'I got a lot of shipmates there'

Oil still leaks from the USS Arizona, submerged in the waters. Photo / AP

Seventy-five years after Japanese warplanes streaked over the hills here, laid waste to the harbour, and nudged the US into the cataclysm of World War II, thousands gathered on a placid morning to pay tribute to those who died that day.

Many assembled on a covered pier that jutted near the spot where remnants of the USS Arizona rest just beneath the surface, unmoved since it was shattered by enemy bombs on the morning of December 7, 1941, killing 1177 sailors and Marines.

Those in attendance came from across the country - including wrinkled old men from small towns, who as young men had been here and still choke up at the memory of lost shipmates.

"We lived through it, came home, got married, had children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and lived a big life," Louis Conter, 95, who had been on the Arizona, said the day before. "They lost theirs immediately, and they're the ones that should be called heroes," he said.

The dignitaries assembled on flag-bedecked Kilo Pier around sunrise, just about the time the first wave of 350 enemy planes from six aircraft carriers attacked that Sunday morning, sinking the battleships Arizona and USS Oklahoma and crippling a dozen other vessels.

Pearl Harbour veteran Aaron Cook, 94, of Houston, above, attends a commemoration in College Station, Texas. Picture / AP

The attack also destroyed planes and buildings around the area, and killed about 2400 people. Eleven hundred men were wounded.

In some ways, the morning was like the one 75 years ago, with ships tied up, and the sun turning the scattered morning clouds a pinkish blue. And, like that day, it was hard to imagine so violent an attack in such a peaceful spot.

There was moment of silence during the proceedings, broken by the flyover of roaring US Air Force jet fighters, and the mournful horn of a guided missile destroyer that glided by, flying a huge American flag in salute.

Don Stratton, 94, of Colorado Springs, Colorado, one of only a handful of Arizona survivors left, was terribly burned on the Arizona and only escaped by climbing hand-over-hand across a rope that someone had thrown from a neighbouring ship.

"I don't know how I made it. But I'm here. It was quite a day. I got a lot of shipmates out there," he said.