Date: April 14, 2017
Honolulu – The National Park Service and the United States Navy will conduct the interment of USS Arizona Survivor Raymond Haerry from 5:00 to 6:00 PM on Saturday, April 15, 2017 at the USS Arizona Memorial. Haerry died on September 27, 2016 in West Warwick, R.I., aged 94.
Following the main bomb blast that ignited Arizona’s forward magazines, 19-year-old Haerry was blown into the water and swam through oil and fire to Ford Island. There he found a rifle and opened fire on Japanese planes. Later, he helped recover the bodies of his fallen shipmates. A total of 1,177 of USS Arizona’s crew died on December 7, 1941.
Haerry served over two decades in the US Navy. Although he never returned to Pearl Harbor, his son Raymond Haerry Jr. told the A.P., “As he was getting closer to the end, I think he felt that if there’s any place that he’d like to be at rest, it would be with his crewmates, the people who suffered and died on that day.”
USS Arizona Survivors may choose to be interred into the ship upon their death. Haerry will be the 42nd survivor to do so. Currently, only five USS Arizona Survivors remain.
Details:
The interment is not open to the public. Press who would like to cover this military funeral must contact PIO Jay Blount at 808-422-3315 or Jason_blount@nps.gov and RSVP no later than Friday, April 14th by 5:00 PM. Press representatives who do not RSVP by this deadline will not be allowed to attend the ceremony. Please arrive between 3:00 and 3:30 PM and check in with Jay at the Pearl Harbor Visitor Center entrance. Press will be assigned to a designated area on the memorial and will be required to remain there throughout the duration of the ceremony.
For more information about the monument, please visit www.nps.gov/valr and www.facebook.com/ValorNPS.
