On the day of the Pearl Harbor attack, the country's oldest living survivor of the Japanese bombing was far below deck helping repair one of the boilers of the USS St. Louis. Freeman Johnson, who turned 106 in March, never witnessed the surprise attack, recounts the AP. He never heard his shipmates firing anti-aircraft guns at the attacking planes—shooting down a torpedo plane. By the time he was topside, the St. Louis, a light cruiser, had evaded midget submarines and safely set out to sea.
"While all the rigamarole was going on topside, I was inside a steam drum. Couldn't see anything, absolutely nothing," said Johnson, a Centerville, Massachusetts, resident whose living room is filled with mementos and photos of his Navy service. When he visited schools years afterward, children often asked Johnson whether he was scared that day. "You're not scared. You're too busy to be scared," he said, his gravelly voice rising. "Besides, you don't know what you're scared of. You can't see anything. What are you afraid of?"
Johnson became the oldest survivor after World War II Navy veteran Ira "Ike" Schab died in December. He was 105. With Schab's passing and the death of Clarence Lane in February at the age of 100, there remain only 11 survivors of the surprise attack, which killed just over 2,400 Americans and propelled the United States into the war. The US pays tribute to the nation's fallen service members on Memorial Day, which takes place Monday.
For most of his life, Johnson avoided the spotlight and talked little about surviving the bombing. After all, he was one of the tens of thousands sailors who were there on that tragic day. He recalled that his wife, Ruth, "thought that was something special," so she called the Navy and "the girl laughed at her." But as the oldest survivor, he's become a local celebrity and the reluctant face of one of the most important events in World War II. Read the full story.
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