Museum remembers Pearl Harbor
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POLSON — It’s been 70 years since the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, “a date which will live in infamy,” according to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
That attack rattled Americans, and the U.S. declared war and plunged into WWII. At the time a young man from Polson named George David Smart was a coxswain in the United States Navy and served on the U.S.S. Arizona. He was one of the many men and women who died during the attack, and Smart’s body is entombed in the ship.
The Miracle of America Museum has a collection of pictures of Smart, letters postmarked the U.S.S. Arizona, a letter from Bernard Theena, a friend of Smarts’s, telegraphs to his parents, Smart’s Purple Heart, which was awarded posthumously, as well as other memorabilia.
To help people remember Pearl Harbor, the Miracle of America Museum will offer free admission Dec. 7 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. so people can take a look at the Smart collection and other World War II items as well as their other displays. If there’s enough interest, Gil Mangels from the museum will show “Tora! Tora! Tora!” a film about Pearl Harbor, at 5 p.m.
