Oldest surviving U.S. veteran of Pearl Harbor

SAN DIEGO — Ray Chavez, widely recognized as the oldest surviving veteran of the attack on Pearl Harbor, died Wednesday at the age of 106.

Mr. Chavez surged into national prominence three years ago when Pearl Harbor veterans recognized him as the oldest survivor of the 1941 Japanese attack that ushered the U.S. into World War II.

Since 2015, he has been an invited guest at the White House and at commemorative events in California and Hawaii as well as a frequent local parade grand marshal.

The soft-spoken Mr. Chavez often said he was overwhelmed by the media attention but he was proud to represent his country.

“Ray was the epitome of the ‘greatest generation,’” said Richard Rovsek, a trustee of the nonprofit Spirit of Liberty Foundation in Rancho Santa Fe. “He was always proud to be an American and proud of the military.”

Mr. Chavez was born in San Bernardino in 1911 and grew up in San Diego’s Old Town and Logan Heights communities, where his large family ran a wholesale flower business.

In his early 20s, he married and had a daughter. Then in 1938, at the age of 27, he joined the Navy and was assigned to the minesweeper USS Condor at Pearl Harbor.

At 3:45 a.m. Dec. 7, 1941, Seaman 1st Class Chavez’s crew was sweeping the east entrance to the harbor when they spotted the periscope of a Japanese midget submarine. After depth charges were dropped to sink the sub in 1,500 feet of water, the rest of the morning passed uneventfully.

He told the San Diego Union-Tribune that he was asleep at home in nearby Ewa Beach when the Japanese bombing raid began at 8:10 a.m.

“My wife ran in and said, ‘We’re being attacked’ and I said, ‘Who’s going to attack us? Nobody.’ She said that the whole harbor was on fire and when I got outside I saw that everything was black from all the burning oil.”

He spent the next nine days on continuous duty in and around Pearl Harbor and said the scenes he witnessed left deep emotional scars.

Over the next four years he rose to the rank of chief, serving on transport ships that delivered tanks and Marines to shore in eight Pacific battles. Although he wasn’t injured during the war, he retired from the Navy in 1945 with psychological wounds from the terrible things he witnessed.

“He said that after a couple of the battles he saw, he started to shake,” his daughter Kathleen Chavez said. “First it was his hands, then it was his arms, then it was his whole body. By the time the war was over, his whole body shook.”

During his exit physical, a doctor wanted Mr. Chavez to spend some time recovering in a mental health clinic, but he feared it would impact his future job opportunities. He declined the offer and moved back to San Diego, where he got a job at a nursery.

After two years of working outdoors in the fresh air, he got better, his daughter said.

He and his daughter went to Hawaii for Pearl Harbor anniversaries and had planned to go again next month, Ms. Chavez said.

“He’d always say: ‘I’m no hero. I just did my job,’” she said.