SANFORD — Frank Hall, now 96 years old, remembers well where he was on Mother’s Day in May 1942. He was a young man in his 20s and he was in the U.S. Army.

“We sailed underneath the Golden Gate Bridge,” he said Monday. Hall, who later went on to fight in the Battle of the Bulge, didn’t know where his ship was headed at the time – but it made its way to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, where the U.S. fleet had been devastated just a few months before on Dec. 7, 1941.

When President Franklin D. Roosevelt went to Congress to ask for a declaration of war, this is how he put it: “Yesterday, December 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”

That bombing of the fleet – that act of war – is remembered on every Pearl Harbor Day. In Sanford, veterans gather at Number One Pond to remember.

Sanford’s commemoration of the 74th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor took place at 10 a.m. Monday.

It was a brief ceremony in the morning sunshine, attended primarily by veterans and supporters. Sanford Veterans of Foreign Wars past post commander Joe Garand, who was stationed in France during the Korean War and then went on to complete three tours of duty in Vietnam, laid a wreath in the calm waters of the pond.

There was a gun salute, Junior Navy ROTC members displayed the colors and a bugler played Taps.

Disabled American Veterans chaplain Rob Martin noted more than 2,000 military personnel died on Dec. 7, 1941, when Japanese air forces bombed the fleet. More than 1,000 were injured.

“Let us always honor the memory of the brave men who sacrificed,” he said.

— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 324-4444 (local call in Sanford) or 282-1535, ext. 327 or [email protected].