Bob Fernandez, a 100-year-old survivor of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, died shortly after deteriorating well being prompted him to skip a visit to Hawaii to attend final week’s remembrance ceremony marking the 83rd anniversary of the assault.
Fernandez died peacefully on the Lodi, California, residence of his nephew, Joe Guthrie, on Wednesday. Guthrie’s daughter, Halie Torrrell, was holding his hand when he took his final breath. Fernandez had suffered a stroke a couple of month in the past that precipitated him to decelerate, however Guthrie mentioned medical doctors attributed his situation to age.
“It was his time,” Guthrie mentioned.
Fernandez was a 17-year-old sailor on board the USS Curtiss throughout the 17 December 1941 assault that propelled the US into the second world battle. A large number prepare dinner, he was ready tables and bringing sailors morning espresso and meals once they heard an alarm sound. By means of a porthole, Fernandez noticed a aircraft fly by with the crimson ball insignia identified to be painted on Japanese plane.
He rushed down three decks to {a magazine} room the place he and different sailors waited for somebody to unlock a door storing shells so they might move them to the ship’s weapons. He advised interviewers through the years that a few of his fellow sailors have been praying and crying as they heard gunfire above.
“I felt sort of scared as a result of I didn’t know what the hell was occurring,” Fernandez advised the Related Press in an interview weeks earlier than his dying.
Fernandez’s ship misplaced 21 males, and almost 60 of its sailors have been injured. The bombing killed greater than 2,300 US servicemen. Practically half, or 1,177, have been sailors and Marines on board the USS Arizona, which sank throughout the battle.
“We misplaced numerous good individuals, you already know. They didn’t do nothing,” Fernandez mentioned. “However we by no means know what’s going to occur in a battle.”
Fernandez had been planning to return to Pearl Harbor final week to attend an annual commemoration hosted by the navy and the Nationwide Park Service however grew to become too weak to make the journey, Guthrie mentioned.
He was “so proud” of his six years within the navy, all of it aboard the USS Curtiss, Guthrie mentioned. Most of his informal garments, like hats and shirts, have been associated to his service.
“It was simply fully ingrained in him,” his nephew mentioned.
Fernandez labored as a forklift driver at a cannery in San Leandro, California, after the battle. His spouse of 65 years, Mary Fernandez, died in 2014.
He loved music and dancing, and till just lately attended weekly music performances at a neighborhood park and a restaurant. He helped neighbors in his trailer park handle their yards till he moved in with Guthrie final 12 months.
“I’d do yard work and cut up firewood and he’d swing the axe a bit of bit,” Guthrie mentioned. “We’d name it his bodily remedy.”
Fernandez’s recommendation for dwelling an extended life included stopping consuming as soon as he was full and marching up stairs. He mentioned it was OK to take a nap, however to do one thing like laundry or wash dishes earlier than going to mattress. He really useful being variety to everybody.
Guthrie mentioned he thinks Fernandez would need to be remembered for bringing individuals pleasure.
“He would rake individuals’s yards in the event that they couldn’t do it. He would paint a fence. He would assist any individual,” Guthrie mentioned. “He would give individuals cash in the event that they wanted one thing. He was so beneficiant and such a form individual. He made mates all over the place.”
Fernandez is survived by his oldest son, Robert J Fernandez, a granddaughter and a number of other great-grandchildren.
There are 16 identified survivors of Pearl Harbor who’re nonetheless alive, based on a listing maintained by Kathleen Farley, the California state chair of the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors. All of them are at the least 100 years previous.
Fernandez’s dying would have introduced the quantity to fifteen however Farley just lately discovered of an extra survivor.
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