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Only 3 Survivors Left from USS Arizona
Lauren Bruner.
Lauren Bruner, aged 98, passed away Tuesday in California. He was one of four remaining survivors of the USS Arizona. The remaining three are Don Stratton (97), Lou Conter, and Ken Potts (both 98).
On December 7, 1941, Bruner was strafed in the legs trying to get to his battle station and received burns over 70 percent of his body from a subsequent explosion. In his memoir, Second to Last to Leave the USS Arizona, Bruner announced he would answer no more questions about the attack. “As you read these chapters,” he wrote in the preface, “know that they were real and that it was truly a Hell on Earth. The horrors of what I witnessed on that morning have kept me from sleep for many years after.”
He returned to duty aboard the USS Coghlan and saw action in the Aleutians and the South Pacific. He retired from the Navy in 1947.
After cremation, he will rejoin his shipmates on board the Arizona in a future ceremony.
Hat tip to Stars and Stripes and Hawaii News Now.
Published in General
PEARL HARBOR, HI – DECEMBER 7: MU2 Bryan Parmann plays Taps in front of the USS Arizona Memorial on the 69th anniversary of the attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu on December 7, 2010 in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. On the morning of December 7, 1941 a surprise military attack was conducted by aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy against the U.S. Pacific Fleet being moored in Pearl Harbor becoming a major catalyst for the United States entering World War II. In the devastating attack over 2,400 people were killed and thousands wounded, and dozens of Navy vessels with were either sunk or destroyed. (Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)
Lord of my people, look happily on our brother Lauren Bruner as he makes his way to the halls of our fathers. In your true sight you found Lauren capable and strong, and so it was given to him to take and bear a measure of the hurts of our world; therefore we might be spared them; therefore we might husband our strength to bear our own. Lord, you then charged him again to tell us the truth of his trial, so his strength might live as a seed in us. Now at his end in this world, we charge Lauren at his last, to carry the gift of his small measure of honor to tile that place in us that is our end. There he will reside in honor while memory lasts.
Heroes . . .
What a beautiful prayer. Would that we all would merit such a prayer.
I did a Veterans History Project interview with a WW2 vet a few years ago. (The interview subject has since died.) The idea of a VHP interview is to get a complete story from the vet…their childhood, their life before military service, the war and military service and life after military service. My subject talked about as a kid, he idolized his cousin who was 2 years older than him. He talked about what a hardscrabble life they had on their families’ dirt farms in deep East Texas during the Depression. In 1937, his cousin joined the Navy. The cousin came home for Christmas 1938 and the two took a train to CA to see the Rose Bowl ’39…the first trip off the farm for the interviewee and the shenanigans they engaged in on the trip. He talked how his cousin had been to Asia due to the escalations between China and Japan, but was stationed on the USS Arizona in 1940. The interviewee, inspired by his cousin to get off the farm, also joined the Navy. We discussed his training, bootcamp etc. We discussed the rising war in Europe and the Pacific and we got to December 7. (I can’t remember where he was stationed on the date). But when I asked the interviewee if his cousin was on the USS Arizona on the day of the attack, he paused a long while and, finally wiping away tears, told me in a breaking voice “Bill is still on the USS Arizona”. If I ever get a chance to visit the memorial, I know what hallowed ground it is.