Presidential Documents

65003

Federal Register

Vol. 62, No. 236

Tuesday, December 9, 1997

Title 3—

The President

Proclamation 7058 of December 5, 1997

National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, 1997

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

December 7, 1941, marked a turning point in the history of our Nation,

a defining moment that would alter the lives of millions of Americans

and change forever America’s destiny. On that quiet Sunday morning, the

forces of Imperial Japan attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in

Hawaii, killing or injuring more than 3,000 Americans, crippling our Pacific

Fleet, and critically damaging our airpower. In that moment of supreme

crisis, the essential greatness at the core of the American spirit was revealed.

Our response was not despair, but determination. Inspired by the leadership

of President Franklin Roosevelt and buoyed by his faith that we ultimately

would prevail, America went to war.

Looking back across the years, we rightly are still awed by what the American

people accomplished during World War II. United in spirit and purpose

after the attack on Pearl Harbor, millions of men and women joined the

Armed Forces; by war’s end, some 15 million had served. They fought

fiercely and with uncommon courage in battlefields across the globe. In

the Pacific, step by bloody and painstaking step, they took back the islands

captured by Imperial Japanese forces in the days after Pearl Harbor. The

names of those battles still resonate through the years: Coral Sea, Midway,

Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima. On the western front, facing the daunting power

of the Nazi war machine, Americans and our Allies struggled and died

to liberate Europe, fighting in the stormy North Atlantic, in the searing

heat of North Africa, and in the flak-filled skies over France and Germany.

Americans on the home front responded with equal gallantry and strength.

Stepping forward to close the gap left by departing servicemen, the very

young, the elderly, minority workers, and women filled America’s factories

and shipyards. Working around the clock, they built the ships, planes,

tanks, and guns that armed the forces of freedom and made our Nation

the ‘‘Arsenal of Democracy.’’ In fields, on farms, and in neighborhood Victory

Gardens, they produced the food to sustain our Nation, our troops, and

our Allies. Millions left their homes to do their part, and few American

families were untouched by the hardships and sacrifices demanded by this

unprecedented effort.

While more than half a century separates us from the attack on Pearl Harbor,

we still can learn much from the example, achievements, and heroic deeds

of those Americans who preserved the flame of liberty and passed it around

the world. They taught us that America is the world’s best hope for freedom

and democracy and that we must never shrink from the responsibilities

of that leadership. They taught us the need for constant vigilance, a powerful

military, and strength of character. They showed us that, when Americans

are united in heart and mind, there is nothing we cannot accomplish together.

As we remember Pearl Harbor, let us also remember and give thanks for

that great and gallant leader, Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose memorial we

dedicated earlier this year in our Nation’s Capital. In December of 1941,

in one of our Nation’s darkest hours, he proclaimed his faith in the ultimate

victory of freedom over tyranny that, sadly, he did not live to see:
65004 Federal Register / Vol. 62, No. 236 / Tuesday, December 9, 1997 / Presidential Documents

With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph. So

help us God.

The Congress, by Public Law 103–308, has designated December 7, 1997,

as ‘‘National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.’’

NOW, THEREFORE, I, WILLIAM J. CLINTON, President of the United States

of America, do hereby proclaim December 7, 1997, as National Pearl Harbor

Remembrance Day. I urge all Americans to observe this day with appropriate

programs, ceremonies, and activities in honor of the Americans who served

at Pearl Harbor. I also ask all Federal departments and agencies, organizations,

and individuals to fly the flag of the United States at half-staff on this

day in honor of those Americans who died as a result of the attack on

Pearl Harbor.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this fifth day of

December, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-seven,

and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred

[FR Doc. 97–32428

Filed 12–8–97; 12:10 pm]

Billing code 3195–01–P

and twenty-second.

œ–