Pearl Harbor Veteran’s Interment to be Last on Sunken USS Arizona

 Via Star & Stripes (last Friday):

"Of the 1,177 USS Arizona sailors and Marines killed at Pearl Harbor, more than 900 could not be recovered and remain entombed on the ship, which sank in nine minutes. A memorial built in 1962 sits above the wreckage.

Sixty died on the Utah, and three have been interred there. At least one of the three living Utah survivors wants his ashes placed on his old ship.

Bruner’s ashes will be placed aboard the Arizona following a sunset ceremony Saturday, the anniversary of the Japanese attack.

Loved ones will stand on the USS Arizona Memorial’s dock and hand an urn to scuba divers in the water. The divers will guide the container to the barnacled wreckage and carefully place it inside.

Servicemen will then perform a gun salute and present an American flag to next of kin.

Daniel Martinez, chief historian for the Pearl Harbor National Memorial, said the Arizona ceremony honors those who survived the bombing while also offering a reminder of the many lives cut short because of it. Much of it is held fronting a white marble wall engraved with the names of the Arizona sailors and Marines who died in the attack.

“It’s a celebration of a life well lived,” Martinez said.

Also Saturday, the Navy and National Park Service will host their annual public ceremony at Pearl Harbor to remember those killed. It will observe a moment of silence at 7:55 a.m., the exact time the attack began decades ago."