Seventy years after the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, the dwindling number of survivors of the Japanese raid on US military forces are heartened that America still remembers them.
Seven local survivors, as well as former USS Intrepid crew members, braved rain and heavy wind aboard the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum yesterday to lay a wreath to mark the anniversary.
“It’s a nice warm feeling that people remember the guys who lost their lives,” said former GI Armando Galella, 90, of Sleepy Hollow in Westchester County.
Galella, who attended the ceremony with his son Mike, added, “Having my family here is the best feeling. They’re going to have to carry it on. We’re dwindling.”
Survivor Dan Frutcher, 92, recalled the attack — at 7:55 a.m., Dec. 7, 1941, on the US naval base in Hawaii. “I had just completed breakfast and was waiting to be picked up by friends for a luau,” he said.
For Robert Eakin, 92, of Bayonne, NJ, it was his first such ceremony for survivors of the “date which will live in infamy.”
“It was great — great that people remember,” Eakin said. “We just did what we had to do. We’re lucky to be alive.”