Remembering the bombing of Pearl Harbor

Saturday, Dec. 7 marked the 83rd anniversary of the horrendous sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, by the Imperial Japanese Navy and Air Force which killed 2,403 Americans and injured more than 1,000. It pushed our nation into World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt called it “a date which will live in infamy.”

While there was a wreath-tossing ceremony aboard the Intrepid aircraft carrier at Pier 86, 12th Avenue and West 46th Street in Manhattan, sadly there are no longer any annual national Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day ceremonies on Bay Ridge’s American Veterans Memorial Pier.  Each year, for more than three decades, members of the Catholic War Veterans, the American Legion and VFW would host commemorative ceremonies there. It was the late World War II U.S. Navy veteran Howie Dunn and his Amity American Legion Post that began holding ceremonies. 

Dunn, who had served aboard a Navy submarine chaser, started lobbying city and state officials to rename the former 69th Street Ferry Pier as the American Veterans Memorial Pier. In 1997, the NYC Parks Department agreed to the new designation.

Dunn, who died on Sept. 25, 2015, was always  proud of his accomplishment.  In 1986-87, he served as Kings County commander of the American Legion. State Sen. Marty Golden nominated him to the New York State Senate’s Veterans  Hall of Fame in 2013, and the Brooklyn Memorial Day Parade committee selected him as its 2015 grand marshal. Dunn was a great American patriot.  On Saturday, June 3, 2017 he was memorialized with a street co-naming at the corner of Third Avenue and 78th Street.