Warren Upton, the oldest living survivor of the attack on Pearl Harbor, dies at 105

HONOLULU — 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 from pneumonia, said Kathleen Farley, California state president 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 December 7, 1941, in an attack that thrust the US into World War II.

Upton told the Associated Press in 2020 that he was preparing to shave when he felt the first torpedo hit the Utah. He remembered that no one on board knew what caused the ship to shake. Then the second torpedo hit and the ship began to tilt and capsize.

The then 22-year-old swam ashore to Ford Island, where he jumped into a trench to prevent Japanese planes from shelling the area. He stayed for about 30 minutes until a truck arrived and took him to safety.

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

According to military historian J. Michael Wenger, there were an estimated 87,000 troops on Oahu on the day of the attack. After Upton’s death, only fifteen are left alive.