First Pearl Harbor Victim Remembered

Just seconds after Japanese bombers roared in, 17-year-old Warren McCutcheon was shot through the heart by an enemy gunner - the first American serviceman to die at Pearl Harbor, researchers say.

On Monday, nearly 55 years after the attack that brought America into World War II, more than 300 people gathered at the cemetery in McCutcheon’s hometown to honor the fallen sailor with a 9-foot-high granite monument. “He had no warning - he had no chance,” the inscription reads.

“He was hit right away and died instantly,” said Leon Smith, 72, McCutcheon’s boyhood friend who was on the nearby USS Honolulu.