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Survivor recounts attack in return for 75th anniversary

Retired U.S. Navy corpsman Bill McAnany stands on the USS Arizona Memorial. He is in Honolulu, Hawaii, to commemorate the 75th anniversary today of the attacks on Pearl Harbor, which he survived.
Retired U.S. Navy corpsman Bill McAnany stands on the USS Arizona Memorial. He is in Honolulu, Hawaii, to commemorate the 75th anniversary today of the attacks on Pearl Harbor, which he survived.

Joining his few remaining fellow survivors today to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the attack at Pearl Harbor will be both nostalgic and reverent, said Bill McAnany, 95.

"You sense that especially when you're standing on the (USS Arizona) memorial and see the oil seeping up through the water still," the retired U.S. Navy corpsman said.

Since the mid-1970s, he periodically has been visiting the site and meeting with fellow survivors or crewmen from the USS Solace, a 400-bed floating hospital.

But, "75 years is a special occasion in several ways," he said.

Primarily, McAnany said he is grateful to have his health and ability to travel at his age.

He also wants to pay his respects to his fallen comrades.

Working on a hospital ship, McAnany and his crew were "quite busy for several days after the 7th."

Even through March, they were still treating sailors for resulting injuries. "And we were still going out every day and picking up bodies coming to the surface," he recalled.

He went on to complete the war and a career in the military. Then he was busy "making a living."

It was in 1974 when he joined the survivors' association, which disbanded about 10 years ago due to few numbers and members' difficulties traveling.

Until then, he attended those reunions religiously, McAnany said.

Visiting the Hawaiian memorial this year, McAnany said he is hopeful such a thing will never happen again.

He also said he hopes the younger generation might take account of the sacrifices made by so many, like those at Pearl Harbor, to secure American freedoms they enjoy today.

A teenager on the day of the attack, McAnany said he matured in one day.

"When the 8th of December came around, I was a big boy," he said.

What changed him most was "the ferocity the wounded exhibited to stay alive," McAnany said. "That impressed on me how valuable life is."

An estimated 2,000 survivors of the Pearl Harbor attack remain.

Flags are to be flown at half-staff.

The 75th anniversary of the event that provoked the United States to enter World War II is also a reminder for the general population to take notice before they all have gone, as is the case with the World War I veterans, said military historian Jeremy Amick.

"We need to preserve their stories," Amick said. "Without these anniversaries coming about, people don't realize."

For that reason, Amick chose to highlight the story of the first Missouri casualty of World War II this week in his Monday News Tribune series on local veterans.

Sedalia native George Whiteman was stationed with the U.S. Army Air Corps at Wheeler Army Airfield on Oahu. On Dec. 7, 1941, Lt. Whiteman was the first pilot to climb into his Curtiss P-40, "Lucky, Lucky Me," and take off. He was attacked head-on by Japanese pilots and died in a flaming crash.

The Sedalia Army Base, established in 1942, was renamed Whiteman Air Force Base in 1955.

Other programs, like the Missouri Veterans History Project or the Missouri Museum of Military History, are working to preserve and remember these stories.