Dec. 27 (UPI) — Warren “Red” Upton, the oldest living Pearl Harbor survivor who was serving aboard the USS Utah during the 1941 Japanese surprise attack, has died at age 105, a veterans group has announced.
Upton, who died on Christmas Day after a short hospital stay, was also the last living survivor of the USS Utah, which was hit by torpedoes and sunk at the start of the attack on Dec. 7, 1941, the Hawaiian nonprofit organization Pacific Historic Parks/USS Arizona Memorial said Thursday in a Facebook post.
Fifty-eight of Utah’s crew died in the Pearl Harbor attack.
Upton passed away “surrounded by his loving family,” the group wrote, adding that funeral services are pending.
The former radioman died at a hospital in San Jose, Calif., Stars and Stripes reported.
Pacific Historic Parks said Upton was serving was aboard USS Utah when it was hit and began to capsize. At that point, he and others abandoned ship and swam to Ford Island, along the way helping another shipmate who couldn’t swim.
Many of those who died aboard the Utah were unable to escape the ship as it rolled over.
After Pearl Harbor, Upton continued to serve as a radioman and once World War II ended he returned home, married and had a family.
He was preceded in death by his wife, Gene, a former Navy nurse, in 2018.
