John Earle, 92, believed to be Hawaii's last USS Arizona survivor
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John Horatio Earle, believed to be last crew member of the battleship
USS Arizona living in Hawaii, died of heart failure Tuesday at the
Queen's Medical Center.
The national USS Arizona Survivors Association has considered retired
Marine Col. Earle, who celebrated his 92nd birthday with a glass of
champagne on Jan. 7, the only crew member still living in Hawaii. He
was one of 85 Marines assigned to the Arizona, which was sunk in Pearl
Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
Ruth Campbell, who headed last year's reunion of Arizona survivors,
told the Star-Bulletin there are no records of how many of Arizona's
334 sailors who survived the Japanese attack are still living today.
The records of her association can account for only 34 Arizona
survivors. The group has held a Honolulu reunion every five years since
1978.
In the fall of 1941, Earle had just been promoted to captain and was
assigned to the battleship USS Tennessee and ordered to the Arizona on
Dec. 6.
Earle recounted in the Pearl Harbor Survivor Oral Project that
throughout Dec. 6, until 9:30 that night, he was involved in taking
inventory.
Earle did not spend the night on the Arizona. He was with his wife in
their Ala Wai apartment.
The next morning, from the lanai of his Waikiki apartment, Earle said,
he could "see anti-aircraft bursts covering the area."
He caught a cab to Pearl Harbor with sailors from the Tennessee, and
when they arrived at Pearl Harbor, it "looked like a scene from the
Inferno. The second attack wave was still in progress, and the Arizona,
already destroyed, was belching thick black smoke that was to continue
for days."
Earle caught a boat from Merry Point Landing to Ford Island, "a scene
of complete devastation."
Earle said 12 enlisted Marines from his 85-member detachment had swum
to Ford Island and taken refuge in a bomb shelter just a few feet from
where the Arizona was berthed.
After the Japanese attack, Earle led Marine detachments fortifying and
preparing to defend Lualualei Ammunition Depot in Waianae against
possible Japanese landings.
His daughter, Jane Earle-Dabrowski, a Punahou School teacher, said her
father initially wanted to be a Marine pilot after graduating from
Virginia Military Institute in 1936, but had flunked the flight exam
because of his vision.
"Following the attack on Pearl Harbor," Earle-Dabrowski said, "vision
requirements were relaxed. It was one eye, two eyes ... yep, you were
qualified, my dad would later joke."
Earle graduated from flight school in 1942 and commanded a dive-bomber
squadron in the Philippines, flying Corsairs and SBDs.
His World War II combat awards included the Distinguished Flying Cross
and Air Medal. Earle retired from the Marine Corps in 1961 and joined
his family, which moved to Hawaii in 1958.
Earle attended graduate school at the University of Hawaii and would
later teach history there.
His daughter said her father was an avid painter and was active in the
Hawaii Watercolor Society. His home near Punahou School was decorated
with watercolors he had painted during the numerous trips he took with
his wife, Barbara, a retired Punahou School teacher to whom he had been
married for 68 years.
"My father would decorate the sonnets he wrote for my mother with
watercolors. He wrote sonnets for every occasion. They were an amazing
couple."
Earle was born on Jan. 7, 1915, in Reading, Pa.
Other survivors include sons John and Thomas, daughter Susan McLane,
six grandchildren and four great grandchildren.
Private inurnment will be held Feb. 5 at the National Cemetery of the
Pacific.
Memorial services will be held at 4 p.m. Feb. 6 at Central Union
Church. The family requests no flowers.