It has been 72 years and veterans of the attack are in their 90s, some of them taking tourists out to the memorial built over the sunken battleship Arizona, which is still leaking oil.  Almost 1,200 men were killed and went down with that ship when a bomb found its magazine and blew it up.  Total losses that day were over 2,500 killed, 1,000 wounded. Material losses amounted to 18 ships and nearly 300 airplanes destroyed or severely damaged.

It was one of the most successful surprise attacks in the history of war.  Brilliantly conceived and audaciously executed, it changed the world.  The forces that it set in motion led to the utter destruction of the Japanese Empire.  Retribution for having launched the attack.  Beyond that, it brought the United State into a war at the end of which Germany had been reduced to rubble, the sun was conclusively setting on the British Empire, and the Soviet Union ruled half of Europe and threatened the other half.