Oldest U.S. military survivor of Pearl Harbor dies at age 106

Ray Chavez, the oldest U.S. military survivor of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor that plunged the United States into World War II, died Wednesday. He was 106.

Chavez, who had been battling pneumonia, died in his sleep in the San Diego suburb of Poway, his daughter, Kathleen Chavez, told The Associated Press.

As recently as last May he had travelled to Washington, D.C., where he was honoured on Memorial Day by President Donald Trump. The White House Tweeted a statement Wednesday saying it was saddened to hear of his passing.

“We were honoured to host him at the White House earlier this year,’’ the statement said. “Thank you for your service to our great nation, Ray!’’

Daniel Martinez, chief historian for the National Park Service at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, confirmed Wednesday that Chavez was the oldest survivor of the attack that killed 2,335 U.S. military personnel and 68 civilians.

“I still feel a loss,’’ Chavez said during 2016 ceremonies marking the attack’s 75th anniversary. “We were all together. We were friends and brothers. I feel close to all of them.’’

Hours before the attack, he was aboard the minesweeper USS Condor as it patrolled the harbour’s east entrance when he and others saw the periscope of a Japanese submarine. They notified a destroyer that sunk it shortly before Japanese bombers arrived to strafe the harbour.

By then Chavez, who had worked through the early morning hours, had gone to his nearby home to sleep, ordering his wife not to wake him because he had been up all night.

“It seemed like I only slept about 10 minutes when she called me and said, ‘We’re being attacked,’ ‘’ he recalled in 2016. “And I said, ‘Who is going to attack us?’ ‘’

“She said, ‘The Japanese are here, and they’re attacking everything.’ ‘’

He ran back to the harbour to find it in flames.

Chavez would spend the next week there, working around the clock sifting through the destruction that had crippled the U.S. Navy’s Pacific fleet.