Warren Upton, the oldest living survivor of the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack died Wednesday at age 105.
Upton died after suffering from pneumonia, Kathleen Farley, the California state chair of the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors told the Associated Press (AP). The Pacific Historic Parks said on Facebook the 105-year-old died after a short hospital stay surrounded by his family. Upton was also the last remaining survivor of the USS Utah.
The USS Utah battleship was moored at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 when Japanese planes began bombing the naval base in Hawaii, leading to the U.S. involvement in World War II. (RELATED: One Of Pearl Harbor’s Last Remaining Survivors Dies At The Age Of 102).
In a 2020 interview with the AP, Upton recalled he was about to begin shaving when the first torpedo hit the Utah. He said no one on board the battleship knew what caused the ship to start shaking and then, the second torpedo hit, causing the ship to capsize.
Upton was 22 at the time of the attack, the AP reported. He swam ashore to Ford Island where he jumped into a trench to avoid the planes surrounding the area. He waited for roughly 30 minutes before a truck passed by and rescued him.
Warren Upton, the oldest living survivor of the attack on Pearl Harbor, dies at 105 https://t.co/lLL3TyAQEJ pic.twitter.com/s6tAXMW8GT
— New York Post (@nypost) December 28, 2024
He told the AP he didn’t mind discussing what happened that day and rather, what upset him was how many shipmates he lost over the years. In 2020, only Upton and two other crew members of the Utah were alive.
Military historian J. Michael Wenger said there was an estimated 87,000 military personnel on Oahu on Dec. 7, 1941 and after Upton’s death, only 15 are still alive, the AP reported.
During the Pearl Harbor attack, 2,390 Americans were killed, according to the National Park Service. One Japanese solider was taken prisoner following the attack and 129 Japanese soldiers died, records from the National WWII Museum show.
This article was originally published at dailycaller.com
