Local WWII Veterans Head To Pearl Harbor For Remembrance Ceremony
SANTA ANA (CBSLA) - Seven World War II veterans in Orange County are about to cross the Pacific Ocean to remember those who never made it home at Pearl Harbor.
The group gathered at John Wayne Airport Saturday to make the journey.
"It means so much, especially in the last years of my life it's so important," said Bryce Jordan, a veteran.
Jordan was a pilot in the US Army Air Corp at 97. He is one of the dozens of WWII veterans making the trip to Hawaii this weekend for the 80th Remembrance Ceremony of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
"I think it's wonderful this old veteran gets a chance to do that," said Jordan.
After 80 years, most making the trip weren't in service when the bombing took place: they enlisted because of it.
"I was having lunch all of a sudden the radio came on and announced the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor," recalled Cliff Sharp, a veteran. "It was shocking because we didn't know there were problems with Japan at the time."
That was December 7, 1941. More than 2,40o service members and civilians died that day. The USS Arizona and the USS Utah sank in the harbor and entombed hundreds of sailors still buried there today.