He was 23 years old when he took part in the attack that triggered America’s declaration of war against Japan. He rarely spoke publicly about it.
Masamitsu Yoshioka, the last known survivor among some 770 crew members who manned the Japanese airborne armada that attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, has died. He was 106.
His death was announced on social media on Aug. 28 by the Japanese journalist and author Takashi Hayasaki, who spoke with Mr. Yoshioka last year. He provided no other details.
“When I met him last year, he spoke many valuable words with a dignified presence,” Mr. Hayasaki wrote. “Have Japanese people forgotten something important since the end of the war? What is war? What is peace? What is life? Rest in peace.”
In the almost 80 years since World War II ended, Mr. Yoshioka, who lived in the Adachi ward of Tokyo, said he had visited the Yasukuni Shrine to pray for the souls of his fellow combat veterans, including the 64 Japanese who died during the attack on the American base in Hawaii. Japan lost 29 aircraft and five submarines.
But Mr. Yoshioka — who as a 23-year-old bombardier dropped a torpedo that, by mistake, sunk the unarmed battleship U.S.S. Utah — rarely spoke publicly about the 15 minutes over Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, which President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously described as a date that will live in infamy.
He explained last year in an interview with Jason Morgan, an associate professor at Reitaku University in Kashiwa, for the English-language website Japan Forward, “I’m ashamed that I’m the only one who survived and lived such a long life.”
