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Pearl Harbor Survivors Association


The Pearl Harbor Survivors Association (PHSA), founded in 1958 and recognized by the United States Congress in 1985, was a World War II veterans organization whose members were on Pearl Harbor, or on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, or three miles or less offshore during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941. The PHSA was officially disbanded at the end of December 2011 with a membership of about 2,700 members nationally.

The PHSA which was incorporated in the State of Missouri, held Federal Charter 99-119 under Title 36 of the United States Code. The PHSA National Insignia bearing the name Pearl Harbor Survivors Association was registered at the U.S. Patent Office. The PHSA's motto read:

The first meeting of what would become the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association (PHSA) took place on December 7, 1954 at the Del Camino Room in Gardena, California where eleven survivors of the attack gathered to remember their fallen comrades and dear friends. It was at this first meeting that those in attendance swore that they would make the commemoration an annual event.

At the association's official founding dinner in 1958 with thirteen survivors present, the eleven survivors who were present at the 1954 meeting were proclaimed the Founding Fathers of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. Those eleven survivors were: Clarence Bonn, Mark Ferris, George Haines Jr. Edward Kronberger, Robert Kronberger, Samuel Kronberger, Raymond LeBer, George Schafer, Louis P. Smith, Ed Steffa, and James C. Taneyhill. Following the 1958 meeting, the members began searching for other military survivors of the Pearl Harbor attack.

A dinner of the group on December 7, 1960, led to the first Pearl Harbor Survivors Association National Reunion at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, California where over 300 survivors joined in commemoration of the event on December 7, 1961. President John F. Kennedy sent his personal representative to this convention. Over 1,000 survivors attended the PHSA National Reunion held at the Lafayette Hotel in Long Beach, California on December 7–8, 1962. At this meeting, the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association constitution was presented and ratified by the members. Mark Ferris, who initiated the group's first meeting in 1954, after visiting a reunion held for members of the battleship USS West Virginia (BB-48), was chosen as the PHSA's first national president. Also, an official PHSA prayer to be said at association reunions was adopted. In October 1964, the PHSA issued its first quarterly newsletter to its members named the Pearl Harbor-Gram. After the national reunion was held in Hawaii, December 4–10, 1966 in honor of the 25th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the national reunion was to be held bi-annually on even numbered years only (the state chapters reunions would be on the odd number years).


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