Freeman Johnson

Freeman Kimball Johnson was a United States Navy veteran of World War II who, at his death in November 2026 at the age of 106, was the oldest known surviving US service member of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He served six years in the Navy, rising from fireman to machinist mate first class, and was below deck repairing a boiler aboard the light cruiser USS St. Louis on the morning of December 7, 1941. In his final years he became a reluctant local celebrity on Cape Cod and one of the last living voices of that day.

He was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, on March 11, 1920, the younger of two children of Kimball and Martha Johnson. His mother died when he was 5, and he and his older sister, Grace, went to live with relatives in Waltham, where his father found work as a paper cutter in a printing shop. He finished high school in the depths of the Great Depression, when jobs were scarce. Unemployed and living at home, he called himself a "prime suspect for the draft." Not wanting to march across Europe with a pack on his back, he enlisted in the Navy in 1939 at the age of 19.

After boot camp in Newport, Rhode Island, he was assigned to the Brooklyn class light cruiser USS St. Louis, commissioned that same year. In late 1941 the ship was at Pearl Harbor for maintenance, docked at the end of the Navy Yard. On the morning of the attack, Johnson had finished breakfast and was reading a book in his bunk when he heard machine gun fire overhead and felt the ship vibrate. At first he thought it was "another damn drill." He hurried down two or three ladders to his station at boiler number 7 and spent the attack inside a steam drum, putting the boiler back together while another sailor passed him equipment. He saw and heard nothing of the battle above. By the time he went topside, the St. Louis had shot down attacking planes, evaded a midget submarine and its torpedo, and reached open sea. It was the only major ship to escape the harbor without casualties or major damage, earning the nickname "Lucky Lou." The ship returned two days later to refuel, and he saw Battleship Row still smoking.

Later in the war he served aboard the battleship USS Iowa, which he helped commission. In November 1943 the Iowa secretly carried President Franklin D. Roosevelt across the Atlantic toward the Tehran Conference with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin. He also recalled seeing the aftermath of the Battle of Saipan in 1944, and his travels took him as far north as Alaska. The Iowa was among the ships in Tokyo Bay for the Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945, and he climbed the ship's mast to watch the ceremony unfold on the USS Missouri. "Thank God it's over," he remembered thinking.

After the war he returned to Waltham, worked at a service station for a few years and then spent about 40 years as a machinist, including at W.H. Nichols, often holding a second job as well. Through friends he met Ruth Hills, and they married in 1950. They raised three daughters, Diane, Edythe and Cynthia, and were foster parents to many children. Ruth, who had worked as a matron at the Waltham Jail and for legislative committees on Beacon Hill, died in 2002. In later years he worked in a convenience store and delivered Meals on Wheels to seniors, retiring from that last job at 90.

For most of his life he spoke little about Pearl Harbor. That changed after his daughter Diane heard a television report suggesting the last survivor in Massachusetts had died and called to correct the record. He moved with Diane to Centerville on Cape Cod, rode at the front of the Cape Cod St. Patrick's Parade, and attended remembrance events in Hawaii, including the 65th and 80th anniversaries. When Ira "Ike" Schab died in December 2025, Johnson became the oldest living survivor of the attack. His 106th birthday in March 2026 drew a limousine, police and sailors saluting in a line, and the Boston Post Cane as Barnstable's oldest resident.

He never considered himself a hero. "I wasn't brave, I was there," he said. He called the greatest generation a combined effort in which his own part was "only a little piece," and said his real legacy was marrying Ruth and raising a family. He walked two miles a day until he was 102, enjoyed classical music, a daily glass of wine and fresh oysters, and never learned to swim.

Freeman Johnson died on Saturday, November 14, 2026, at the age of 106. He had lived with his daughter Diane in Centerville. He was survived by his three daughters, two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. A service was to be announced.