Trivia

Served in three wars, (World War 2, Korea and Vietnam), flying 200 missions as a pilot -- and was shot down twice.

He was the last living survivor of the USS Arizona battleship which exploded and sank during the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. He was a quartermaster at the time.

In the 1950s, he trained Navy pilots and crew on how to survive if they were shot down in the jungle and captured as POWs.

After Pearl Harbor he attended flight school and earned his wings to fly PBY patrol bombers, which were used to look for submarines and bomb enemy targets. He flew 200 combat missions in the Pacific with a "Black Cats" squadron, which conducted dive bombings at night in planes painted black.

Final survivor from the sinking of the USS Arizona during the Pearl Harbor attack that brought the US into World War II. There were 1,177 Americans killed in the attack from the USS Arizona. He was one of the only 335 officers and crewmen who survived.