Heroes & Survivors of Pearl Harbor

Behind the casualty counts and battle maps are 2,335 service members and 68 civilians who never left Pearl Harbor, and the tens of thousands more who did — carrying the day with them for the rest of their lives. This collection gathers their stories: Doris Miller manning an anti-aircraft gun he was never trained to fire aboard the USS West Virginia, an act that earned him the Navy Cross; the chaplains and corpsmen who pulled wounded shipmates from burning oil-slicked water; the cooks, mess attendants, and ammunition handlers whose names rarely appear in the official histories but whose actions kept other men alive.

You'll find first-person testimony from the men interred in the USS Arizona Memorial, oral histories from survivors who returned decades later to be laid to rest alongside fallen brothers, and articles on the fallen still entombed within the wreck of the Arizona — a sacred space honored by the U.S. Navy to this day with active-duty rendering of honors as ships pass.

To pay respects in person, reserve tickets to the USS Arizona Memorial before your trip; same-day passes sell out fast in peak season.

Their accounts are presented here unvarnished and in their own words wherever possible, with context drawn from oral histories, ship logs, and family archives. The greatest threat to their legacy is not time — it is forgetting.