It was on this date 79 years ago the US fleet at Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japanese bombers. President Franklin Roosevelt addressed congress December 8th saying, “This day will live in infamy.”
For several years back in the 80’s and 90’s, Mclintock’s Saloon in San Luis Obispo held a luncheon for Pearl Harbor survivors. Among the best known, former San Luis Obispo radio newsman Fred Peterson, who survived the attack because he had slept in. Peterson was in his bunk in the barracks when his unit’s mess hall took a direct hit during breakfast. That bomb killed many of Peterson’s fellow crew members. Peterson and about a dozen other Pearl Harbor survivors met annually at Mclintock’s Saloon in San Luis on this date to remember Pearl Harbor Day. Fred Peterson died in 2005 after a long career in radio in San Luis Obispo county.
If a sailor served in the Pacific Fleet on this date in 1941, today he would be in his late 90’s, at the very youngest.
Not many Pearl Harbor survivors alive today to personally remember the day which will live in infamy, the attack on this date on the US navy fleet in and around Hawaii.
