Nation’s oldest Pearl Harbor survivor dies

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

Kathleen Chavez, who had been her father’s live-in caregiver for more than 20 years, said he passed away peacefully in his sleep in the predawn hours Wednesday. His health had declined in recent weeks, and he was on hospice care when he died.

Memorial services are pending, but Kathleen said her father asked to be buried at Miramar National Cemetery.

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 had been an invited guest at the White House, at numerous commemorative events in California and Hawaii and a frequent local parade grand marshal.

The softspoken Chavez often said he was overwhelmed by the media attention but was proud to represent his country.

Chavez was born in San Bernardino, Calif., 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 welcomed a daughter. Then in 1938, at age 27, he joined the Navy and was assigned to the minesweeper USS Condor at Pearl Harbor.

At 3:45 a.m. on 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 the whole harbor was on fire. And when I got outside, I saw that everything was black from all the burning oil.”

Chavez 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.

Chavez worked 30 years as a groundskeeper at the University of California, San Diego, then ran his own landscaping and groundskeeping business in the Poway area until he finally retired at age 96.