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Last Pearl Harbor Survivor Passes Away


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Pearl Harbor survivor  Jack Holder Passes Away at 101 .   Local Hawaiian's have long said the oil will leak from the USS Arizona until the last survivor dies .

 

RIP Sir 

 Jack Holder, a Pearl Harbor survivor who went on become a decorated World War II flyer who flew over 100 missions in the Pacific and European theaters, has died in Arizona. He was 101.

Darlene Tryon, a close friend and the executor of Holder’s estate, said he died at Friday at a hospital in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler. The Pearl Harbor National Memorial also announced the death. Born to a farming family in Gunter, Texas, Holder joined the Navy in 1940 when he was 18.

 

He was on duty at Ford Island within Oahu’s Pearl Harbor when Japanese aircraft bombed the U.S. naval base on Dec. 7, 1941.
 

“The first bomb that fell on Pearl Harbor was about 100 yards from me,” Holder said, adding that he “saw guys swimming through burning oil in the water.”

Holder recalled diving into a ditch to avoid gunfire

Hunkered down behind a fortress of sandbags, “I wondered if this was the day I would die,” Holder told the Arizona Republic in a 2016 interview. “That morning I watched as Japanese dive bombers devastated Pearl Harbor. I knew that we would no longer sit on the sidelines of the war ravaging Europe.”

Holder said he spent three harrowing days manning a makeshift machine gun pit, a ditch lined with sandbags, in the aftermath of the attack.

About 2,400 servicemen were killed in the Pearl Harbor attack, which launched the U.S. into World War II. The USS Arizona alone lost 1,177 sailors and Marines, nearly half the death toll.

Holder went on to fight in the Battle of Midway and flew missions over Guadalcanal and the Solomon Islands before being transferred to England and flying missions along the French coast and the English Channel.

 

The Pearl Harbor National Memorial said Holder was awarded two distinguished flying cross medals, six air medals, a presidential citation and six commendation medals in his Navy career before being honorably discharged in 1948.

EDIT :  The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs doesn’t have statistics for how many Pearl Harbor survivors are still living.
So may not be the last but some reports are saying  that he is . 

https://www.militarytimes.com/veterans/2023/03/01/pearl-harbor-survivor-jack-holder-dies-in-arizona-at-age-101/

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And another slice of history passes from this earth.

 

Back when I was young, someone told me that when an old person dies, it's like a library burning to the ground.  Oh the stories he told, and the others he took with him to his eternal rest.

 

Salute, Jack Holder, your duty on this earth is done! :FlagAm:

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Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus
advenio has miseras, frater, ad inferias,
ut te postremo donarem munere mortis
et mutam nequiquam alloquerer cinerem.
Quandoquidem fortuna mihi tete abstulit ipsum.
Heu miser indigne frater adempte mihi,
nunc tamen interea haec, prisco quae more parentum
tradita sunt tristi munere ad inferias,
accipe fraterno multum manantia fletu,
atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.

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He joins my uncle Bill who was killed at Okinawa.  
 

The Greatest Generation is quickly fading away!

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whether he is really the 'last' or not has little to do with the fact that most are gone and they need to be remembered , seems every year we see less remembrances - so no matter what he represents a piece of our history that is slowly fading from memory - its right and just to honor him , 

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My father and two of his brothers served. Dad and Uncle Bill served in the Pacific, but only Dad came home.  Uncle Fred served in Europe and participated in the D-Day invasion. He too came home.

 

They are gone now, but you can damn sure bet the farm that my son, my brother’s children, and both of my grandsons know about them and what they stood for!!

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15 hours ago, Subdeacon Joe said:

Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus
advenio has miseras, frater, ad inferias,
ut te postremo donarem munere mortis
et mutam nequiquam alloquerer cinerem.
Quandoquidem fortuna mihi tete abstulit ipsum.
Heu miser indigne frater adempte mihi,
nunc tamen interea haec, prisco quae more parentum
tradita sunt tristi munere ad inferias,
accipe fraterno multum manantia fletu,
atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.

Would you translate that into English please?

JHC

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22 hours ago, Subdeacon Joe said:

Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus
advenio has miseras, frater, ad inferias,
ut te postremo donarem munere mortis
et mutam nequiquam alloquerer cinerem.
Quandoquidem fortuna mihi tete abstulit ipsum.
Heu miser indigne frater adempte mihi,
nunc tamen interea haec, prisco quae more parentum
tradita sunt tristi munere ad inferias,
accipe fraterno multum manantia fletu,
atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.

Best I can do is (note that many words and phrases can have multiple meanings)

 

He carried many peoples and many horses
 I come to these wretches, brother, to the underworld
 that I might give you the gift of death at last
 and I spoke to no one who was dumb.
 Since fortune took him away from me.
 Alas, my poor unworthy brother, take it from me,
 but now, in the meantime, this is the old fashioned thing of the parents
 they were handed over to the underworld with a sad message
 receive brotherly with many flowing tears,
 and for ever, brother, farewell and good-bye.

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2 minutes ago, Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984 said:

Best I can do is (note that many words and phrases can have multiple meanings)

 

He carried many peoples and many horses
 I come to these wretches, brother, to the underworld
 that I might give you the gift of death at last
 and I spoke to no one who was dumb.
 Since fortune took him away from me.
 Alas, my poor unworthy brother, take it from me,
 but now, in the meantime, this is the old fashioned thing of the parents
 they were handed over to the underworld with a sad message
 receive brotherly with many flowing tears,
 and for ever, brother, farewell and good-bye.

 

 

The translation I found online is
 

Through many countries and over many seas
I have come, Brother, to these melancholy rites,
to show this final honour to the dead,
and speak (to what purpose?) to your silent ashes,
since now fate takes you, even you, from me.
Oh, Brother, ripped away from me so cruelly,
now at least take these last offerings, blessed
by the tradition of our parents, gifts to the dead.
Accept, by custom, what a brother’s tears drown,
and, for eternity, Brother, ‘Hail and Farewell’. 
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