Blackened Canteen Ceremony
Tue, Dec 08
|Pearl Harbor National Memorial
The Blackened Canteen Ceremony is not open to the public; it is invitation only.
Time & Location
Dec 08, 2026, 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM HST
Pearl Harbor National Memorial, 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.
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 bore no ill will towards America despite the terrible loss of more than 2,000 Shizuoka citizens in the raid. He started conducting an annual ceremony honoring those who had paid the ultimate price as a result of war - both Japanese and American. The ceremony included…