HONOLULU Warren Upton, the final survivor of the USS Utah and the oldest surviving survivor of the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, passed away. He was 105 years old.
According to Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors California state chair Kathleen Farley, Upton passed away Wednesday in a Los Gatos, California, hospital following a bout with pneumonia.
The U.S. entered World War II as a result of Japanese planes bombing the Hawaii naval base in the early hours of December 7, 1941, while the battleship Utah was moored at Pearl Harbor.
In 2020, Upton told The Associated Press that he felt the first torpedo strike the Utah when he was preparing to shave. Nobody on board knew what was causing the ship to tremble, he remembered. The ship then started to list and capsize when the second torpedo struck.
In order to evade Japanese planes strafing the area, the 22-year-old swam ashore to Ford Island and jumped in a ditch. Before a truck arrived and carried him to safety, he remained there for around half an hour.
According to Upton, discussing the events of the incident didn’t bother him. Rather, it was the loss of shipmates throughout the years that irritated him. He and the other three crew members of the Utah were the only ones still living by 2020.
Military historian J. Michael Wenger estimates that 87,000 military men were on Oahu on the day of the attack. Only fifteen people remain living after Upton’s passing.
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