President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden have marked the 80th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour with a sombre visit to the World War Two Memorial in the nation’s capital.
The 1941 attack on Pearl Harbour and other locations in Hawaii killed 2,403 service members and civilians and was a defining moment that led to US entry into the war.
Joe Biden touched a wreath and saluted. The wreath contained a wild sunflower, the state flower of Kansas, in honour of former Senator Bob Dole, a war veteran who was a driving force in getting the memorial built on the National Mall and who died Sunday aged 98.
The first lady laid a bouquet of flowers at the base of the memorial below the New Jersey pillar and softly touched a wall, where she and the president spent a moment.
The bouquet was in honour of her father, Donald Jacobs, who served as a US Navy signalman in the war, the White House said.
The Bidens then paused at the Pacific arch on the southern side of the memorial plaza for one last moment of reflection before departing.
Joe Biden, in a White House proclamation issued last week to recognise National Pearl Harbour Remembrance Day, gave “thanks to the Greatest Generation, who guided our Nation through some of our darkest moments and laid the foundations of an international system that has transformed former adversaries into allies”.
