{"id":17474,"date":"2020-02-16T19:59:12","date_gmt":"2020-02-16T19:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/marinecorpstimes\/uncategorized\/2020\/02\/16\/uss-arizona-survivor-donald-stratton-has-died-at-97\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T18:50:01","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T18:50:01","slug":"uss-arizona-survivor-donald-stratton-has-died-at-97","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/marinecorpstimes\/newsletters\/daily-news-roundup\/2020\/02\/16\/uss-arizona-survivor-donald-stratton-has-died-at-97\/","title":{"rendered":"USS Arizona survivor Donald Stratton dies at 97"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Donald Stratton, a sailor who survived the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor with serious burns but returned to the war and later devoted his years to honoring the terrible sacrifice of his shipmates, died peacefully in his sleep Saturday, according to his social media profile.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was 97 and passed away in his Colorado Springs, Colorado, home surrounded by his wife of nearly seven decades, Velma, and his son, Randy, a Facebook post stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of Donald\u2019s final wishes was that people remember Pearl Harbor and the men aboard the USS Arizona. Share their story and never forget those who gave all for our great country,\u201d it read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a seaman 1st class, Stratton had to scale three ladders to reach his battle station on board the battleship Arizona\u2019s sky control platform before General Quarters sounded amid the bedlam of the Japanese attack that launched the United States into World War II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His job was to direct four of the 5-inch guns in his portside section.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe were firing,” Stratton recalled in a 2006 interview with World War II <\/i>magazine<\/a>, a sister publication of Navy Times. \u201cThere were only 50 rounds of ammunition in the ready box behind each gun, and I could see that some of the crews had to break the locks off the boxes to load their guns.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the 2006 interview, Stratton was one of only a handful of Arizona survivors still alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of the crew \u2014 1,177 officers and sailors \u2014 died on that terrible morning in 1941.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The vast majority of the Arizona\u2019s survivors were ashore when the bombs fell and didn\u2019t witness the carnage from the deck of the doomed battleship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The forward magazines of the battleship Arizona explode after being hit by a Japanese bomb, 7 December 1941. Frame clipped from a color motion picture taken from on board the hospital ship Solace. (National Archives)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As the Japanese dive bombers found their target, Stratton\u2019s guns blazed away for only six minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An armor-piercing bomb from a Japanese plane struck near the Arizona\u2019s Turret II, sawing through the steel deck, and within seven seconds ignited the magazines in the forward section of the warship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere was a ball of flame that went about 500 to 600 feet in the air, and it just engulfed the whole foremast up there where we were and the whole bow of the ship,\u201d Stratton recalled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The explosion cleaved the battleship in half, rained metal upon Ford Island and unleashed fires that raged for two days across what was left of Stratton\u2019s vessel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs soon as I came to my senses, I tried to hide under some of the equipment to keep away from the blaze, but I still got burned,” Stratton told World War II magazine. \u201cThe fire came right into the director.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t