Pearl Harbor remembered: Blackened canteen ceremony carried on as ‘inspiration for peace’

HONOLULU - Former U.S. airman Jack DeTour, 92, and Japanese fighter pilot Shiro Wakita, 88, together poured whiskey from a battered canteen into Pearl Harbor on Sunday.

That was how former enemies commemorated the 1941 attack on the U.S. naval base that drew the Americans into World War II.

As the sun rose over the USS Arizona Memorial, the two former enemy pilots joined the 'Blackened Canteen” service on the eve of the 74th anniversary of the Dec. 7 attack, which killed 2,403 people.

Standing side by side after meeting for the first time, retired Air Force Col. DeTour and former Imperial Japanese Navy Zero Pilot Wakita gripped the war-torn U.S. military-issue metal canteen as one and poured whiskey into the watery grave of the U.S. Navy ship sunk by Japanese bombers.

The scorched war relic was recovered in 1945 in Shizuoka, Japan, after two B-29 U.S. bombers collided overhead. The 23 Americans killed were buried alongside Japanese citizens who died in the raid. Among the wreckage was the blackened canteen, filled with whiskey.

Since the 1980s, Japanese residents have regularly brought it to Pearl Harbor for the peace ceremony.

No Pearl Harbor survivors were among the World War II veterans at this year's ceremony, said Gary Meyers, spokesman for the Pacific Aviation Museum Pearl Harbor. The last surviving officer from the USS Arizona, Joseph Langdell, died Feb. 4 in California at age 100.

Dr. Hiroya Sugano, director of the Zero Fighter Admirers' Club, said he keeps the canteen and carries it to the ceremony each year as a powerful symbol.

'The blackened canteen is an inspiration for peace,” Sugano said.