By AUDREY McAVOY
The Associated Press
Wednesday, December 6, 2006; 4:40 AM

HONOLULU -- Sixty-five years ago, Takeshi Maeda and John Rauschkolb tried to kill each other at Pearl Harbor. This week, now both 85, they met face-to-face for the first time _ and shook hands.

The Japanese veteran gripped Rauschkolb's arm with his left hand and briefly hesitated, as if he was searching for the right words. Then he said, "I'm sorry."

On Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese Imperial Navy navigator Maeda guided his Kate bomber to Pearl Harbor and fired a torpedo that helped sink the USS West Virginia.

Rauschkolb, a Navy signalman, stood on the West Virginia's port side as a series of Japanese planes pummeled the battleship with torpedoes and bombs. The West Virginia lost 106 men in the assault.

"He may have been shooting at me," Rauschkolb said as he shook Maeda's hand.

Overcoming the legacy of the attack, the Japanese who bombed Pearl Harbor and the Americans who survived the attack are coming together during a five-day series of Pearl Harbor attack anniversary observations in Hawaii.

Some, like Maeda and Rauschkolb, shake hands spontaneously after being introduced.

Others are doing so before crowds in a symbolic show of peace, like the Japanese and American World War II aviators scheduled to attend the opening of the new Pacific Aviation Museum on Thursday.

A significant share of veterans from both countries say they respect each other as professional military men who fought for their countries. Now in their 80s and 90s, they don't want to live burdened with hatred and want to die with peace in their hearts.

Rauschkolb, who had to swim under burning fuel to escape bullets being fired at him from a Japanese Zero fighter, admitted "it's difficult to accept" shaking hands with someone who fired a torpedo at his ship.

But he never believed, even during World War II, in hating his Japanese foes.

"I've never held anything against them," said Rauschkolb, wearing a white aloha shirt and his Pearl Harbor survivors' cap. "They were doing their job. I was doing my job. We were military. They were taking orders. I was taking orders."

Not all veterans can bring themselves put the past behind them. For some, the memories are too painful and their loyalty to fallen comrades too strong for them to reach out.

Don Stratton, a USS Arizona sailor who suffered burns over 60 to 70 percent of his body, said embracing the Japanese who carried out the attack is out of the question.

"I don't stand beside them. I don't sit beside them. I don't shake hands with them," Stratton said. "There's a thousand men out there on that ship that lost 65 years of their life and I'm sure they would not shake hands with them."

Over 1,100 died aboard the Arizona, accounting for almost half of the 2,390 Americans killed that day.

Maeda has been trying to make amends since 1991, when he and a few other Japanese Pearl Harbor veterans flew to Hawaii for the 50th anniversary of the attack.

He's since become friends with dozens of Pearl Harbor survivors, including many who have visited him in Japan. When in Honolulu, Maeda always pays his respects at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, where his friend Richard Fiske, another USS West Virginia survivor, was buried after his death two years ago.

"War is between countries. It has nothing to do with us as individuals. We have no quarrel," Maeda said. "So when the war ends, of course you should make up."

Japanese dive bomber pilot Zenji Abe, 90, led the push for reconciliation when he visited Hawaii with Maeda and other Japanese veterans in 1991. He said he wanted to apologize for bombing Oahu before the Japanese government declared war.

Japan's aviators took off from their aircraft carriers that morning believing their government had already delivered the declaration, Abe said. Striking before doing so was dishonorable and went against Japanese traditions of "bushido" or the way of the samurai, Abe said.

"Even if you are executing an early morning attack, you may not hurt your opponent if he is sleeping. You must make him stand and then go at him with your sword. This is bushido," Abe said. The assault "violated our nation's ideals. I felt bad," he said.

To atone, Abe asked Fiske _ the West Virginia survivor who also became Maeda's friend _ to place two roses on the USS Arizona Memorial on his behalf each month.

Fiske continued the ritual for 12 years until he died.

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On the Net:

http://www.pearlharbormemorial.com

http://www.pacificaviationmuseum.org