Valor, Sacrifice, Peace Emphasized on Oahu
Use controls above or click here to open this Hometown Heroes podcast in a new window
Episode #711 of Hometown Heroes, airing December 11-13, 2021, includes excerpts from the official 80th anniversary commemoration at the USS Arizona – Pearl Harbor National Memorial in Honolulu. For the entire hour-long ceremony, watch the video below, posted by PBS:
150 World War II veterans in attendance, including 63 who traveled with the Best Defense Foundation, were saluted by the crew of the destroyer USS Chung-Hoon as it sailed past. The ship is named for Admiral Gordon Pai’ea Chung-Hoon, a Hawaii native who was aboard the battleship USS Arizona on December 7, 1941. Returning the salute on behalf of those 150 veterans was 101-year-old David “Russ” Russell of Albany, Oregon, a survivor of the battleship USS Oklahoma. Russell’s story was recently featured on episode #709 of Hometown Heroes in advance of the anniversary, and he was also one of the veterans included in this piece from NBC’s Today Show: