Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
‘We’ve lost our living history’
For the first time, Pearl Harbor remembrance event will have no survivors from South Florida
For the first time, no one who survived the attack on Pearl Harbor will be around when the South Florida community gathers to honor the men and women who died.
One of the last known survivors to participate in the annual Pearl Harbor Remembrance Ceremony — 93-year-old Edward Hammond of Deerfield Beach — died in September. When Hammond and other survivors were alive, the audience benefited from seeing “real live witnesses to the event that day, living evidence,” said Alan Starr, chair of Broward Navy Days, the nonprofit that commemorates the attack each year. Service members from all branches of the military are remembered.
This year the ceremony is planned Dec. 3 at a Coast Guard station in Dania Beach.
“We’ve lost our living history,” said Starr, a retired U.S. Navy senior chief petty officer who will lead the event as master of ceremonies. “Now it’s up to us to carry on those traditions.”
The surprise Japanese attack on Dec. 7, 1941, pulled the United States into World War II, killed 2,403 Americans and wounded more than 1,000.
Joseph Iscovitz, 101, is a Pearl Harbor survivor who lives in Coconut Creek.
But he’s not well enough to travel from his nursing home to attend the ceremony, said his son, Doug Iscovitz, of Weston. Still, “it’s not about survivors being there, it’s about the memory we never forget,” he said. “My dad doesn’t have to be there to be remembered.”
Joseph Iscovitz joined the Army for a $25 monthly salary in 1934 when he was 18. On the day of the attack, the planes were so low he could see Japanese pilots’ faces, his son said. He grabbed a submachine gun but it was too late. He could see the bombs being dropped in the distance on ships, his son said.
Nationwide, there are thought to be fewer than 2,000 Pearl Harbor survivors remaining. “It’s a real ballpark guess. It’s so hard to tell,” said Daniel Martinez, the chief historian of the National Park Service, based at the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii.
Martinez said he is moved to tears thinking of the men who share their stories in person. Some worked in recovery, pulling the dead out of the water. Some shot at planes. “The stories you would hear, some you could never repeat, some you would just treasure,” Martinez said. “They were so young and they lived on the edge of death. Many of them said they weren’t the heroes. The heroes were the ones who didn’t come home.”
An association that kept survivors connected also has ended.
The Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, founded in 1958, dissolved in 2011 as membership declined. “We’re losing some valuable assets for our nation,” said Mal Middlesworth, a survivor in Colorado who once was group president.
“Our motto was, ‘Keep America alert: Remember Pearl Harbor,’ ” Middlesworth said. He said he hopes people won’t forget, even though in the future, survivors won’t be around to remind them.
In Broward, Starr tells students ages 10 to 18, who are part of the Naval Sea Cadets, that Pearl Harbor was one generation’s call to action, similar to what the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks are to modern times. “This is our history,” he said. “It’s so important the young folks understand that.”
Eddie Cruz, who served as a Marine from 1969 to 1973 during the Vietnam War, ate lunch with Hammond every Monday and Friday, and checked in on Saturdays to make sure he had enough food for the weekend.
“That’s a tough generation, they are not going to go without a fight,” said Cruz, a former commander at the American Legion Post 162 in Deerfield Beach. “I’m sure there’s a few other Pearl Harbor survivors out there, it’s just hard to find them.”