Freeman Johnson, who turned 106 in March, has spent much of his life away from the spotlight. Today he is known locally as the oldest surviving American who was in uniform the day Japan attacked Pearl Harbor — though he never actually saw the bombing.
On December 7, 1941, Johnson was below deck on the light cruiser USS St. Louis, working on a boiler as a ship’s fireman. He remembers being inside a steam drum and getting no view of the chaos above. By the time he made it topside, the St. Louis had already maneuvered past midget submarines and put to sea; he never heard the antiaircraft guns and missed seeing a torpedo plane shot down.
“I couldn’t see anything, absolutely nothing,” he says now. When children ask whether he was scared that day, his answer is matter-of-fact: “You’re not scared. You’re too busy to be scared. Besides, you don’t know what you’re scared of.” He still keeps his dog tag and a living room full of Navy photos, ribbons and challenge coins that mark a life of service and travel.
Johnson, a Centerville, Massachusetts resident, became the oldest surviving Pearl Harbor veteran after World War II Navy veteran Ira “Ike” Schab died last December at 105. With Schab’s passing, only about 11 survivors remain of the tens of thousands stationed on Oahu that day — out of an estimated 87,000 troops present during the attack that killed just over 2,400 service members and thrust the United States fully into World War II.
Memorial observances for those who died that day continue each year; once thousands of survivors made the pilgrimage to Hawaii, but attendance has fallen dramatically as the veterans age. In 1991 some 2,000 survivors attended the 50th anniversary ceremony. In recent years only a handful have gone; in 2024 just two survivors made the trip.
For most of his life Johnson shied away from public recognition. A 19-year-old from Waltham who had been unemployed, he joined the Navy because he figured it would be less grueling than marching across Europe with a heavy pack. “If I wanted to go somewhere, I walked or took my bicycle. But I didn’t want to walk from France to Germany,” he said, describing the physical demands that drove his decision.
His wartime service extended beyond the St. Louis. He helped commission the battleship USS Iowa and recalls preparations in November 1943 when the ship carried President Franklin D. Roosevelt to the Tehran Conference, a major Allied meeting with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin. The Iowa was lightened for the trip and later reloaded; Johnson remembers the crew being photographed with Roosevelt as the ship ferried him to and from the conference.
He also watched the end of the war from the Iowa’s mast: on September 2, 1945, he looked out over Tokyo Bay and saw the surrender ceremonies aboard the USS Missouri. “It was all over,” he remembers. “A bunch of us got together — the war is over. Let’s go home.”
In recent years his daughter Diane has encouraged him to tell his story and joined him at Pearl Harbor remembrance events, including the 65th and 80th anniversaries. Diane says she feels a responsibility to preserve his memories for younger generations who weren’t taught much about the bombing in school.
Johnson’s public profile grew after Diane corrected a local television report that wrongly suggested the state’s last survivor had died. Since then he’s received letters from around the world, been chauffeured to his 106th birthday in a limousine and often appears close to the front of the Cape Cod St. Patrick’s Parade. Parade organizers and community members admire his quiet steadiness: “He just gets on and doesn’t complain about anything,” one parade official said.
Age has brought physical limitations: Johnson is hard of hearing, uses a walker and lives with congestive heart failure. Still, he remembers details of his service clearly and manages to keep a wry sense of humor and mischievous smile. For him, Pearl Harbor is part of a long life but not the whole story. After the war he married his wife Ruth, raised three daughters, and worked as a machinist, in a convenience store, and finally delivering meals to seniors until he was 90.
“Pearl Harbor just happened,” he says. The event marked a turning point in history, but Johnson’s defining moments are quieter ones: marriage, family and decades of ordinary work. Even so, he keeps telling the story — because as Diane points out, remembering Pearl Harbor matters for those who come after. He may have been out of sight that December morning more than eight decades ago, but he continues to keep the memory of that day and the wider lessons of the war alive.
