Joseph Langdell | Pearl Harbor survivor, 100

Retired Navy Lt. Cmdr. Joseph Langdell, 100, the oldest living crew member of the battleship Arizona to have survived the Pearl Harbor attack, died Feb. 4 at a nursing home in Yuba City, Calif.

A tally by the USS Arizona Reunion Association, for which Mr. Langdell had served as president, identified him as not only the oldest Arizona survivor, but the last surviving officer from the ship that lost 1,177 men - nearly four-fifths of its crew - when it was bombed Dec. 7, 1941.

Mr. Langdell was an ensign on an assignment that had him sleeping on a military base adjacent to the ship in Honolulu on the morning Pearl Harbor was attacked. He spent the following hours and days trying to rescue shipmates from the burning water, preparing for another possible assault, and leading the survivors tasked with removing the dead from the partially sunken ship, his son Ted said.

The New Hampshire native spent an additional four years in the Navy before eventually becoming the longtime owner of a Yuba City furniture store.

Ted Langdell said his father returned to Pearl Harbor for the first time in 1976. After that, he took comfort in meeting with fellow survivors and pride in always wearing a USS Arizona hat.

His ashes will be put aboard the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii, mostly likely on Dec. 7.

The reunion association says eight survivors remain. - AP