The Daily Populous Saturday December 28th, 2024 evening edition
Authored by apnews.com and submitted by GoodSamaritan_

HONOLULU (AP) — Warren Upton, the oldest living survivor of the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the last remaining survivor of the USS Utah, has died. He was 105.

Upton died Wednesday at a hospital in Los Gatos, California, after suffering a bout of pneumonia, said Kathleen Farley, the California state chair of the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors.

The Utah, a battleship, was moored at Pearl Harbor when Japanese planes began bombing the Hawaii naval base in the early hours of Dec. 7, 1941, in an attack that propelled the U.S. into World War II.

Upton told The Associated Press in 2020 that he had been getting ready to shave when he felt the first torpedo hit the Utah. He recalled that no one on board knew what made the ship shake. Then, the second torpedo hit and the ship began to list and capsize.

The then-22-year-old swam ashore to Ford Island, where he jumped in a trench to avoid Japanese planes strafing the area. He stayed for about 30 minutes until a truck came and took him to safety.

Upton said he didn’t mind talking about what happened during the attack. Instead, what upset him was that he kept losing shipmates over the years. By 2020, there were only three crew members of the Utah still alive, including himself.

There were an estimated 87,000 military personnel on Oahu on the day of the attack, according to military historian J. Michael Wenger. After Upton’s death, there are only 15 still alive.

Fit_Conversation5270 on December 28th, 2024 at 06:22 UTC »

Working EMS where I do I’ve gotten to meet a lot of ww2 vets. I don’t pry on stories but on long transports they’ll share some things. I met one guy who was one of the glider pilots for the Normandy invasion.

It’s a shame he’s gone but 105 is a heck of a life. I hope his last thoughts were something happy, or at least not about getting bombed.

A_Refill_of_Mr_Pibb on December 28th, 2024 at 04:47 UTC »

He was already in his 20s. An 8-year-old boy when they put sound in movies. Middle aged when they added color to TV. I wonder how many who live a century keep diaries. They've seen so much change and so much stay the same.

mabols on December 28th, 2024 at 04:45 UTC »

History book has written the final chapter on that one.