Right now, though, I want America to know what happened in Pearl Harbour — I don’t believe that a lot of people even think about it anymore — and to recognise that, in this world, even in America, anything can happen at any time.’

2nd Class on the USS Vestal and had been cutting the lines that attached the vessel to the USS Arizona – but he disobeyed orders from his superior and risked court-martial to throw a lead-weighted line in Stratton’s direction.

One by one, Stratton and six others moved over the ‘inflamed water’ to get to the Vestal.

‘My body was burned, my hands were raw, and I was focused on survival. I never thought about not making it.’

The seven who had had their lives saved by George fought to have him receive the Medal of Honor but as he’d disobeyed a direct order, he only ever received a lesser medal.

After the attack, Stratton spent 10 months in hospital in Hawaii and California.

He weighed just 92 pounds – half as much as the day he’d enlisted and was forced to learn to walk again.

Doctors feared his left arm would never heal and had wanted to amputate it.

‘No, you’re not cutting my damned arm off. I’d rather it lay there than have it missing,’ Stratton told them – and over the next few years, he regained complete use of that arm.

Finally in September 1942, Stratton received a medical discharge after being deemed unfit for combat and went home to Nebraska.

He wrote: ‘My family cried when they saw me, but they didn’t ask about what happened on the Arizona.’

But after a year at home, Stratton re-enlisted.

He ended up passing Pearl Harbor again on his way to the South Pacific for the Battle of Okinawa in the spring of 1945.

He saw the completely destroyed Arizona and thought about the 1,100 men who gave their lives for their country.

In July 1945, Stratton was given leave from combat and traveled to San Diego to attend electric-hydraulics school.

A month later when nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Stratton said he felt ‘relief.’

But he concluded: Looking back, I realise that the Japanese were doing their duty the way we were.

‘Right now, though, I want America to know what happened in Pearl Harbour — I don’t believe that a lot of people even think about it anymore — and to recognise that, in this world, even in America, anything can happen at any time.’