Pearl Harbor survivors remember attack

American survivors of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, many in their 90s, gathered on Saturday (December 7) for the 72nd anniversary of the attack that took the lives of more than 2,000 of their peers and thrust the United States into World War Two.

About 50 Pearl Harbor survivors were among the 2,500 people attending the day's commemorative ceremony.

Many used wheelchairs, while others leaned on canes or relied on the help of family members, as they remembered December 7, 1941, a date that President Franklin Roosevelt said "will live in infamy".

Nearly half of those who died were sailors aboard the battleship USS Arizona, which Japanese torpedo bombers sank early in the attack, killing 1,177 of its 1,400-member crew.

The USS Arizona Memorial, built over the wreckage of the ship, now forms a centerpiece of the World War Two Valor in the Pacific National Monument, a historic site administered by the National Park Service.