Pearl Harbor Navy veteran Bob Fernandez is photographed at dwelling in Lodi, Calif., on Nov. 19.
Godofredo A. Vásquez/AP
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Godofredo A. Vásquez/AP
HONOLULU — 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, dwelling of his nephew, Joe Guthrie, on Wednesday. Guthrie’s daughter, Halie Torrrell, was holding his hand when he took his final breath. Fernandez suffered a stroke a couple of month in the past that prompted him to decelerate however Guthrie stated docs attributed his situation to age.
“It was his time,” Guthrie stated.
Fernandez was a 17-year-old sailor on board the usCurtiss throughout the Dec. 7, 1941, assault that propelled the U.S. into World Battle II. A multitude prepare dinner, he was ready tables and bringing sailors morning espresso and meals after they heard an alarm sound. By 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 may cross them to the ship’s weapons. He has advised interviewers over time that a few of his fellow sailors had been praying and crying as they heard gunfire above.
“I felt type of scared as a result of I did not know what the hell was happening,” Fernandez advised The Related Press in an interview weeks earlier than his demise.
Fernandez’s ship, the Curtiss, misplaced 21 males and practically 60 of its sailors had been injured. The bombing killed greater than 2,300 U.S. servicemen. Practically half, or 1,177, had been sailors and Marines on board the usArizona, which sank throughout the battle.
“We misplaced a variety of good folks, you realize. They did not do nothing,” Fernandez stated. “However we by no means know what is going on to occur in a struggle.”
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 turned too weak to make the journey, Guthrie stated.
He was “so proud” of his six years within the Navy, all of it aboard the usCurtiss, Guthrie stated. Most of his informal garments, like hats and shirts, had been associated to his service.
“It was simply fully ingrained in him,” his nephew stated.
Fernandez labored as a forklift driver at a cannery in San Leandro, California, after the struggle. His spouse of 65 years, Mary Fernandez, died in 2014.
He loved music and dancing, and till lately attended weekly music performances at an area park and a restaurant. He helped neighbors in his trailer park handle their yards till he moved in with Guthrie final yr.
“I might do yard work and cut up firewood and he’d swing the axe slightly bit,” Guthrie stated. “We might name it his bodily remedy.”
Fernandez’s recommendation for residing a protracted life included stopping consuming when you’re full and marching up stairs. He stated it was OK to take a nap, however do one thing like laundry or wash dishes earlier than going to mattress. He advisable being form to everybody.
Guthrie stated he thinks Fernandez would wish to be remembered for bringing folks pleasure.
“He would rake folks’s yards in the event that they could not do it. He would paint a fence. He would assist anyone,” Guthrie stated. “He would give folks cash in the event that they wanted one thing. He was so beneficiant and such a form individual. He made mates in every single 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 which can be nonetheless alive, in response to an inventory 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 outdated.
Fernandez’s demise would have introduced the quantity to fifteen however Farley lately realized of an extra survivor.
