What happened at Pearl Harbor of Dec. 7, 1941, is still—75 years after the event—one of the most notorious events in American memory. The surprise Japanese attack precipitated the entry of the United States into World War II, one of the 20th century’s defining conflicts, and in turn altered the shape of global power. Post-war American dominance, the economic impact of the fight, the balance of interests in the Pacific—these developments still affect our world today.

And now, in the virtual reality experience Remembering Pearl Harbor, you can see Pearl Harbor from a whole new perspective.

The interactive room-scale experience, produced for LIFE VR by Deluxe VR in partnership with HTC and AMD, brings you back to 1941, as you experience Pearl Harbor and its aftermath through the eyes of Lt. Jim Downing, who was postmaster on the USS West Virginia. Now 103, he is one of the oldest living American veterans to have survived that day. His emotional story is a window into how Pearl Harbor changed not just the world, but also the lives of the thousands of people directly affected by the attack.