By Steve Meacham
Surrender in Tokyo Bay General MacArthur stands behind the microphone, General Yoshijiro Umezo signs the surrender document on board the USS Missouri. Mr Mamoro Shigemitsu, the Japanese Foreign Minister stands with hands on hips.Credit: Fairfax Photo Archive
It was the day that "forever lived in infamy", in the words of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The day when Commander Mitsuo Fuchida (leader of the first wave of Japanese attack bombers) broke radio silence at 7.53am with the famous code words "Tora, Tora, Tora" .
The day when Pearl Harbour, on the then-remote Hawaiian island of Oahu, suddenly became one of the most recognisable battlefields on Earth.
Pearl Harbour Memorial, Hawaii.Credit: Sandra Jackson
December 7, 1941.
It is now 75 years since the Japanese military launched an unprecedented attack on the US without declaring a state of war. The assault ultimately proved disastrous for the Japanese and their Axis allies (Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy) because the previously neutral US entered the war on the side of "the Allies", including Stalin's Soviet Union.
For 11 days this December, Pearl Harbour will host an unprecedented series of events, commemorations and celebrations around the anniversary.
General Douglas MacArthur signs during the formal surrender documents aboard the battleship USS Missouri. Directly behind him are the Lt. General Jonathan Wainwright, hero of Bataan and Corregidor, and Lt. Gen. A.E. Percival (R), British Commander who surrendered to Japan at Singapore.Credit: Fairfax Photo Library
"Even the 50th anniversary in 1991 was nowhere near as elaborate as what we'll see this year," says Tony Vericella, the Hawaii-based spokesman for the 75th anniversary. "There are events never created before, and which may never be created again.
"Everyone is looking at this as the last really significant commemoration when we'll be fortunate enough to have Pearl Harbour survivors and World War II veterans in good enough health to be here."
There will be 50 events spread over the 11 days, Vericella says. "Some will be solemn. Some will be quite celebratory."
USS Missouri Memorial in Pearl Harbour, Hawaii. Credit: Getty Images
In any normal year, 1.8 million people visit the USS Arizona Memorial, the 1962 floating memorial designed by Honululu architect Alfred Preis (part funded by a 1961 Elvis Presley concert) that marks the final resting place of 1102 of the Arizona's 1177 sailors and marines killed that morning.
However, over the next few months, those visitor figures will swell.
Who will be the main act at the signature Inspiring the Future concert at Aloha Stadium (Elvis's old stomping ground) on Saturday, December 10?
Not forgotten: The USS Arizona Memorial, Pearl Harbour, Oahu, Hawaii.Credit: Alamy
Vericella's lips are sealed, except to say: "It will be a major A-list American artist, with other artists on the bill".
What about the five movie nights on Waikiki Beach during the commemoration? Again, Vericella can't reveal too much.
(Except to confirm the 2001 Pearl Harbour, starring Ben Affleck, won't be one of them. Instead, each of the five films will celebrate a different arm of the US military and will have been made in, or just after, World War II. From Here to Eternity, anyone?)
Obviously the focus will be on December 7.
If you've never been to Pearl Harbour before and want to see all the main visitor experiences, plan to come another day. But if you're here in Hawaii on December 7, 2016, it will be one of those rare experiences when you're a rare onlooker to history as the survivors – now at least in their 90s – acknowledge what they went through 75 years ago.
I took my two sons to Pearl Harbour in 2014 and was quite astounded at how much improved the visitor experience was since I last visited 20 years ago.
Apart from the Arizona Memorial, there's now the USS Missouri (where the Japanese signed the surrender documents with General MacArthur in 1945), the submarine known as "the Pearl Harbor Avenger", USS Bowfin, and the Pacific Aviation Museum. And this year there's an added focus on the USS Utah and the USS Oklahoma, two of the other vessels in "Battleship Row" to be sunk that day.
But this year, Vericella says, there will be a big focus on reconciliation.
During World War II, Japanese-Americans (often US citizens) were rounded up and their properties confiscated while they were interned in concentration camps.
(It was much the same for Australians of German or Austrian descent in both world wars).
"Japan has become a very strong ally of the US," Vericella says.
"This 75th anniversary is all about honouring what happened in the past. But also what it led to. And the freedoms that would come from it. All of us want a much better world, going forward.
"It will be a phenomenal learning experience, a lot of fun, and the stars of the show will be the survivors of World War II."
And what about President Barack Obama? The first US President to be born outside mainland US? In Honolulu: less than an hour's drive from Pearl Harbour? Will he be there?
"He's been invited," says Vericella. "It could be one of his last major public engagements before the inauguration of the next president."
For a full schedule of events for the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbour, see pearlharbor75thanniversary.com
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