U.S. Navy veteran Harry Chandler, a medic who helped rescue injured service-members from the water during the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941, died earlier this week at the age of 103. There are just 15 survivors of that devastating attack who now remain living.
Chandler, according to his grandson-in-law Ron Mahaffee, passed away in Florida at a senior living center, The Associated Press reported. It was also noted that while he had suffered from congestive heart failure, the cause of death was primarily attributed to his age.
“Pearl Harbor survivor Harry Chandler who passed away on Monday at the age of 103. Chandler was serving as a hospital corpsman 3rd class when the Japanese attacked on 7 Dec 1941. He boarded a boat and helped pull oil-covered sailors from the water,” the U.S. Naval Institute shared photos of Chandler on Wednesday.
Chandler was interviewed about his experience when he returned to the Hawaiian naval base in 2023 for the 82nd anniversary of the attack, and he said that even eight decades later, the events of that terrible morning were still fresh in his mind.
“I look out there, and I can still see what’s going on. I can still see what was happening,” he told The AP.
The Sunday morning of the attack, Chandler told the outlet that he was raising the flag over an Aiea Heights mobile hospital near the base when he saw the planes coming in.
“I thought they were planes coming in from the states until I saw the bombs dropping,” Chandler explained, adding, “I was afraid that they’d start strafing.”
Ignoring his first instinct, which he said was to “get the hell out of here,” he first boarded a truck down to the base and then a boat out to the burning and damaged destroyers and carriers in the water. Once there, he assisted other medics in pulling injured sailors from the harbor, many of them coated in oil.
“It got so busy you weren’t scared. Weren’t scared at all. We were busy. It was after you got scared,” he explained, saying that there wasn’t really time to think about the fact that he could have been killed while there were lives to save. “But you didn’t think about that while you were busy taking care of people.”
According to Kathleen Farley, the California state chair of the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors, only 15 survivors remain following Chandler’s passing.
