Some survivors of the attack that triggered America's entry into World War II and their families will gather today on Mount Diablo (California) to commemorate the event.

This year's anniversary ceremony will be the last for the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, an organization founded in 1958, which will disband at the end of this year as it fell, and its members are old. The organization does not have enough veterans. "It's overwhelming. Children come to shake hands with you and ask you to talk about war, "says one veteran, John Egan, who was on the USS San Francisco on December 7, 1941. The ship had just docked and unloaded ammunition." Hell broke loose. I had to draw weapons, "he recalls.
"When 680-pound bomb hit the ship, something came off and hit me in the head," says another veteran, Ben Smith (91 years), of Pittsburg (California). He was on the USS Arizona, whose ammunition magazine exploded under bombardment. "A group of firefighters and rescuers came and thought they were dead, so I threw on the pile of corpses," he told the American press. When the alarm was issued to abandon ship, the dead were thrown overboard. Smith recovered when he reached the water. "I thought that there had to be there, so I went out immediately," he said.

Smith was one of three survivors from the station to broadcast, employing 25 people. Some veterans of the attack on Pearl Harbor and their familial will gather today on Mount Diablo (in California), where a beacon will be lit.

Lighthouse - the Standard Oil company install it in 1932 to guide shipping - was closed after the attack on Pearl Harbor as a security measure. He was reinstated in 1964 by Admiral Chester Nimitz, who asked to be on only on 7 December each year.