Oldest Pearl Harbor survivor now lives in Massachusetts

Freeman Johnson, a 106-year-old Navy veteran from Centerville, Massachusetts, was below deck repairing a boiler on the USS St. Louis during the Pearl Harbor attack. He did not witness the surprise bombing, did not hear antiaircraft gunfire, and only learned limited details because his role as a fireman did not require information. When he eventually went topside, the ship had already evaded midget submarines and left the area safely. Johnson said he could see only ocean and that sailors were not told what they did not need to know. He told children they were too busy to be scared and that fear was hard to define without visibility. After the death of another veteran, only 11 survivors remained.

"On the day of the Pearl Harbor attack, the country's oldest living survivor of the Japanese bombing was far below deck helping repair one the boilers of the USS St. Louis. Freeman Johnson, who turned 106 in March, never witnessed the surprise attack. He never heard his shipmates firing antiaircraft guns at the attacking planes - shooting down a torpedo plane. By the time he was topside, the St. Louis, a light cruiser, had evaded midget submarines and safely get out to sea."

""While all the rigamarole was going on topside, I was inside a steam drum. Couldn't see anything, absolutely nothing," said Johnson, a Centerville, Massachusetts, resident whose living room is filled with mementos and photos of his Navy service, including photos of the St. Louis and him as a young sailor, along with a collection of Navy challenge coins and ribbons representing the places he visited. He still has his military identification tag - popularly known as dog tag."

""We were way out to sea, way out. You couldn't see any land at all. All you saw was ocean," he said. "I was just a sailor, just a swabbie, I was not an officer. They don't tell you anything if you don't need to know. And I didn't need know it. So they tell you nothing.""

""You're not scared. You're too busy to be scared," he said, his gravelly voice rising. "Besides, you don't know what you're scared of. You can't see anything. What are you afraid of?" Johnson became the oldest survivor after World War II Navy veteran Ira "Ike" Schab died in December. He was 105. With Schab's passing, there remain only 11 survivors of the surprise attack, which killed just over"

Read at Boston.com