Pearl Harbor Survivor Earl “Chuck” Kohler, 100-years-old, was a 17-year-old Seaman 1st Class when he charged throughout Ford Island base within the middle of Pearl Harbor the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, with bombs and machine gun bullets raining down on him as he grabbed a .50 caliber machine gun, hopped into an plane and began firing into the sky. Now he’s a Harmony resident and fixture on the annual beacon lighting, which this 12 months marked the 83rd anniversary of the shock assault that killed 2,403 People and thrust the U.S. into the second World Struggle.
From a press launch – “the Beacon lighting is a tribute to those individuals that lost their lives at Pearl Harbor,” remarked Earl “Chuck” Kohler, Pearl Harbor Survivor.
The rotating lantern was put in within the late Nineteen Twenties to help transcontinental aviation. To ease fears that the beacon could be used as a navigational support by enemy submarines, the system was deactivated throughout World Struggle II, and solely reignited on Pearl Harbor Day for one night time solely in 1964 on the suggestion of retired Admiral Chester Nimitz, wartime commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
Faucets is performed throughout a Nationwide Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day ceremony in Harmony, earlier than the annual lighting of the Mount Diablo Beacon, Saturday night, Dec. 7, 2024. (Karl Mondon/Bay Space Information Group)
As a part of Nationwide Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, 100-year-old Naval veteran Earl “Chuck” Kohler flipped a change illuminating the Mount Diablo Beacon throughout a ceremony in Harmony on Saturday, Dec. 7, 2024. Kohler, of Clayton, Calif., is certainly one of solely 16 recognized American navy survivors of the Pearl Harbor assault. (Karl Mondon/Bay Space Information Group)
As a part of Nationwide Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, the Beacon atop Mount Diablo glows Saturday night, Dec. 7, 2024. Pearl Harbor survivor Earl “Chuck” Kohler, now 100 years outdated, flipped a change illuminating the mountaintop gentle. (Karl Mondon/Bay Space Information Group)
On overflow crowd attends a Nationwide Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day occasion at California State College, East Bay’s Harmony Campus to take heed to speeches and light-weight the Beacon atop Mount Diablo, Saturday night, Dec. 7, 2024. (Karl Mondon/Bay Space Information Group)
Kathleen Farley, the California state chair of the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors, speaks throughout a remembrance ceremony in Harmony earlier than the annual lighting of the Mount Diablo Beacon, Saturday night, Dec. 7, 2024. Farley is aware of of solely 16 survivors nonetheless dwelling of the 87,000 navy personnel who had been on Oahu on the day of the assault. (Karl Mondon/Bay Space Information Group)
Pearl Harbor survivor Earl “Chuck” Kohler arrives to flip a change illuminating the Mount Diablo Beacon at a ceremony in Harmony, Calif., Saturday, Dec. 7, 2024. Kohler, of Clayton, Calif., is certainly one of solely 16 recognized American navy survivors of the Pearl Harbor assault. (Karl Mondon/Bay Space Information Group)
