Page 8A
NATION/WORLD
East Oregonian
Wednesday, December 28, 2016
HISTORIC DAY AT PEARL HARBOR
U.S., Japan seek absolution from the war
By JOSH LEDERMAN
and CALEB JONES
Associated Press
PEARL
HARBOR,
Hawaii — In a historic
pilgrimage, the leaders of
Japan and the United States
took to the hallowed waters
of Pearl Harbor on Tuesday
to prove that even the
bitterest enemies can become
allies. Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe did not apologize, but
conceded Japan “must never
repeat the horrors of war
again.”
Seventy-five years after
Japan’s surprise attack sent
America marching into
World War II, Abe and Pres-
ident Barack Obama peered
down at the rusting wreckage
of the USS Arizona, clearly
visible in the tranquil, teal
water. More than 1,000 U.S.
war dead remain entombed in
the submerged ship, and in a
show of respect, Obama and
Abe dropped purple petals
into the water and stood in
silence.
“As the prime minister
of Japan, I offer my sincere
and everlasting condolences
to the souls of those who
lost their lives here, as well
as to the spirits of all the
brave men and women
whose lives were taken by a
war that commenced in this
very place,” Abe said later
at nearby Joint Base Pearl
Harbor-Hickam.
That was the closest Abe
would get to an apology
for the attack. And it was
enough for Obama, who
also declined to apologize
seven months ago when he
became America’s first sitting
president to visit Hiroshima,
where the U.S. dropped an
atomic bomb in a bid to end
the war.
It was enough, too, for
Alfred Rodrigues, a U.S.
Navy veteran who survived
the attack. The 96-year-old
said he had no hard feelings
and added, “War is war.”
“They were doing what
they were supposed to do, and
we were doing what we were
supposed to do,” Rodrigues
said before the visit.
Abe, who became Japan’s
Dennis Oda/The Star-Advertiser via AP
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, left, and U.S. President Barack Obama, second from right, toss flower
petals into the Wishing Well at the USS Arizona Memorial, part of the World War II Valor in the Pacific National
Monument, at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii on Tuesday. Abe and Obama made a historic pilgrimage
to the site where the devastating surprise attack sent America marching into World War II.
“I offer my sincere and
everlasting condolences to
the souls of those who lost
their lives here...”
— Shinzo Abe, Japanese prime minister
AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe talks with a World
War II Pearl Harbor survivor after he and U.S. President
Barack Obama spoke Tuesday on Kilo Pier overlooking
the USS Arizona Memorial.
first leader to visit Pearl
Harbor with a U.S. president,
said the visit “brought utter
silence to me.” His remarks
capped a day that was care-
fully choreographed by the
U.S. and Japan to show a
strong and growing alliance
between former foes.
They started with a formal
meeting at another nearby
military base, in what the
White House said was likely
Obama’s last meeting with a
foreign leader before leaving
office in January. It was a
bookend of sorts for the pres-
ident, who nearly eight years
ago invited Abe’s predecessor
to be the first leader he hosted
at the White House.
Obama, speaking after he
and Abe laid green-and-peach
wreaths at the memorial,
called the harbor a sacred
place and said that “even the
deepest wounds of war can
give way to friendship and
lasting peace.” It’s a notion
Obama tried throughout
his presidency to put into
practice, as he reached out
to former adversaries Iran,
Myanmar and Cuba.
“As we lay a wreath or toss
flowers into waters that still
weep, we think of the more
than 2,400 American patriots,
fathers and husbands, wives
and daughters, manning
heaven’s rails for all eternity,”
Obama said.
Then the two leaders
greeted survivors in the
crowd. They shook hands and
hugged some of the men who
fought in the Dec. 7, 1941,
battle that President Franklin
D. Roosevelt called a “date
which will live in infamy.”
Japanese leaders have
visited Pearl Harbor before,
but Abe was the first to go
to the memorial above the
sunken USS Arizona, where
a marbled wall lists the names
of U.S. troops killed in the
Japanese attack.
For Abe, it was an act of
symbolic reciprocity, coming
seven months after Obama
and Abe visited Hiroshima
together and renewed their
calls for a nuclear-free future.
Still, both governments
maintain that the visits were
separate and not contingent
upon one another.
The visit was not without
political risk for Abe, given
the Japanese people’s long,
emotional reckoning with
their nation’s aggression in
the war. Though the history
books have largely deemed
Pearl Harbor a surprise
attack, Japan’s government
still insists it had intended
to give prior notice that it
was declaring war and failed
only because of “bureaucratic
bungling.”
“There’s this sense of
guilt, if you like, among
Japanese, this ‘Pearl Harbor
syndrome,’ that we did
something very unfair,”
said Tamaki Tsukada, a
minister in the Embassy of
Japan in Washington. He
said he believes Abe’s visit
would “absolve that kind
of complex that Japanese
people have.”
In the years after Pearl
Harbor, the U.S. incarcerated
roughly
120,000
Japa-
nese-Americans in intern-
ment camps before dropping
atomic bombs in 1945 that
killed some 140,000 people
in Hiroshima and 70,000 in
Nagasaki.
Since the war, the U.S. and
Japan have built a powerful
alliance that both sides say
has grown during Obama’s
tenure, including strength-
ened military ties. Yet there
are questions about whether
the relationship will degen-
erate under President-elect
Donald Trump, a possibility
neither Obama nor Abe
addressed.
Investigators study black box
from Black Sea jet crash
Associated Press
SOCHI, Russia — Inves-
tigators recovered the flight-
data recorder from a crashed
Russian military plane
Tuesday and began reviewing
its contents to learn why the
jet went down moments after
takeoff, killing all 92 people
aboard, including members
of a famous choir.
The Tu-154 crashed into
the Black Sea early Sunday
two minutes after departing
in good weather from the
city of Sochi. The plane
was carrying members of
the Alexandrov Ensemble,
widely known as the Red
Army Choir, to a New Year’s
concert at a Russian military
base in Syria.
Meanwhile,
rescue
workers raced to wrap up
their efforts to recover bodies
and wreckage ahead of
predicted bad weather. The
work has involved 3,500
people, including about 200
navy divers flown to the site
from all over Russia. Aided
by drones and submersibles,
teams have recovered 12
bodies and numerous body
fragments about a mile away
from the shore.
The main flight recorder
was quickly flown to
Moscow, where experts
started analyzing it, Transport
Minister Maxim Sokolov
said. Preliminary findings
could be available as early
as Wednesday, according to
some aviation experts.
Investigators were looking
into whether the crash might
have been caused by bad
fuel, pilot error, equipment
failure or objects stuck in
the engines. The top Russian
investigative
agency,
known as the Investigative
Committee, said it had taken
samples from a fuel tank used
to fill the plane, which flew
from Moscow’s Chkalovsky
military airport and stopped
in Sochi for refueling.
TM
AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev
Portraits of the Alexandrov Ensemble members are
placed with candles and flowers Tuesday in front of
the Alexandrov Ensemble building in Moscow, Russia.
The committee also said it
found a witness who filmed
the crash but offered no
details.
Online publication Life.ru
published what it described
as a script of cockpit
conversation, with one pilot
yelling about a problem with
the plane’s flaps and then
shouting: “Commander, we
are falling!” It was impos-
sible to verify the report,
but Life.ru is known to
have good connections with
Russian security agencies.
Flaps are moveable panels
mounted on the edge of the
wings to increase lift.
The Interfax news agency
reported that the flaps were
not functioning in sync,
causing the jet to lose speed
and triggering an aerody-
namic stall. It also said that
the preliminary analysis of
the flight recorder pointed at
pilot error.
The government has
sought to quell speculation
that the crash might have
been caused by a bomb
planted on board or a
portable air-defense missile.
A terrorist attack on a Syria-
bound military flight would
badly embarrass the Kremlin
at a time when it boasts about
the success of its campaign
in Syria after Aleppo fell into
President Bashar Assad’s
hands.
Russia’s main domestic
security and counter-ter-
rorism agency, the FSB,
said it found “no indications
or facts pointing at the
possibility of a terror attack
or an act of sabotage” on the
plane.
However, some aviation
experts have noted that
the crew’s failure to report
any technical problem and
the large area over which
fragments of the plane were
scattered point to a possible
explosion on board.
The
Tu-154
is
a
Soviet-built
three-engine
airliner designed in the late
1960s. Russian airlines
decommissioned the noisy,
fuel-guzzling aircraft years
ago, but the military and
other government agencies
continue using the plane,
which is still loved by crews
for its maneuverability and
sturdiness.
The plane that crashed
Sunday was built in 1983 and
underwent factory checkups
and maintenance in 2014
as well as earlier this year.
Investigators have taken
relevant documents from the
plant that did the job.
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