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Harry Chandler, a Navy a medic who helped pull injured sailors from the oily waters of Pearl Harbor after 1941. Japanese attack on naval base, killed. He was 103 years old.
Chandler died Monday at a senior center in Tekesta, Floridaaccording to Ron Mahaffee, husband of his granddaughter Kelli Fahey. Chandler had congestive heart failure, but Mahaffee said doctors and nurses noted his advanced age when they gave the cause of death.
The third Pearl Harbor survivor to die in recent weeks, Chandler was a hospital orderly 3rd class on December 7, 1941, when the waves Japanese fighter jets dropped bombs and fired machine guns at battleships in port and thrust the US into World War II.
He told The Associated Press in 2023 that he saw planes approaching as he was raising a flag that morning at the mobile hospital in Aiea Heights, which is in the hills above the base.
“I thought they were planes coming from the States until I saw the bombs falling,” Chandler said. His first instinct was to duck and “get the hell out of here.”
“I was afraid they would start shooting,” he said.
His unit went down in trucks to help the injured. He said in an oral history interview with Pacific Historic Parks that he boarded the boat to help pull the wounded sailors out of the water.
The harbor was covered in oil from the exploding ships, so Chandler washed the sailors after pulling them out. He said he was too focused on his work to be afraid.
“It was so busy that you weren’t scared. I wasn’t scared at all. We were busy. It was after you got scared,” Chandler said.
He later realized that he could have been killed, “But you didn’t think about that when you were busy taking care of people.”
More than 2,300 American soldiers died in the attack. Almost half, or 1,177, were sailors and Marines aboard the USS Arizona, which sank nine minutes after being bombed.
Chandler’s memories came flooding back when he visited Pearl Harbor for the 2023 ceremony marking the 82nd anniversary of the bombing.
“I look outside and I can still see what’s going on. I can still see what happened,” Chandler told The Associated Press.
Asked what he wanted Americans to know about Pearl Harbor, he said: “Be prepared.”
“We should have known this was going to happen. “Intelligence has to be better,” he said.
After the war, Chandler worked as a painter and wallpaper hanger and bought an upholstery business with his brother. He also joined the Navy Reserve, retiring as a senior chief in 1981.
Chandler was born in Holyoke, Mass., and lived most of his adult life in nearby South Hadley, Mahaffee said. In recent decades, he has divided his time between Massachusetts and Florida.
An avid golfer, he hit five holes-in-one in his lifetime, his grandson added.
Chandler had one biological daughter and adopted two daughters from his second marriage, to Anna Chandler, who died in 2004. He is survived by one daughter, nine grandchildren, 17 great-grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
Military historian J. Michael Wenger estimated that there were about 87,000 troops on the island of Oahu on the day of the attack. With Chandler’s death, only 15 are still alive, according to records maintained by Kathleen Farley, president of the California State Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors.
Bob Fernandez, who served on the USS Curtiss, also died this month, at age 100, and Warren Upton, 105, who served on the USS Utah, died last week.