On December 2, 1941, Navy sailor Ardenne Allen "Bill" Woodward wrote these beautiful words to his wife about his newborn baby: “Oh darling, I can hardly wait to see her as I have dreamed and thought of her so terribly much.”
Five days later, he was one of 2,400 people killed in Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, a day that President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously said “will live in infamy.” Woodward was 20 at the time.
His daughter, Karen Richardson, watched as the beautiful love letters were read in a ceremony held in his hometown of Huntington Beach, CA. Her emotion was easy to see as she heard high school students read her dad's touching words.
“On December 7, 1941, I was 4 and a half months old. My dad and I were never to meet,” she told the crowd, as seen in KTLA’s video below.
The honoring came more than 70 years after Woodward’s death, with the help of a local historian. He noticed that Woodward’s name wasn't included in City of Huntington Beach's veterans memorial after seeing him listed in an old article of Life magazine.
“We’ve often said that the men who fought and died and women did so so we could be happy and do these kinds of things,” Richardson told the news station. “And therefore we should embrace that.”
Watch below and please SHARE to remember all those who lost their lives on that devastating day!
