BEND — Dick Higgins, who at 101 is the oldest living Pearl Harbor survivor in Central Oregon, braved the cold Wednesday, Dec. 7, to be with his family and friends in Bend to remember the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

The ceremony, which included the placing of American flags at Bend Heroes Memorial in Brooks Park and the Veterans Memorial Bridge on Newport Avenue, honored those who lost their lives and who served the day Pearl Harbor was attacked.

Higgins sat up front next to a small space heater as the guest of honor. But he said it would be nicer to be in Hawaii, where he marked the occasion in 2021.

“This is not like Hawaii,” Higgins said with a grin. “The Waikiki Beach was not too bad.”

While he reminisced about Hawaii, the event also brought him back to the morning in Pearl Harbor.

Amid the chaos of the attack, Higgins, a 20-year-old Navy radio operator, found himself covered in ash and oil as he cleared the wreckage from the Navy airfield in an effort to salvage planes for flight.

“I didn’t lose too many friends, but a lot of shipmates,” Higgins said. “I didn’t know anyone that was killed, but of course as all of these service members, we were more or less a family.”

Higgins’ sacrifice that day was for freedom and democracy, and to that point he had a message to the future generations to come.

“It is kind of hard to get your freedom back once you lose it,” he said.

Higgins added he deeply misses his good friend, Robert Maxwell, a United States Army combat soldier who received the Medal of Honor for his heroism fighting in France during World War II. Maxwell, who died in Bend in 2019, had given Higgins his Medal of Honor for safekeeping. Higgins still has it and keeps it to honor his friend.

Dick Tobiason, chairman of the Bend Heroes Foundation, officiated the ceremony Wednesday.

“Why are we here? Well, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941, 81 years ago, caused the isolationist country named the United States to get involved in World War II,” Tobiason said. “So here we go with 16 million of the armed services fighting for almost four years to rid the world of tyranny.”

Tobiason pointed to the memorial behind him and said there were 72 names of service members from Bend who served in World War II. Fifteen are listed as still missing in action, he added.

As the ceremony got underway, Tobiason introduced Higgins as the guest of honor before former Oregon state Rep. Cheri Helt read a proclamation issued by the president in honor of Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.

Angela Norton, Higgins’ granddaughter, stood with her young children during the ceremony. She said on the morning of the ceremony, she told her kids that Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day is not a day to celebrate; it is a day to remember.

“Over 2,000 men and women lost their lives that morning, and we were one of the lucky ones to have our grandfather survive,” Norton said.

“And every year we come because we remember, we remember that sacrifice and what happened in World War II, and we are free because of their sacrifice.”

To Vicki Bolling, Higgins’ daughter, the ceremony is about living with the knowledge that America is precious, and that it must be honored and defended.

“And to remember the sacrifice that people made for it, because if we forget, then I think we are in real trouble,” Bolling said. “I do appreciate the love and support that people have given to my dad. That has been so precious to see the outpouring of that. It’s been wonderful.”

Read about Wednesday’s remembrance ceremony at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on Page A3.