USS Arizona survivor heads to Pearl Harbor 75 years later

In this Thursday, Nov. 17, 2016 photo, Lauren Bruner, one of five remaining survivors from the USS Arizona during the Dec. 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, recounts the experience at his home in La Mirada, Calif. Burns covered most of his body after Japanese planes bombed his ship. He spent seven months recovering in the hospital, and returned to fight in more battles. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon) In this Thursday, Nov. 17, 2016 photo, Lauren Bruner, one of five remaining survivors from the USS Arizona during the Dec. 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, recounts the experience at his home in La Mirada, Calif. Burns covered most of his body after Japanese planes bombed his ship. He spent seven months recovering in the hospital, and returned to fight in more battles. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)

By Associated Press December 6, 2016 6 min read

This 1940 photo provided by the USS Arizona Memorial Foundation shows Lauren Bruner, one of five remaining survivors of the USS Arizona from the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack of Pearl Harbor, during a visit to his home in Elma, Wash. In 1941, Bruner didn’t know who was attacking until the planes got close enough for him to see the red “Rising Sun” Japanese insignia on their sides. The aircraft shot at “everything in sight” he said. Then an explosion tore through his battle station. (USS Arizona Memorial Foundation via AP)

In this June 6, 2013 photo provided by the USS Arizona Memorial Foundation, Lauren Bruner, one of five remaining survivors of the USS Arizona from the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack of Pearl Harbor, is joined by Capt. Jeffry W. James, right, then the commander of Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, and Daniel Martinez, chief historian for the National Park Service, as they look at the Arizona Memorial’s Shrine Wall with names of every man aboard the ship when it was attacked. More than 2,300 servicemen died in the Japanese attack that plunged the United States into World War II. Nearly half of those killed were on the Arizona, most still entombed in the wreckage. (Mark Comon/USS Arizona Memorial Foundation via AP)

Remembering the 75th anniversary of attack on Pearl Harbor

HONOLULU – Lauren Bruner was getting ready for church in 1941 on his battleship, the USS Arizona, when the alarm sounded.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had begun, and Bruner, then 21, scampered up five stories by ladder to the enormous anti-aircraft guns he was responsible for manning.

But bullets hit his left leg and explosions set off by the Sunday morning bombardment rocked his ship before he could get to the weapons. The ship sank just nine minutes later. Bruner escaped, but suffered severe burns.

This week Bruner, now 96, plans to visit a memorial over the Arizona’s sunken wreckage and attend a remembrance ceremony at Pearl Harbor on the 75th anniversary of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack.

Bruner has traveled from his Southern California home for the events many times, but doesn’t know how long the Arizona’s few remaining survivors will able to keep up the tradition.