Blackened Canteen Ceremony
Mon, Dec 08
|Honolulu
The Blackened Canteen Ceremony is not open to the public; it is invitation only.
Time & Location
Dec 08, 2025, 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM HST
Honolulu, 1 Arizona Memorial Pl, Honolulu, HI 96818, USA
About the event
Time: 5:00 pm to 6:00 pm HST, Dec. 8, 2025
The Blackened Canteen ceremony on the USS Arizona Memorial is not open to the public and is invitation only.
The Blackened Canteen ceremony will not be live streamed online, but the public is welcome to view a live broadcast shoreside at the Pearl Harbor Visitor Center from 5:00 PM to 5:30 PM. The broadcast will then be posted online (link to follow when it's available).
On the night of June 20, 1945, during a bombing raid over Shizuoka, Japan, two Army Air Force B-29s collided and crashed, killing 23 crewmen. As local Shizuoka businessman and farmer Fukumatsu Ito pulled fatally wounded U.S. airmen from the wreckage, he found a blackened canteen in the aircraft, distorted from heat and bearing what appeared to be the seared handprint of its late owner.
A devout Buddhist, Ito believed all life is precious and…