US honours Pearl Harbor victims - 75 years on

December 7, 1941, was a date that President Franklin Roosevelt said “will live in infamy”.<br /><br /> The shock and horror of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor catapulted the United States into World War Two.<br /><br /> This Wednesday. exactly 75 years on, ceremonies at the naval base in Hawaii are honouring the 2,390 American lives lost and the US military veterans who survived.<br /><br /> “The fireball got us all,” explained Donald Stratton, 94, who said he was with a group of sailors who had to tie a rope between two ships and make their way across to escape, despite being so badly burned that he no longer has fingerprints.<br /><br /> “We got a hold of a sailor on board the vessel and he threw us a heaving line, which is a heavy line with a weight on it. And he tied the heavier line on and we pulled that across and proceeded to go hand over hand across to the vessel, 70 or 80 feet. I don’t know how I made it but I’m here.”<br /><br /> Seventy-five years ago this week, Japan surprised the world with a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. #PearlHarbor75 #HonorThem pic.twitter.com/wmYFnpfYK9— U.S. Dept of Defense (@DeptofDefense) 7 décembre 2016<br /><br /> The 90-minute raid also left 1,178 people wounded, sank or heavily damaged a dozen US warships and destroyed 323 aircraft, badly crippling the Pacific fleet.<br /><br /> The United States declared war on Japan the next day.<br /><br /> #USNavy Sailor on why he planned #PearlHarbor75 visit for 5 years. He’s holding 2010 commemoration document signed by #PearlHarbor survivors pic.twitter.com/jmx2718wb9— U.S. Navy (@USNavy) 5 décembre 2016<br /><br /> Louis Conter, 95, said he initially helped retrieve bodies and victims from the burning wreckage and then spent days trying to put out the blaze.<br /><br /> “We stayed on after and pulled bodies and people off the fire,” he remembered.<br /><br /> “After about 40 minutes, we were getting water on the quarterdeck up to our knees,” he said, explaining that somebody then cried ‘abandon ship’.<br /><br /> “So we took what bodies we had and what people we had and put them in the motor launches and we got them to the hospital.”<br /><br /> Nearly half of those who perished at Pearl Harbor were sailors aboard the battleship USS Arizona, which Japanese torpedo bombers sank early in the attack, sending 1,177 of its 1,400-member crew to their deaths.<br /><br /> #MondayMotivation: Aloha from the USS Arizona Memorial at #PearlHarbor75. #HonorThePast to #InspireTheFuture pic.twitter.com/x3W621e9w0— U.S. Navy (@USNavy) 5 décembre 2016<br /><br /> Later this month, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will become the first Japanese leader to visit Pearl Harbor. He will be joined by Barack Obama – the first serving US president to visit Hiroshima in Japan where the United States dropped an atomic bomb in the closing days of the war.<br /><br /> #SecDef on progress made with Japan since #PearlHarbor: out of depths of WWII, our nations have forged a common bond based on shared values pic.twitter.com/v0Z6O9Edka— U.S. Dept of Defense (@DeptofDefense) 7 décembre 2016<br />