On this day 77 years ago, more than 2,400 Americans were killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor. A date that President Franklin D. Roosevelt said “will live in infamy.”
Arizona resident Jack Holder was among the survivors. The 97-year-old said he remembers when the Japanese blew up a nearby hangar that day, forcing him and a shipmate to jump in a ditch.
“We all ran and jumped in the ditch and started clinging to each other," Holder said. "I’ve been asked many times what my thoughts were at that time. The most vivid memory I have is ‘God, please don’t let me die in this ditch.’”
Holder is one of several Arizonans who gathered at Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza in Phoenix Friday for a commemorative ceremony.
