A 100-year-old Pearl Harbor survivor — the oldest living Navy crew member of the USS Arizona to survive the attack — died Feb. 4, his family said.
Retired Navy Lt. Cmdr. Joseph Langdell’s death was
announced on the USS Arizona Reunion Association website by his son, Ted Langdell.
“He was 100 years, three months, and 24 days old” his son wrote on the site. “A long-time listener to classical music, Beethoven's Symphony No. 3, ‘The Eroica’ played him off this life's stage. Langdell was — insofar as the USS Arizona Reunion Association knows — the last surviving officer from the USS Arizona. His ashes will be entombed inside the ship, joining urns with those of more than 30 other USS Arizona Survivors who have chosen to rejoin the more than 900 sailors and officers who remain aboard, casualties of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Dec. 7, 1941.”
Joseph Langnell told The Associated Press previously, when interviewed about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that pulled the United States into World War II, "I felt absolutely helpless as I watched the attack. If I had been aboard, I would have been killed in that No. 2 (gun) turret. That was the one that blew up. It was my luck to be assigned off the ship that day."
Ted Langdell told the AP that his father only returned to Pearl Harbor in 1976, when his oldest son, John Langdell, was in the Navy.
Langdell shared the many life skills his father had on the reunion website, ranging from the using wood stoves and driving horse-drawn buggies to cranking party lines and using computers.
“For Joe Langdell — loquacious, lover of a good story and the life of many parties — the party that just ended here will be well remembered by many, while another is likely to just be starting,” Ted Langdell wrote.
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