Event honors CT residents who died at Pearl Harbor

To commemorate the 79th anniversary of the Japanese attach of Pearl Harbor and the Connecticut residents that perished there, Mayor Harry Rilling and military veteran liaison committee chair Jeff DeWitt hosted a presentation outlining each of the Connecticut residents.

DeWitt, a retired U.S. Air Force Chief Master Sergeant, created a presentation with a slide for each Connecticut resident killed that day with their hometown, age, rank and what ship they were aboard or portion of the harbor they were stationed when the attack struck.

“Before Jeff (DeWitt) took over, the Pearl Harbor remembrance and other remembrances were very short and not very informative,” Rilling said. “(DeWitt) has taken it upon himself to make it his mission to research ... not only Connecticut heroes who may have given their lives or lost their lives, but stories of who they were not only in wartime but who they were in civilian life, where they came from.”

Ten of the Connecticut residents that died in the attack were aboard the USS Arizona, DeWitt said. The Arizona’s casualties amounted to about half of all Americans killed that day, DeWitt said.

Connecticut residents died at 10 different locations around the harbor, including aboard the USS Nevada, the USS Enterprise, the Schofield Barracks and at sea, DeWitt said.

The victims came from towns and cities across the state including Darien, Berlin, Waterbury, Norwich, Bridgeport and New Haven. Most of the men were members of the U.S. Navy, with a few from the Army, DeWitt said.

Absent from Gov. Ned Lamont’s list of Connecticut residents who died at Pearl Harbor is Navy Water Tender 1st class Stephen Pepe, 43, of Bridgeport, whose remains were identified in 2015 and buried by his family members in 2018, DeWitt said.

“I’d love to do this every year and next year hopefully we’ll be in a room in City Hall,” DeWitt said. “The research doesn’t stop. I’m always in search for adding to their stories. I hope to meet some family members down the road. As long as I’m alive all these stories are going to get updated.”