1941 by sharing photos of the city at the time and local stories of the day. It also includes a remembrance of three sailors from Wilmington who were among the 2,403 Americans killed at Pearl Harbor.
Jones was a six-year-old boy living in Wilmington at the time of the attack. He remembered listening on the radio as the Washington Redskins played the Philadelphia Eagles. During the game, he recalled commentary briefly stopping while all government officials in attendance were asked to return to their offices to respond to an emergency.
“That was a very vivid point of my life,” Jones said, adding that his experience led him to serve in the Navy and work as an author and historian specializing in World War II history.
Mayor Bill Saffo will also share remarks at the event.
Those interested in World War II history can visit the exhibit set up in the former USO building’s lobby, curated by the World War II Wilmington Home Front Heritage Coalition.
Excluding 2020, the organization has hosted a commemorative event on Dec. 7 every year since 2000. The annual event began when Jones moved back to Wilmington in the late 1990s and realized several Pearl Harbor survivors were living in southeastern North Carolina. The last local Pearl Harbor survivor died in 2020, but the annual event continues in their memory.
