Area veterans attend a Pearl Harbor Day service last year at Union Park in Livermore Falls. This year’s service is at 2 p.m. Monday on the Livermore Falls Memorial Bridge in remembrance of the Japanese attack on Dec. 7, 1941. Livermore Falls Advertiser file photo

LIVERMORE FALLS — A brief service to remember the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, will be held at 2 p.m. Monday, Pearl Harbor Day, on the Livermore Falls Memorial Bridge.

Those who want to participate should gather in the parking lot near the Route 4 end of Water street at 1:50 p.m. The VFW color guard will make its way single file along the sidewalk to the Memorial Bridge crossing the Androscoggin River, John Dube said.

“A prayer will be given, a wreath placed in the river and taps played,” he said. “Then we’ll march back.”

On Dec. 7, 1941, from 7:53 to 9:55 a.m. Pearl Harbor on the island of  Oahu, Hawaii, was attacked by the Imperial Japanese Navy. The loss was staggering: four U.S. battleships, one ex-battleship and one harbor tug were sunk. Three cruisers, three destroyers and three other ships were damaged along with 188 aircraft destroyed and 159 aircraft damaged. The casualties left the Pearl Harbor base reeling with 2,335 killed and 1,143 wounded.

The Japanese attack force, which included six aircraft carriers and 420 planes, sailed from Hitokappu Bay in the Kurile Islands, on a 3,500-mile voyage to a staging area 230 miles off Oahu. The Japanese sailed without radar or reconnaissance planes overhead, in an effort to avoid detection.

Though caught off-guard, United States service members fought back hard and managed to fire more than 284,000 rounds of ammunition at the Japanese attackers. The Japanese losses included 29 aircraft in addition to five midget submarines. A total of 129 attackers were killed and one taken prisoner.