Pearl Harbor survivors attend ceremony at Virginia War Memorial

After each of the 34 names was read, one bell rang.

That bell sounded as retired Navy Lt. Cmdr. Peter Wren honored all the Virginians who died 68 years ago during the early-morning Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

"I'm not a hero. The heroes are the ones that gave their lives up that morning," said George Bland, one of five Pearl Harbor survivors on hand yesterday morning for Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day at the Virginia War Memorial in downtown Richmond.

The five survivors -- Bland, Max Green, John Lopinsky, Joe Nuckols and Richard Williams -- sat together yesterday as the events of Dec. 7, 1941, were remembered and sacrifices honored. When the Varina High School Navy JROTC presented the American flag, the five saluted.

The survivors' memories of that December day remain vivid.

"How in the world can you forget it if you were at work the night before, maintaining the Hickam Field communication system, [and] you come back to your barracks, eat breakfast and then someone drops bombs on you? It's an event you just can't forget," said Williams, now a federal judge.

Just before 8 a.m. that Sunday morning, Japanese bombers and torpedo planes launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. The attack was costly for America -- about 2,400 Americans killed; 1,300 wounded; 350 military aircraft damaged or destroyed; and eight battleships, including the USS Arizona, sunk or damaged.

The attack may have temporarily crippled the U.S. Pacific Fleet, but it also strengthened America's resolve. A day later, while asking Congress to declare war on Japan, President Franklin D. Roosevelt referred to it as a day that would live in infamy.

Tom Hassell, president of the Richmond Council of the Navy League of the United States, said to the nearly 100 people gathered yesterday at the memorial: "Uncommon valor was the order of the day."

Bland, who was stationed on the USS West Virginia, helped to aid the wounded on his battleship as fire and explosions rocked the landscape. Nearby, Lopinsky and Williams worked to restore communications at Hickam Field.

"We remember, but it gives other people an idea of what happened" that day, Green said.

Williams said the survivors appreciate the public's desire to remember the attack. But the lasting effect of the attack on Pearl Harbor extends beyond history books -- it embodies America's spirit.

"It is an honor to be with these Pearl Harbor survivors today. They represent for us a personal contact with that infamous day," Hassell said. "They are a living reminder, that we as a nation can persevere and overcome tremendous odds."

Contact Jeremy Slayton at (804) 649-6861 or .