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Joe Langdell is part of a small and special, but vanishing, group of Americans — USS Arizona survivors.
He's one of 25 known living crew members of the 335 who survived the Japanese sinking of the battleship 66 years ago today, and one of four in town this weekend for the USS Arizona Reunion Association at the Hotel Arizona Downtown.
"There aren't many of us left," said retired Lt. Cmdr. Langdell, 93, of Yuba City, Calif.
The other survivors at the reunion are Clinton Westbrook, Milton Hurst and Glenn Lane.
Arizona survivors and their families and friends come to Tucson each year, with the exception of every five years when they gather in Hawaii, where the sunken battleship is a memorial.
But as the time takes away the remaining survivors, association members say it becomes more important that it continues to honor the dead and to remember what happened.
"The main purpose of the association is to educate people," said Lane, 89, of Washington state.
On Thursday the survivors spoke to three fifth-grade classes at Fruchthendler Elementary School in the Sabino Canyon area.
By remembering the attack on Pearl Harbor, which precipitated the declaration of war, Lane said it will remind America to remain alert. He likened Dec. 7, 1941, to Sept. 11, 2001.
On that December day, Lane, an aircraft radioman, was on the ship. He awoke at 6 a.m. to reveille and had breakfast.
It wasn't long after when he heard explosions. Lane went topside and saw a plane "with a big meatball on it."
It was a Japanese Zero.
Langdell, the only surviving officer from the Arizona, was a 26-year-old ensign at the time of the attack. He was in the bachelor officers' quarters, about 100 yards away on shore when the Japanese attacked the fleet and other parts of Hawaii.
The ship took four direct hits from bombs. The last bomb pierced the deck and detonated within a powder magazine. The explosion ripped the Arizona into two.
Langdell ran to the water's edge to help the men who had escaped the burning, exploding and sinking ship.
Of the sailors and Marines on board that Sunday morning, 1,177 died and more than 900 were entombed in the destroyed vessel, said Bud Nease, retired from the Navy and historian of the USS Arizona.
When the final bomb hit the Arizona, a fireball erupted. Lane, who was feverishly trying to extinguish fires, was swept off the ship into the oil-covered water.
He recovered, swam to the USS Nevada and got on board, only for it to be hit. He ended up in the hospital to recover from his burns and he spent the next 30 years in the Navy. Lane retired in 1969 as a master chief.
Nearly seven decades later the images "are almost as vivid as that day," said Langdell, who was mustered out in 1946.
It's not just the fiery images association survivors have kept alive. The association has maintained the memories of those who died, said Judy Van Singel of Michigan.
An uncle she never met, Carl Albert Weeden, a graduate fresh from the U.S. Naval Academy, was an ensign. It was his first assignment.
That's why she and her husband, Maynard Van Singel, attend the association's reunions.
"I want to learn more and honor the family history," she said.
Sunday the group will attend an 11 a.m. memorial service in the Arizona Room in the university's Student Union Memorial Center.
● Contact columnist Ernesto Portillo Jr. at 573-4242 or eportillo@azstarnet.com. His blog is at go.azstarnet.com/blogs.
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