LAKEPORT – Sixty-six years ago, they were little more than boys, caught in a battle that would change their lives and their country. {sidebar id=44}
On Friday morning, four local survivors of the Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and the widow of a fifth gathered to mark the 66th anniversary, surrounded by veterans of all eras and community members who came to honor them for their service.
The heroes and focus of the day were Clarence “Bud” Boner, USS Tennessee; WK Slater, USS Pennsylvania; Walt Urmann, USS Blue; Jim Harris, USS Dobbin; and Alice Darrow, a Navy nurse and widow of Dean Darrow, who was aboard the USS West Virginia.
The ceremony, which began at 9 a.m., was held at the Pearl Harbor Survivors Chapter's Memorial Mast in Library Park, built to honor them by the Lakeport Rotary.
The chilly, windy morning was marked by Chaplain Woody Hughes' invocation, a bugler playing “Call to Assembly” and the singing of the national anthem by Doug Patten, Mark Grover, Dr. Richard Drury and Marty Hinman.
The Pearl Harbor Survivors presented a flag flown over the fallen USS Arizona, which the US Coast Guard Auxiliary and the Sea Scouts received and raised on the memorial mast.
Ronnie Bogner, the ceremony's master of ceremonies, sported the Pearl Harbor Survivors' “official uniform,” which he explained consists of a favorite Hawaiian shirt and white pants.
Bogner said Lake County is home to one of the largest groups of those who were at Pearl Harbor.
Supervisor Rob Brown, on behalf of the Board of Supervisors, presented the survivors' chapter with a proclamation honoring the day and their service.
Lakeport Mayor Buzz Bruns also paid tribute to the group and their symbolic mast. “We're so proud to have this monument in our city.”
The day's featured speaker was Andy Peterson, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and the county's former redevelopment director.
Peterson called the attack on Pearl Harbor was “absolutely a seminal event,” one he compared to other important moments in US history, from the Revolutionary War forward.
“Yet, somehow, Pearl Harbor stands out among all the rest,” Peterson said.
The “world-shaking” event, and the US response to it, ended the country's diplomatic isolation, said Peterson, leading to the world being a “far better place today than it would have been.”
He quoted a speech on veterans given by President Ronald Reagan, in which Reagan said the young men who died to defend the US gave up two lives – the one they were living and the one yet to come.
The most solemn moments of the ceremony were during the tolling for the dead. Hughes read the names of 27 local Pearl Harbor Survivors Chapter members who died between 1988 and 2005, with a Sea Scout tolling a bell for each name.
Members of the American Legion's Kelseyville and Clearlake posts, the United Veterans Council, Veterans of Foreign Wars and Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 951 came for the ceremony. Also in attendance was a contingent of officers from the California Highway Patrol in dress uniform.
Harris and the survivors group thanked their fellow veterans for coming, and said that they hoped the other veterans groups would use the memorial mast for their own ceremonies as well.
At 9:55 a.m. – 7:55 a.m. Honolulu time, the historical time of the attack – the flags were lowered to half-staff in honor of the dead. The United Veterans Council Military Funeral Honors Team fired three rifle salvos in salute and the team's bugler played “Taps.” The flag was left at half-staff until sundown.
As a special tribute to the Pearl Harbor Survivors group, the Clear Lake CHP Office arranged for a CHP helicopter to fly over Library Park.
For a gallery of photos courtesy of the United Veterans Council Military Funeral Honors Team, click on
http://lakeconews.com/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,37/.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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