Abe plans 1st visit to Pearl Harbor by Japanese leader

Monday’s unexpected announcement came two days before the 75th anniversary of the attack and six months after Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to visit the memorial in Hiroshima for victims of the U.S. atomic bombing of that city at the end of the same war.

Abe said he would visit Hawaii on Dec. 26 and 27 to pray for the war dead at the naval base at Pearl Harbor and to hold a final summit meeting with Obama.

More than 2,300 U.S. servicemen died in the attack, which will be marked Wednesday by a memorial and a moment of silence at 7:55 a.m., when the Japanese planes hit their first target.